A man masquerading as a member of Congress walked into a secure backstage area without being properly screened and spoke with US President Barack Obama at an awards dinner last year in autumn. Five days later, a woman walked backstage unchecked at a gala dinner where Obama was a featured guest. Months after that, two people strolled unnoticed past a Secret Service checkpoint into the first layer of the White House grounds.
The incidents were among a half-dozen previously undisclosed security breaches since 2013 that were detailed in an extensive, bipartisan congressional investigation of the inner workings of the Secret Service.
There have been 143 security breaches or attempted breaches at facilities secured by the Secret Service in the last 10 years, according to a lengthy House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report critical of the agency released early on Thursday. House investigators described the once-elite force as an “agency in crisis” that has failed to fix many of the deeply ingrained problems exposed last year amid a string of humiliating security lapses.
Among the new details included in the report is an exchange between two special agents involved in the 2012 prostitution scandal in which the agents discussed taking cash and condoms on a trip to prepare for a presidential visit in Cartagena, Colombia.
One emailed: “Swagg cologne-check/Pimp gear-check/Swagg sunglasses- check/Cash fo dem hoes-check.”
The other agent responded: “Plenty of magnums … double check!”
Sensitive security equipment and documents were also left unsecure in agents’ rooms, the report says.
It also includes new details on a September 2014 incident in which a man carrying a gun rode in an elevator with Obama at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Secret Service failed to conduct background checks on the CDC’s security guards, the report says. And the guard stationed in the elevator had a criminal history that includes three arrests for misdemeanors — including reckless conduct with a weapon, a charge that involved a three-year-old.
The report says that three consecutive Secret Service directors provided false information to Congress.
And it includes several examples of misconduct and security breaches that are being made public for the first time. Among them:
A man who posed as a member Congress at a Congressional Black Caucus event in September 2014 entered a backstage security area and spoke with Obama.
In April 2013, four people went fishing in Vice President Joe Biden’s backyard — detected only when neighbors called the Secret Service.
And in 2013, an agent accessed a woman’s personal information without authorization, and then traveled from New York to California in an unsuccessful effort to ask her on a date.
In spring 2012, a Czech citizen with an expired visa entered the property of a former president and remained undetected for nearly an hour.
In February 2015, two people gained access to the outer perimeter of the White House “simply by walking in unnoticed.”
In the report, lawmakers faulted 2011 budgetary cuts, “systemic mismanagement” and the declining morale of the Secret Service’s employees — which has deepened its losses.
As the Secret Service’s mission has expanded, its number of employees has declined — from 7,024 in 2011 to 6,315 today. The total number of special agents has shrunk from a high of 3,542 in 2010 to 3,257 now.
The 438-page report also found that the agency is understaffed and agents and officers are overworked.
“The current staffing crisis began after 2011, when the number of full-time employees began to decline sharply,” the report says.
Perhaps most notable about the report: In a gridlocked Congress, members of both parties back its conclusions.
“This bipartisan report warns that Congress cannot make some of the biggest budget cuts in the history of the Secret Service and expect no repercussions to the agency’s staffing and its critical mission,” Cummings, the oversight panel’s top Democrat, said in a statement.
The report says that the Secret Service’s lack of manpower, low morale and questions of leadership still haunt the agency despite assurances that improvements have been made.
“Since [the Cartegena scandal], several incidents have made it abundantly clear that USSS is in crisis,” the report says. “The agency’s weaknesses have been exposed by a series of security failures at the White House, during presidential visits, and at the residences of other officials, including Vice President [Joe] Biden and former presidents of the United States. The Committee’s investigation found that problems that undermine USSS’s protective mission predate and postdate the misconduct in Cartagena.”
The report also details problems with the Secret Service’s operations.
Managers and supervisors do not always report incidents, and managers have at times failed to follow Department of Homeland Security procedures for referring some types of misconduct to the inspector general, the report says.
The Secret Service has also hired at least one person without verifying his citizenship, and its Security Clearance Division is understaffed.