Recently TV viewers have seen Secret Service agents fulfill one vice president’s sexual needs and nearly assassinate another, but supposedly in real life agents have been sticking to the straight and narrow since that Colombian prostitution scandal. However, over the weekend three agents preparing for President Obama’s arrival in Amsterdam proved that they still know how to party … or at least get drunk and pass out in a hotel hallway. Sources tell the Washington Post the agents were sent home and put on administrative leave after hotel staff found one of them unconscious after a night of drinking.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirmed that the agency “did send three employees home for disciplinary reasons,” and they have been put on administrative leave pending an investigation. Hotel staff alerted the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands after finding the agent on Sunday, a day before Obama’s arrival. Hundreds of U.S. personnel were sent to prepare for the president’s weeklong trip to Europe and Saudi Arabia.
The agents are reportedly members of the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, which is responsible for fighting off assailants if the president comes under attack. It’s one of the agency’s most elite units, and members are required to be skilled shooters and remain extremely physically fit.
After ten agents were removed from their jobs for drinking heavily and bringing prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in 2012, the Secret Service forbid agents on official trips from drinking alcohol within ten hours of an assignment. The three agents would have been on duty for a classified briefing sometime on Sunday, so it seems their Saturday night drinking session violated the rule – and of course, passing out in a hotel hallway during any sort of business trip is generally frowned upon.
