scandals

The Secret Service Has a Freewheeling Side, Apparently

Photo: Jim Watson / AFP/Getty

The day after two Secret Service supervisors were booted from the detail guarding President Barack Obama due to some questionable behavior, whistle-blower testimony to a Senate committee overseeing the department painted a picture of an agency whose members frequently drank, hired prostitutes, and generally partied like frat boys on spring break in Asia. Their antics stretched across seventeen countries, the whistle-blowers told the committee, and involved not only prostitutes and booze, but one-night stands, extramarital affairs, and improperly reported sexual relationships, which the Secret Service prohibits. One whistle-blower told the Washington Post “that senior management was fully aware of agents hiring prostitutes on foreign and domestic trips.”

Sadly, the Post learned few specifics, but if this anecdote is anything to go on, traveling with the Secret Service can be a downright party:

In one incident in November 2009, the whistleblower said, a crew of more than 70 agents was waiting on a military transport plane to depart Thailand after a rest stop in the country before heading to South Korea.

One of the agents was missing, and to avoid a delay, a supervisor agreed to stay behind to retrieve him from a Thai brothel, where he was found intoxicated. Senior management agreed to transport the agent back to the United States at great expense on a commercial flight. He faced no punishment, the whistleblower said.

Nothing cures a hangover like a free flight home and a pass from the boss.

The Secret Service Has a Freewheeling Side