Three members of the U.S. Secret Service are leaving their jobs as a result of an alleged prostitution scandal stemming from President Obama’s trip to Cartagena, Colombia for a pan-American summit last week. The news comes amidst an ongoing investigation into the late-night activities of members of Obama’s advance security team, which has already led to the suspension of eight additional Secret Service agents, and which may have important political consequences this election year.
The American contingent, which included both Secret Service agents and military personnel, is said to have brought as many as 21 prostitutes back to their beachfront hotel ahead of Obama’s visit to the country. The agents allegedly tried to impress the women by telling them that they “work for Obama” and were in Colombia “to protect him”(apparently the Americans were unfamiliar with the way that prostitution works).
The alleged misconduct came to light because of an altercation that one of the women had with an agent that refused to pay for the previous night’s, uh, services. The agent would not fork over the $250 that the woman asked for, instead offering the equivalent of $30 in local currency and shutting her out of his room. The woman, joined by a friend, would not relent, banging on the door until a group of other Americans came out to give her more money.
As the inquiry into the incident accelerated, the agents- expertly trained in the fields of security and investigation- exacerbated the situation by ironically neglecting a fundamental rule that anyone who’s seen an episode of Law & Order should know: you always need to have your story straight. Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security remarked that “the 11 agents are having different recollections about what happened, or are not telling the truth.”
The political fallout of the episode is still evolving, but it promises at the very least to be a headache for the president, at a time when another agency, the General Services Administration, has come under fire for recently holding an elaborate conference in Las Vegas that cost over $800,000.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has asked for a deeper investigation into the culture and practices of the Secret Service on trips abroad, while several other Republicans have called for Mark Sullivan, the Director of the Secret Service, to step down.
Collins further framed the debate in national security terms, asking, “could they (the women) have planted bugs, disabled weapons,” or “jeopardized security of the president or our country? Is there any evidence of previous misconduct by these or any other agents on other missions?”
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, quickly transitioning to general election mode, said that he “would clean house” of all the agents in question, arguing that they put “playtime” ahead of the national interest. For his part, Obama has promised a “rigorous” investigation and, but has been more reserved in his condemnation, noting through a spokesman his respect for the job that the Secret Service does. Whether he will maintain this equivocation as more details reach the public light, however, remains to be seen.
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Matthew Frisch writes Foreign Desk for Toronto Standard. Follow him @mfrisch.
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