I am downright furious with the Secret Service.

Not only has this supposedly elite corps done an abysmal job of protecting the president and his family, but it hasn��t leveled with the public about its mistakes.

In fact, there is an unmistakable whiff of a coverup.

I've lived through the assassination of one president and covered the near-fatal wounding of another. This is deadly serious business. The White House is supposed to be the most protected home in the country, and yet it seems like the Keystone Kops are in charge.

At a House oversight hearing yesterday, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson took ��full responsibility for the fiascos, but she testified in a flat and unemotional way, deflecting most questions with bureaucratic jargon about ��security protocols�� that were ��not properly executed�� and the like.

A telling moment came in the hallway, when MSNBC'��s Kristen Welker asked Pierson whether she had lied to the public or been misled by her own agency. Pierson said only that the matter was under investigation.

Thanks to the superb reporting of the Washington Post'��s Carol Leonnig, we learned that the White House fence-jumper a couple of weeks ago made it all the way to the East Room�� a far different scenario than what was publicly peddled, that the knife-wielding Omar Gonzalez had been tackled as soon as he got in the North Portico door.

And there are jaw-dropping details like this: ��An alarm box near the front entrance of the White House designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher’s office, said a Secret Service official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

And Leonnig reported yesterday that Gonzalez was brought down by “an off-duty Secret Service agent who was coincidentally in the house and leaving for the night”—because the on-duty agents had failed. Imagine if he hadn't been there. Incredible.

The fact that Gonzalez, a war veteran suffering from PTSD, even made it to the door of the executive mansion shows that several layers of security failed. The fact that he could overpower an officer inside and make it to the side of the building where the East Room is located is just chilling. So is the fact that he passed a staircase that, if he had chosen a different route, would have taken him upstairs to the family living quarters.

And there were earlier failures: The plainclothes surveillance team that didn't notice Gonzalez had scaled the fence. The attack dog that wasn'��t released.

The Secret Service had even interviewed Gonzalez after a July incident in which Virginia’s state police found the following in his car: ��a sawed-off shotgun, two sniper rifles, an assault rifle, a bolt-action rifle, one intact shotgun and five handguns. Police also found a map of the Washington area with a circle around the Masonic temple in Alexandria, Va., and a line that pointed toward the White House, police and prosecutors said.�� But agents deemed him not to be a threat and let him go. When Gonzalez returned to the White House, fortunately, it was shortly after Obama had left for Camp David.

Just when you thought the list of lapses couldn't get any worse, Rep. Jason Chaffetz heard from a whistleblower--and the Post confirmed--a potentially close call two weeks ago in Atlanta. A security contractor with three prior convictions for assault and battery--and who was carrying a gun!--was allowed by agents to get on an elevator with Obama. How is that possible??

Equally stunning is this other story by Leonnig, about the 2011 incident in which seven bullets struck the White House: ��It took the Secret Service four days to realize that shots had hit the White House residence, a discovery that came about only because a housekeeper noticed broken glass and a chunk of cement on the floor.��

President Obama was not home at the time, but his daughter Sasha was upstairs with Michelle'��s mother, and Malia was expected home any minute.

Obama was reported to be furious. And who wouldn'��t be?

The earlier Secret Service scandals now seem like comic relief by comparison. Two years ago, a bunch of agents in Colombia spent the night drinking and brought prostitutes to the hotel where they were preparing for an Obama visit.

At the House hearing yesterday, there was rare bipartisan unanimity that the agency is a mess. Chairman Darrell Issa questioned how people could penetrate what should be the hardest target on earth.�� Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings said the latest episode “raises more questions about the competency and the culture” of the agency.

What'��s infuriating is to read that the service may not be at its best because of budget cuts. If that’s the case, someone should have argued for more resources. Would anyone have argued that protecting the president isn'��t a top priority? How can it be that something as simple as jumping over a wrought-iron fence can put the president'��s life in jeopardy because, as happened in this case, several layers of security failed?

Now there'��s talk of expanding the security zone along Pennsylvania Avenue, which isn’t practical and is a dumb response to the service’s own mistakes.

I’ve been in that beautiful building many, many times, and in the cavernous East Room during holiday receptions. Sometimes I'��ve had trouble getting in even when I have an appointment with a top official. The idea that an intruder with a knife could get that far should make every American mad.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/10/01/secret-service-debacle-lax-white-house-security-and-misleading-accounts/?intcmp=latestnews

I may dislike Obama and want to see him out of office, but would never wish harm on him or his family or that of any elected official. This is disgraceful and the head of the Secret Service should be removed from office immediately and the Agency needs to be reorganized from the top down.

This intruder shouldn't have made it over the fence, let alone into the White House and then be taken down by an off duty Secret Service sniper who was leaving for the day (talk about another embarrassment), I would hate to think how much further he would have gotten into the White House.......

He should have been shot dead before he crossed the lawn. What if he had a gun or worse a suicide explosive vest? We have credible intelligence telling us threats that Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Taliban are planning strikes inside the United States.. What if this was one of them? What if the First Family was there and the kids were playing in that area?

What I find interesting is that the Republicans in Congress are more pissed off about this then Democrats. Two Republican Congressmen literally ripped the Secret Service Director a new one while the Democrats basically gave her a pass.

There is a simple term for the people protecting President Obama and his family, Keystone Cops.

The not-so-secret service sure has been exposed to a lot of incompetence of late....... especially under this liberal demoncrapic admin

Julia Pierson resigned from her job as director of the Secret Service on Wednesday, a day after she faced grilling on Capitol Hill about security lapses and her leadership.

Debate about whether Pierson should stay or go had been growing in the wake of a security breakdown at the White House last month and other revelations in recent days that have further damaged the agency's reputation.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the daily briefing that Pierson met with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson earlier in the day and offered to step down because she felt it was in the best interest of the agency. The secretary and President Barack Obama agreed with that assessment, Earnest said. Obama then telephoned Pierson and thanked her for her 30 years of service.

Despite the incident on Sept.19 when a man with a knife in his pocket jumped the fence at the White House and made it inside the building, Obama had maintained confidence in the Secret Service and in Pierson, according to Earnest.

Read more

http://www.socio-political-journal.com/2014/10/armed-man-with-criminal-record-was-on.html

Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Armed man with criminal record was on elevator with Obama in Atlanta

A security contractor with a gun and three convictions for assault and battery was allowed on an elevator with President Obama during a Sept. 16 trip to Atlanta, violating Secret Service protocols, according to three people familiar with the incident.
Obama was not told about the lapse in his security, these people said. The Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, asked a top agency manager to look into the matter but did not refer it to an investigative unit that was created to review violations of protocol and standards, according to two people familiar with the handling of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The incident, which took place when Obama visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, rattled Secret Service agents assigned to the president's protective detail.
The private contractor first aroused the agents concerns when he acted oddly and did not comply with their orders to stop using a cellphone camera to record the president in the elevator, according to the people familiar with the incident.
When the elevator opened, Obama left with most of his Secret Service detail. Some agents stayed behind to question the man and then used a national database check that turned up his criminal history.
When a supervisor from the firm providing security at the CDC approached and discovered the agents concerns, the contractor was fired on the spot. Then the contractor agreed to turn over his gun surprising agents, who had not realized that he was armed during his encounter with Obama.
Extensive screening is supposed to keep people with weapons or criminal histories out of arm's reach of the president. But it appears that this man, possessing a gun, came within inches of the president after undergoing no such screening.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who heads a House subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service, first heard of the breakdown from a whistleblower. The Washington Post confirmed details of the event with other people familiar with the agency's review.
You have a convicted felon within arm's reach of the president, and they never did a background check,Chaffetz said. Words aren't strong enough for the outrage I feel for the safety of the president and his family.
Chaffetz added: His life was in danger. This country would be a different world today if he had pulled out his gun.
A Secret Service official, speaking on behalf of the agency, said an investigation of the incident is ongoing. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the pending review.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the incident or say when, or if, the president had been informed of it.
In response to a question at a combative House hearing Tuesday, Pierson said she briefs the president 100 percent of the time when his personal security has been breached. However, she said that had happened only one time this year: when Omar Gonzalez jumped over the White House fence Sept. 19 and was able to burst into the mansion.
The revelation of the lapse in Atlanta is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the Secret Service. Some elements of the incident were first reported Tuesday afternoon on the Washington Examiner's Web site.
Pierson drew criticism Tuesday from lawmakers in both parties during the hearing on her agency's security lapses. The session focused on the Secret Service's fumbled responses to the recent White House fence jumper and a 2011 shooting attack on the residence.
The fence breach came three days after Obama's trip to Atlanta.
The elevator incident exposed a breakdown in Secret Service protocols designed to keep the president safe from strangers when he travels to events outside the White House.
Under a security measure called the Arm's Reach Program, Secret Service advance staffers run potential event staff members, contractors, hotel employees, invited guests and volunteers through several databases, including a national criminal information registry, and records kept by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Defense Department, among others. Anyone who is found to have a criminal history, mental illness or other indications of risk is barred from entry.
Local police and federal officers are not checked in the same way under the Arm's Reach Program, with the Secret Service presuming that they meet the safety standards because of their employment in law enforcement. But private security contractors would typically be checked, said two former agents who worked on advance planning for presidential trips.
For nearly every trip the president takes, at least one person is barred from attending or participating in an event because of problems discovered in his or her background, the two former agents said. Most recently, a local political campaign volunteer who was offering to help drive staffers to and from events during a visit had faced an assault charge in the past.
As part of the Secret Service's review of the elevator incident, Pierson directed a supervising agent on the president's protective detail to stay in Atlanta to examine the breakdown.
That decision aroused suspicion on Capitol Hill. Chaffetz said he believes that Pierson was trying to keep another security gaffe quiet at a time when her agency and her leadership are under fire.
Former and current agents say Secret Service leaders prefer this kind of informal internal review for assessing potentially embarrassing mistakes. They say such reviews rarely lead to broad reforms or consequences.
These agents also say it is problematic for a presidential protective detail supervisor to review how his team performed.
In an incident The Post revealed in 2013, a top manager of the president's protective detail had met a woman while drinking at a bar at the Hay-Adams hotel and had left a bullet from his service weapon in her room after spending the evening with her there. One of his superiors reviewed the incident and at first recommended that he receive a few days of counseling. The Post report about the episode led to the agency launching a fuller investigation.




Feckers must have been drunk again!

could it be they just can't

find anyone that wants

to work for the "tut"?

they 'are' down to the bottom

of the pool?

a book was written by

Dan Bongino saying

they are insane,

rules dont apply...

just got another email

about another book coming

out this one from another agent...

wonder what new revelations

will be exposed.

was driving yesterday and heard there

goin to be a lot of agents retiring...

You know if I could blame this on Obama I would. This is a clear pattern of something that has been going on for years, it didn't just start recently. Also in Obama's defense he didn't make a political appointment when he appointed both directors of the Secret Service, he promoted career Agents up.

Personally IMO the Secret Service should just stick to Treasury Related Crimes and the protection of the President and Vice President and their families should be transferred to the US Marshall Service. Under their protection not ONE person has even been harmed. Under the secret service what's it been, three President's killed and one almost killed (Reagan) and I know I am forgetting one.

Maybe he should just use the National Guard, and DHS instead for protection?

Maybe if our POTUS took his job seriously those around him might too

No. We elect them, they protect them. This is a serious job for the majority of these people, it doesn't matter who is in office.

It is a major black mark on the Secret Service if the President gets Assassinated or Attempted Assassination that wasn't prevented. The Agency is still trying to get over the JFK Assassination and also the Attempted Assassination of President Reagan's black marks.

No, we need one Law Enforcement Agency and one Agency ONLY that protects the President. If It is the Secret Service then so be it, the government should give the other investigations and Secret Service assignments to other Federal Agencies or create an Agency that is strictly designed to protect the President, First family, Vice President and other designated people.

sure they are serious... but if the people you are trying to protect

are... well how do I put it??? well you you know... you fill in the

blank... then there is a conflict of standards, protocol, rule of

law...and ultimately causes strife...let me put it another way...

your a proud, upstanding guy and you have your stuff together... then you get assigned to protect and defend a bunch of non caring, crazy, narcissist, homegrown communist subversives who openly think they are above the law, not to mention the guest list....... well you might want to rethink your career choice or you might, just out of human nature hit the bottle... maybe the next commander in chief...will offer a better environment more conducive to law enforcement...

Thank god we have more people with integrity in this country then ignorant dumba$$es who think like that.

I may hate the guy, he is still the President and I would take a bullet to protect him or any other person who is in harm's way.

People with integrety... they are to busy betting on

football? You may have it... 'integrity".. but your preachin

to the choir.. & me. I wrote the response /pap ...and was I too hard

on explaining the obvious...

may I ask how You would deal with this strife...tell us the solution


you talk kinda like another agent I know... except He Walked after

serving from Johnson thru carter... he went thru both sides...


By the way...What do you think of Bongino?

and please don't come after me ... you'll have to stand in line..

OH by the way... this ole boy I know

got so sick of it back then

he moved way out in the middle

of no where... was probably

one of the first people I ever

knew to completely

go off the grid... way ahead of his time...

he had stuff... cold weather hot houses

and solar,,, complete through out house

1 foot solid foam insulation, bunker

everything... now thats all pretty

common stuff around here now...

heck I know one guy has a huge lake

with long ranch house with big bar that's

set up as a shooting range with targets

over 200 yards away on the other side of the lake...

His is the best one of those I've seen around here...

there are many..