Subpoenas for two Secret Service agents over latest security incident

A House of Representatives committee subpoenaed two U.S. Secret Service agents on Tuesday after an incident this month when agents allegedly drove a car past White House barricades after drinking at a party.

Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the head of the House Oversight Committee, said the Department of Homeland Security had declined to cooperate.

“We therefore must take the regrettable step of compelling the agents for interviews before the Committee,” he said in a statement.

The move was criticized by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said he regretted that Chaffetz had taken “the unprecedented and unnecessary step of subpoenaing two members of the U.S. Secret Service,” which is charged with protecting the president.

Johnson said Chaffetz's assertion that DHS had been uncooperative “is simply wrong.” He added in his statement that the Secret Service director testified before the committee last week about the March 4 incident and that DHS had offered a number of Secret Service personnel, including the agents under subpoena, for interviews with committee staff.

Chaffetz did not identify the Secret Service personnel for whom he was issuing subpoenas, but said the committee had requested interviews with agents who could shed light not just on the March 4 incident, “but also on why the Secret Service appears to be systemically broken and in desperate need of both leadership and reform.”

The evening the incident was reported, Chaffetz and his Democratic counterpart on the committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland — issued a statement saying, “The fact that this event involved senior-level agents is not only embarrassing but exhibits a clear lack of judgment in a potentially dangerous situation.”

In the last six months, several top agency officials, including former Director Julian Pierson, have been forced out amid revelations of multiple, serious presidential security breaches. In September, a Texas man armed with a knife was able to climb a White House fence and run deep into the executive mansion before being apprehended.

An internal investigation and an outside panel report both described serious problems within the agency.

A four-member panel of former senior government officials concluded in a report released last year that the agency was too insular and starving for leadership.

Al Jazeera and wire services