Norton Questions U.S. Secret Service Director Clancy on Need to Increase Staff Levels and Training

Press Release

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, today questioned U.S. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy at a committee hearing to determine the causes of ongoing problems at the agency, including a March 4 incident at the White House in which agents may have interfered with an ongoing bomb investigation outside White House security barricades. She criticized the new director, who did not discover the March 4 incident until five days later, for not beginning his tenure with an order that he be immediately informed through the chain of command of such incidents. Norton said that Clancy had fair warning, citing an incident in 2011 when bullets were fired into the White House, and it took four days for the Secret Service to realize it had happened, and only after a White House attendant discovered bullet holes.

Norton also highlighted that current special agents no longer have systematic training every four weeks or so, and that the number of special agent trainees virtually collapsed in 2012 (0) and 2013 (24) from previous totals in 2008 (177), 2009 (185), 2010 (176), and 2011 (117).

"The ongoing problems at the Secret Service, a federal agency that is uniquely tasked with a zero-failure mission, run far deeper than simply mismanagement and poor leadership," Norton said. "The serial misconduct in Columbia, the Netherlands, and now at the White House either means the Secret Service does not have good personnel, or that the agency is so severely overworked that agents let off steam when they can. I respect the women and men of the Secret Service for the life and death burdens they carry, and do not believe they are poorly selected. However, our committee's mandate for new leadership, not only at the top but in the top rung of Secret Service managers, and our call for the U.S. Secret Service Protective Mission Panel to review the agency, have been met. What has not gotten attention is personnel--the men and women who carry the burden. According to the U.S. Secret Service Protective Mission Panel's report, the Secret Service for years has been neglected in funding, staffing, and training. When agents are constantly overworked and overburdened, and do not receive the necessary training to prepare them for current and new missions, unacceptable incidents occur."

Director Clancy, however, assured Norton that staffing levels and training classes would dramatically increase during the rest of this fiscal year and into fiscal year 2016. Once the agency, which did not even receive its fiscal year 2015 funding from Congress until earlier this month, gets what is necessary to allow agents and uniformed officers to resume normal workloads, Norton says she is hopeful that the Secret Service can return to being an elite agency.

Source