Director of Secret Service Quits Following Security Breaches
October 2, 2014Julia Pierson, the first female director of the Secret Service, resigned her post Wednesday after an incident in which a fence jumper gained access to the White House on September 19, CNN reports.
Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson announced the resignation in a statement. He also announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would take over an internal inquiry of the Secret Service and that he would appoint of a new panel to review security at the White House.
Joseph Clancy, formerly a special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service, was named Interim Director, Johnson said in the statement quoted by CNN.
Calls for Pierson to leave her post grew after a poor performance during her testimony on Capitol Hill on the incident at the White House, and another bombshell revelation that an armed contractor was allowed to get into an elevator with the president during a recent trip to the Centers for Disease Control.
Even some high ranking Democrats had turned against Pierson, who has been in the job for fewer than two years.
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, where the hearing took place, said he thinks Pierson, who he referred to as “this lady”, “has to go.”
“I want her to go if she cannot restore trust in the agency and if she cannot get the culture back in order,” he said.
Chuck Schumer, the third ranking Democrat in the Senate, announced he would call for Pierson’s resignation on Wednesday as well, though that was later canceled, according to CNN.
Republicans had also called for Pierson to step down.
“It’s clear to me that the only way to solve the problem the Secret Service has is with new leadership,” Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina said. “What Julia Pierson describes as mistakes are major security failures on multiple fronts.”
He said light security around Obama is “the worst possible signal to send to terrorists and our enemies around the world.”
On Monday it was revealed that the White House intruder, Omar J. Gonzalez, got far further into the building than initially said.
The Secret Service had initially said that Gonzalez, who jumped a fence and ran across the North Lawn, was stopped just inside the doors of the North Portico.
However, Gonzalez actually made it hundreds of feet deeper into the White House before being tackled by a counter-assault agent at the south end of the East Room, near the doorway that leads into the Green Room.
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