By Elaine Magliaro
I’m sure that most of you have heard about the two Secret Service agents who were suspected of driving drunk and hitting a White House security barricade earlier this month. According to reports, the Department of Homeland Security is investigating the incident that occurred on March 4th. The agents who were involved in the driving incident are “Mark Connolly, the second-in-command on Obama’s detail, and George Ogilvie, a senior supervisor in the Washington field office.”
CNN reported that the two agents who crashed into the White House barricade “were allowed to go home after a supervisor on duty overruled on-duty law enforcement who wanted to arrest the agents and conduct sobriety tests.”
During an interview broadcast on CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Washington Post reporter Carol D. Leonnig, who broke the story, said, “The officers for the Secret Service who monitor the safety of the White House complex and ultimately the president and his family felt that these two individuals may have been intoxicated.” A Secret Service official said that the two agents had been reassigned to non-supervisory, non-operational assignments.”
The Washington Post reported this afternoon that new details about the episode had emerged today.
Washington Post:
Two Secret Service agents suspected of driving under the influence and striking a White House security barricade disrupted an active bomb investigation and may have driven over the suspicious package itself, according to current and former government officials familiar with the incident.
These and other new details about the March 4 incident emerged Thursday from interviews and police records obtained by The Washington Post.
The episode has prompted questions from lawmakers about whether the newly appointed leaders of the Secret Service are capable of turning around the troubled agency. Among the lawmakers’ questions: Whether a Secret Service supervisor, as witnesses have alleged, ordered officers to let the agents go home without facing sobriety testing.
The Washington Post said that this recent incident involving two Secret Service agents “has presented an early test for Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy, who was appointed last month by Obama following a string of embarrassing agency missteps and security lapses.”
SOURCES
Secret Service agents investigated after car hits White House barricade (Washington Post)
Secret Service agents disrupted bomb investigation at White House (Washington Post)
Report: Drunk Secret Service agents crash into White House barrier (CNN)
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Flowers For Socrates 
I heard an interview on this subject today on NPR. Didn’t catch the lady’s name, but she was some kind of LE policy wonk. She said what was jumping out at her and a lot of similar people in Washington was the total tone deafness within the Secret Service to how tenuous a situation that agency was in after the housecleaning last fall and in December. It indicated that perhaps putting a 27 year veteran of the Secret Service in charge wasn’t resulting in the kind of change the organization needed, either through inability on his part or the message not filtering through to the rank and file. It fostered the same “above the law” mentality that led to last years events (I paraphrase, but that was the gist of it). Either way, it highlights an organization dysfunctional in crisis.
I could be wrong but I think I smell another housecleaning coming.
Good thing they weren’t toking.That would have been the scandal for the ages.
Gene,
I have worked around law enforcement for more than forty years. The mistake was internal promotion. Internal promotions simply perpetuate the culture already extant. New blood is called for, and the first person who says, “That’s not how we have done it in the past,” gets assigned to permanent latrine duty.
eniobob,
Don’t be too sure. Funny thing about evidence rooms. Some evidence seems to lose weight and volume while stored in the evidence room. It’s a mystery.
Well… yes, but they were so dedicated and fearless they drove over the bomb. Does it get any better?
What were their names, Ralph and Earl?
Secret Service agency has had a problem since before JFK.
I know two different sets of parents each with a son who went into the Secret Service. The two sets of parents live in different towns and don’t know each other. Both sons left the Secret Service after a few years. The stories I heard from each set of parents were similar.
All I’m going to say is that guarding these politicians and their families ain’t no picnic. Often times it is down right abusive. I’m not defending these two alleged drunken idiots but, honestly, I’m surprised more of them aren’t crashing the barriers. It’s a shitty job.
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