"Hearing set on prostitution scandal" May 14, 2012|Washington Post
WASHINGTON - Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent and chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, announced the hearing Sunday during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.’’
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“This is really a heartbreaking incident, and really a dangerous incident, and we really have got to make sure it never does happen again,’’ Lieberman said on the CNN show....
Some current and former agents have said the Secret Service had tolerated heavy drinking and liaisons between agents and foreign women during road trips for years.
Yes, it's an open secret.
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Also see: Sunday Globe Special: A Sexier Secret Service
"Secret Service director apologizes; Says employees ‘did dumb things’; senators detail new allegations" by Ed O’Keefe | Washington Post, May 24, 2012
WASHINGTON - Fresh information.... Allegations against Secret Service employees regarding nonconsensual sex, soliciting prostitutes on the streets of Washington, and hotel parties with underage women during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
Uh-oh. Children? In Utah?
Mark Sullivan, who has enjoyed strong bipartisan congressional
support in the weeks since the scandal, told a Senate panel that “I am
deeply disappointed, and I apologize for the misconduct of these
employees and the distraction that it has caused.’’ Putting it more
bluntly later, Sullivan said the employees involved “did some really
dumb things.’’
He also dismissed as “absurd’’ reports by the Washington Post that tolerance for inappropriate conduct is part of a culture that some employees call the “Secret Circus.’’
But members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said that evidence suggests that the scandal that unfolded in the hours before President Obama arrived in Cartagena for a summit is part of a pattern....
Committee chairman Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said that “for the good of the Secret Service as he decides how to change the rules and procedures of the Secret Service, he has got to assume that what happened in Cartagena was not an isolated incident, or else it will happen again.’’
Despite the skepticism, Lieberman, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, the panel’s ranking Republican, and other senators said Sullivan should remain as director....
Homeland Security Acting Inspector General Charles Edwards said he is reviewing new information from a case involving at least three Secret Service employees who attended an alcohol-infused party with underage girls in a Salt Lake City hotel room during the 2002 Winter Olympics. Sullivan said the agency investigated the case when it happened and disciplined the employees involved....
Lieberman said other misconduct cases involved employees who sent sexually explicit e-mails or material on government computers and at least 30 cases involving alcohol or charges of driving while under the influence.
During the hearing Edwards said he is launching a separate, independent investigation that would, among other things, involve interviews with the 12 employees implicated in the scandal. The new probe also will review whether Sullivan’s internal investigation was rushed or whether the move to oust most of the men involved in the scandal was proper, according to legal officials familiar with the case, who asked not to be named because of the nature of the ongoing probe.
The officials said Edwards plans to examine allegations that the Secret Service rushed to judgment and handled its questioning of the men in the prostitution scandal differently than in other alleged misconduct probes....
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