Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned yesterday after a major security lapse by the agency put President Barack Obama in close proximity to an armed felon. Yet, the agency had already come under intense criticism for a number of instances where they put the lives of the president, and other people who were under their watch, in relative danger. And for one of the few times in a long while, Democrats and Republicans agreed on something: that Pierson needed to resign in order to bring some type of respect back to the 150-year-old agency that was once legendary in their methods to protect the leader of the free world. Here's a recent history of the Secret Service under President Obama dropping the ball.
Bullets Hit the White House
When: November 2011
Secret Service members didn't realize that Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez had fired shots from a semiautomatic rifle at the White House from a parked car until four days after it happened, when a housekeeper found broken glass and cement on the floor. At the time of the shooting, a Secret Service supervisor mistook the sounds of the rifle as engine backfire from a construction vehicle that happened to be nearby, and told agents not to respond. At the time, Sasha Obama and Michelle Obama’s mother were inside, with Malia on her way back from hanging out with friends. This incident wasn't made public until early this year in a report from The Washington Post.
1.
Alcohol and Prostitutes
When: April 2012
A group of Secret Service agents and soldiers were caught bringing prostitutes from a local strip club into a Colombia hotel in 2012, just days before President Obama was to arrive in the country for a summit. To add to the scandal, one of the women was allegedly arranged for a Secret Service member by a DEA agent who was stationed in Colombia. The agents' exploits may have been kept secret if the hotel staff didn't reach out to U.S. officials to complain about dogs soiling sheets, an agent arguing with a prostitute over a payment in a hotel hallway, and the men bringing back women to the hotel after 6 A.M., which was in violation of their policy. In all, 13 agents were found to have had relations with prostitutes in Colombia. Eight lost their jobs.
Earlier this year, three Secret Service agents were sent home from Amsterdam after one of them was found unconscious in a hotel hallway after going out drinking. And, of course, hotel staff were the ones to tell U.S. officials about the incident.
Tareq and Michaele Salahi
When: November 24, 2009
Husband and wife Tareq and Michaele Salahi attend President Obama's first state dinner—though their names were no where on the highly selective guest list. After photos of the Salahi's mingling with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden emerged, Secret Service agents admitted that they didn't check if the couple was on the list when they arrived. Afterward, the Salahi's tried pitching themselves as the focus of a reality TV show.
2.
Fence Jumper
When: September 19, 2014
The beginning of the end for Pierson came when an intruder who jumped a fence and was carrying a knife was tackled just as he made it through the White House's North Portico doors, according to a Secret Service statement. Except, this isn't exactly what happened. The Washington Post reported just days later that the intruder did make it past the North Portico doors, but also overpowered one agent and made it into the ceremonial East Room and just outside of the Green Room, far deeper than what the Secret Service report had said.
A graphic from The New York Times shows how far the intruder made it in:
3.
The Elevator Incident
When: September 30, 2014
The last straw for Pierson's Secret Service career came when agents let President Obama walk into an elevator with an armed felon during a trip to Atlanta to talk about the Ebola emergency at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Agents did not check the man, who was a security contractor at the building, when the president joined him in the elevator, and only questioned him after he acted "oddly" by refusing to put his cell phone away, which he was using to record the president, when he was asked to. Once Obama left, a few agents stayed behind and looked up the man's criminal record, and found he had three convictions for assault and battery. When the contractor's supervisor came over to speak with agents about their concerns, the supervisor fired him immediately—and that's when he handed over his gun in front of the agents, who had no idea he was armed throughout the encounter.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who leads a subcommittee overseeing the Secret Service, told the Post, “[Obama's] life was in danger. This country would be a different world today if he had pulled out his gun.”
