Obama and the Secret Service
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/obama-secret-service-111537.html?hp=t1_3
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson resigned her post under pressure on Wednesday, but the agency’s most important protectee has been notably reserved in his response to the flood of details about incidents that could have threatened him.
President Barack Obama hasn’t spoken out on the security breaches or Pierson’s resignation, and his aides have stayed calm in public, declining to express anger or to concede frustration even after Pierson stepped down.
It’s not that security breaches don’t anger the president and first lady Michelle Obama, or their staffs, or that they have any trouble conveying their concerns to the agency. They expressed their anger to then-Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan after bullets hit the residence in 2011, and the first lady’s voice was so loud in a meeting with Sullivan that it could be heard through a door, The Washington Post reported this weekend.
And it was clear the final straw for Pierson came Tuesday, when the White House learned about the Sept. 16 incident in which an armed man shared an elevator with the president just minutes before the news was published on the Internet.
But Obama isn’t banging his fists on the briefing room lectern.
It would be difficult and potentially damaging for Obama to show his anger in public, in part because the agency’s work — and its failings — are deeply personal, but also because highlighting vulnerabilities could threaten his safety.
While Obama is ultimately the boss of the Secret Service’s bosses, he’s also their client — someone who’s built trust in them and relies upon them to do their jobs. “He has to deal with the Secret Service every day. They guard him,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House panel that grilled Pierson on Tuesday.
“It’s hard to imagine anything more distressing within the White House than a problem with the Secret Service,” said Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s first White House press secretary. “You spend so much time with these people, you admire them, you respect them, you know them by name. There’s nothing they won’t do to protect” the first family.
The challenge Obama faces in handling the latest lapses by Secret Service is different from other management problems that he has had to deal with, from the IRS to healthcare.gov. And it’s even different from other Secret Service scandals.
After agency employees were caught in 2011 bringing prostitutes back to their hotel while in Cartagena, Colombia, as part of the larger security effort on the ground as the president attended a summit there, Obama wasn’t shy about demanding a thorough investigation and voicing his dismay, saying that he would be “‘angry” if the allegations turned out to be true. Obama has gone close to two weeks without addressing the Sept. 19 incident.
“If it was me, I’d be angry,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). “I’ve always worried that the president is too close to the situation,” he added, but as commander-in-chief, Obama holds ultimate responsibility for the Secret Service’s conduct.
As recently as Wednesday morning, Earnest and communications director Jennifer Palmieri appeared on cable news to express the president’s continued confidence in Pierson.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest didn’t say exactly what changed between his early morning appearance on “Morning Joe” and Johnson’s mid-afternoon announcement, other than that Pierson had offered her resignation. Concerns had been brewing “over the last several days,” he said, “in light of recent and accumulating reports about the agency, I think legitimate questions were raised. At least they were in the mind of both the secretary and the president.”
Earnest faced the press minutes after Pierson’s resignation was announced via a news release from Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. He mostly kept to the script, but was pressed during a tense moment by CBS News reporter Major Garrett, who asked if it was acceptable for an armed man with a “checkered past” to share an elevator with the president.
“I would readily concede to the common sense principle that you’re asserting, that it is unwise and unacceptable like the one that you described to take place,” Earnest said. “But that said, there is an ongoing investigation into this particular incident, and I’m not going to comment on the facts of that incident without knowing — without having direct knowledge myself of that incident.”
Being public about the president’s concerns would, in the White House’s view, be counterproductive. Conveying any sense that he isn’t confident in the agents that protect him would be bad for their morale and perhaps worse for deterring potential attacks.
“The thing that’s hurting them … is the reputation is getting diminished,” Cummings said on CNN. “The mere fact that you and I are talking about this right now — talking about the Secret Service right now — is diminishing their image, and that image … is extremely important because that reputation is largely a big reason why there is so much deterrence with regard to anybody trying to go after the president, or the vice president, and others.”
That someone not traveling with the president could even get into an elevator with him was shocking to Fleischer and a former Obama White House staffer, who both noted that presidential trip manifests go into detail on exactly who will be taking which elevator. Signs are often posted on elevator doors listing exactly who goes in each one.
“That’s how sacred the space is around the president,” Fleischer said. “And for somebody to be in there who wasn’t supposed to be, I don’t recall that ever happening.”
Why the Secret Service Blew It Sure, blame the folks on duty. But let’s not forget the dysfunction that got us here.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/09/why-the-secret-service-blew-it-111296.html#.VCzk2zbpX1Y
Secret Service director Julia Pierson resigns
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/julia-pierson-resigns-secret-service-111523.html
Julia Pierson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pierson
Joseph Clancy (Secret Service)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Clancy_(Secret_Service)
Joseph Clancy is an American law enforcement official. He is the acting Director of the United States Secret Service. He was appointed to the position following the resignation of Julia Pierson on October 1, 2014.
New Secret Service Head Joe Clancy Personally Led Obama Security
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/new-secret-service-head-joe-clancy-personally-led-obama-security-n216191