Susan Collins calls for independent review of Secret Service misbehavior

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security should conduct an independent investigation into the behavior of U.S. Secret Service agents involved in a prostitution scandal, Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday.

The Secret Service has carried out its own investigation into evidence that up to a dozen Secret Service agents invited prostitutes to their hotel rooms in the South American city before a major summit of more than 30 world leaders.

But an independent investigation is needed, Collins said during a hearing of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday morning, the first focused on the alleged misconduct by Secret Service agents last month before a presidential visit to Cartagena, Colombia.

Charles Edwards, Homeland Security’s acting inspector general, said his agency has reviewed the Secret Service investigation and conducted interviews of its own. Homeland Security officials, however, have stopped short of a full-blown inquiry.

“I think it’s critical that the [Office of the Inspector General] do a completely independent review and investigation, not just a review of the [Secret Service’s] investigation,” Collins said.

Collins’ call for an independent investigation came amid reports at the hearing of dozens of episodes of past misbehavior and an appeal to insiders from Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman to come forward with what they know as investigators try to determine whether a culture of misconduct took root in the storied agency.

“We can only know what the records of the Secret Service reveal,” Lieberman said. And those records, however incomplete, show 64 instances of allegations or complaints of sexual misconduct made against Secret Service employees in the last five years, he said.

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, speaking to the inquiry, apologized for the behavior of the employees in Colombia. But his assertion that the agency has a “zero tolerance” policy on such conduct did not convince the lawmakers, who brought more allegations to light.

Lieberman cited three complaints of inappropriate relationships with a foreign national and one of “nonconsensual intercourse,” which he did not elaborate on. Sullivan said that complaint was investigated by outside law enforcement officers who decided not to prosecute.

Sullivan also told the committee an agent was fired in a 2008 Washington prostitution episode after trying to hire an undercover police officer.

Many of the other complaints cited by Lieberman involved agency employees sending sexually suggestive emails.

Collins told the hearing several small groups of Secret Service employees separately visited clubs, bars and brothels in Colombia before the president’s visit and engaged in reckless, “morally repugnant” behavior.

Collins said the employees’ actions could have provided a foreign intelligence service, drug cartels or other criminals with opportunities for blackmail or coercion threatening the president’s safety.

And she challenged early assurances that the scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident. She noted that two participants were Secret Service supervisors — one with 21 years of service and the other with 22 years — and both were married. Their involvement “surely sends a message to the rank and file that this kind of activity is tolerated on the road,” Collins said.

“This was not a one-time event,” said Collins, the senior Republican on the committee. “The circumstances unfortunately suggest an issue of culture.”

The misbehavior became public after a dispute over payment between a Secret Service agent and a prostitute at a Cartagena hotel on April 12. The Secret Service was in the coastal resort for a Latin American summit before Obama’s arrival.

Senators focused on whether the Secret Service permitted a culture in which such behavior was tolerated. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has testified previously that she would be surprised if there were other examples, but senators have been skeptical.

Sullivan told senators the behavior in Colombia wasn’t representative of the agency’s nearly 7,000 employees.

“I can understand how the question could be asked,” Sullivan said, calling his employees “among the most dedicated, hardest working, self-sacrificing employees within the federal government.”

He also told senators that Obama’s security was never at risk. The officers implicated in the prostitution scandal could not have inadvertently disclosed sensitive security details because their confidential briefing about Obama’s trip had not taken place.

“At the time the misconduct occurred, none of the individuals involved in the misconduct had received any specific protective information, sensitive security documents, firearms, radios or other security-related equipment in their hotel rooms,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan has survived professionally so far based on his openness about what happened. Senators were not expected to ask for his resignation, and the acting inspector general for the Homeland Security Department, Charles K. Edwards, gave Sullivan high marks for integrity.

Edwards, who estimated that the early stages of his own investigation would be finished before July 2, said the Secret Service “has been completely transparent and cooperative.”

“The Secret Service’s efforts to date in investigating its own employees should not be discounted,” Edwards told senators. “It has done credible job of uncovering the facts and, where appropriate, it has taken swift and decisive action.”

The White House on Tuesday reasserted its confidence in Sullivan.

Obama “has great faith in the Secret Service, believes the director has done an excellent job,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said. “The director moved very quickly to have this matter investigated and took action very quickly as a result of that investigation.”

A dozen Secret Service officers and supervisors and 12 other U.S. military personnel were implicated. Eight Secret Service employees, including the two supervisors, have lost their jobs. The Secret Service is moving to permanently revoke the security clearance for one other employee, and three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing. Sullivan told the lawmakers that two employees who originally resigned now are fighting to get their jobs back.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia but Sullivan quickly issued new guidelines that made it clear that agents on assignment overseas are subject to U.S. laws.

Sullivan said he directed Secret Service inspectors to investigate reports of similar misconduct in San Salvador. After 28 interviews with hotel employees and managers, State Department officials and others, “no evidence was found to substantiate the allegations,” Sullivan said.

This week the Drug Enforcement Administration said the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General was investigating possible misconduct by two or more agents in Colombia. Collins revealed that the case involved at least two DEA employees who entertained female masseuses in the Cartagena apartment of one of the DEA agents. The investigation is unrelated to the Secret Service scandal but is based on information provided to the DEA by the Secret Service.

BDN writer Matthew Stone contributed to this report.