A dozen unknown agents may have been implicated in the misconduct. Secret Service scandal rocks trip

CARTAGENA, Colombia — Eleven Secret Service agents in Colombia for President Barack Obama’s trip there have been relieved of their duties amid allegations of misconduct.

The Secret Service did not detail the accusations but said they did not affect security for the president, who landed in the country Friday for a weekend at the Summit of the Americas.


“There have been allegations of misconduct made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena, Colombia prior to the President’s trip. Because of this, those personnel are being relieved of their assignments, returned to their place of duty, and are being replaced by other Secret Service personnel,” Edwin Donovan, Secret Service spokesman, said in a statement.

“The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. This entire matter has been turned over to our Office of Professional Responsibility, which serves as the agency’s internal affairs component,” Donovan said. “These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the President’s trip.”

Donovan would not release further details, and the White House referred all questions about the episode to the Secret Service.

Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post reporter and author of the book “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect,” first heard about the investigation and tipped off Post reporters Friday night.

“It is the biggest scandal in Secret Service history,” Kessler said in an interview Saturday with POLITICO. “It is all part of this pattern that I wrote about in the book of corner cutting, laxness, cover up.”

Kessler said he heard of 12 agents being involved — some for allegedly soliciting prostitutes, others for attempting to cover it up. The group includes two supervisors, he said.

One of the prostitutes complained to police that she was not paid, setting off the investigation, Kessler said.

“(The police) told the State Department. The State Department told the Secret Service. The Secret Service told the White House. They withdrew,” Kessler said. “It is totally inappropriate for agents to be seeing prostitutes, but this subjected the agents to possible blackmail. Some of them are married. Anything is possible. The prostitutes could have been in league with terrorists or other drug dealers to demand ransoms.”

The incident is so troublesome because it could have put the president’s safety at risk, Kessler said.

One of the agents allegedly involved was not part of the Secret Service detail whose plainclothes agents shadow the president in public, but a supervisor in the Counter Assault Team, according to CBS News, which did not cite specific sources.

The story broke as Obama was preparing to attend a gala dinner with more than 30 leaders gathered for the summit.

Security personnel were somewhat on edge Friday evening due to reports of small explosions in Cartagena and Bogota, about 400 miles to the south. The minor explosions in Bogota took place near the U.S. Embassy. There were no reports of injuries in any of the incidents.

Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association — which represents officers including Secret Service agents — confirmed to The Washington Post that an agent was involved with prostitutes. Adler subsequently told the AP that he did not know of any specific wrongdoing, though he had heard the prostitution allegations.

Cartagena is a city with a history of prostitution problems that has been making progress in battling.There are several nongovernmental organizations dedicated to eradicating the sex trade there.

Cartagena Mayor Campo Elías Terán said in a radio interview earlier this week that plans for the summit involved moving homeless people and further restricting the presence of prostitutes in some parts of the city, where there’s limited legalized prostitution.

The president said Friday that he intended to use the trip to talk trade policies and look to open markets for American goods, but attention is sure to be diverted by the misconduct allegations.

Whenever the president travels, a contingent of agents precedes him to map out routes, check venues and assure that Obama can be guarded appropriately. The “advance team” can be composed of dozens of agents who perform all manner of roles, from IT specialists to threat and munitions detection.

There have been several incidents concerning the president’s detail recently — a member of Obama’s security team was arrested in Iowa last summer on suspicion of drunken driving, and a federal agent with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security was charged with second-degree murder after shooting a man in Honolulu late last year.

But the Secret Service has not had a major scandal since officers failed to adhere to proper security protocols and allowed gate-crashers into a state dinner at the White House in 2009. Three agents were placed on leave after that incident, and the White House social secretary at the time, Desiree Rogers, left her post.

The president said after that scandal that although “the system didn’t work the way it was supposed to,” he felt safe and trusted the agency to protect his family.

“I could not have more confidence in the Secret Service,” Obama told USA Today at the time.

Donovan Slack and Carrie Budoff Brown reported from Washington. Josh Gerstein reported from Colombia.