The agency would like to build the replica of the executive mansion in Beltsville, Md. Secret Service wants $8 million White House replica for training

The Secret Service has had some trouble protecting the White House lately. Its solution? Build another one.

In an effort to help train officers, the Secret Service wants to build an $8 million replica of the White House in Beltsville, Maryland, The New York Times reports Tuesday.


Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy pitched the idea to the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

“We feel that’s important. Right now we train on a parking lot basically,” Clancy said. “We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence to the White House and the actual house itself.”

“We don’t have on that parking lot, we don’t have the bushes, we don’t have the fountains, we don’t get a realistic look at the White House,” Clancy said.

He continued, “Even our K-9s, they’re responding on hard surfaces rather than grass. So we think it’s important to have a true replica of what the White House is so we can do a better job of this integrated training between our uniformed division officers, our agents and out tactical teams.”

Beltsville is currently home to a 500-acre training camp for the Secret Service. According to Clancy, the training site now has “rudimentary” replicas of the White House that are not to scale, and agents use bike barricades as mock fencing. Clancy is calling for a “more realistic environment, conducive to scenario-based training exercises” that would mirror the White House, including guard booths and roads that surround the executive mansion, according to the Times.

Clancy’s request comes after a series of scandals involving the Secret Service, including reports that off-duty agents hired prostitutes while in Colombia and a 2014 incident in which a man jumped the White House fence and was able to gain entry through the front door. The latest incident involved two Secret Service agents who allegedly drove into a security barrier at the White House after a night of drinking.