Secret Service Secrets

Dozens of Secret Service Agents Disciplined for Leaking Info About Congressman Investigating Them

“Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” wrote one agent.
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By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

On Thursday, the Secret Service apologized for yet another scandal, this time for leaking the private information of the congressman investigating them for their other scandals.

NBC News reports that more than 40 agents received disciplinary punishments after they shared and leaked the Secret Service application of Representative Jason Chaffetz (Republican, Utah), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Chaffetz has been leading investigations into the agency’s numerous security failures over the past several years.

Back in 2015, Chaffetz was investigating reports that two agents had drunkenly crashed into a White House barricade. That inquiry came on the heels of a string of embarrassments, including numerous gate-jumpers who had managed to make their way onto the White House lawn and into the building, and a prostitution scandal in Cartagena.

Within months, however, news emerged that Chaffetz applied to the Secret Service in 2003, rejected because there were more qualified candidates, and a subsequent investigation by Homeland Security’s inspector general found that 41 Secret Service employees had accessed the application roughly 60 times.

Chaffetz, who had not disclosed that he’d applied to the Secret Service before investigating them, explained to the Daily Beast that he had been rejected from the agency because he was “too old” by the time he applied, shortly after 9/11.

The Washington Post reported in September that the leak was in retaliation for Chaffetz’s investigation into their competency. “Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” wrote assistant director Edward Lowery, mentioning the file which was, at the time, being passed around the office.

Punishments ranged from a mark in some agents’ personnel files to suspensions without pay. Privacy laws, ironically, prevent the agency from revealing whom it has disciplined. The agent who leaked the application to the press resigned.

In a statement, Jeh Johnson, who runs the Department of Homeland Security, said he was “appalled” by the agents’ behavior.