Secret Service will brief Oversight committee about reports that VP’s agent fought coworkers

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee will have a closed briefing on June 21 with U.S. Secret Service officials detailing an incident when an agent assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly fought with other agents, according to a committee spokeswoman. 

“This incident raised concerns within the agency about the hiring and screening process for this agent,” committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., wrote last week in a letter to the agency’s director requesting the briefing. 

The Secret Service in a statement to Washington Examiner, which broke the story, said that the agent “began displaying behavior their colleagues found distressing” and that they were “removed from their assignment while medical personnel were summoned.” 

The incident occurred in April at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, D.C. Harris was not present. 

Comer’s letter also referenced a May 9 tweet from Jennifer Jacobs, a senior White House reporter for Bloomberg, stating there’s a petition at the Secret Service with at least 39 signatures that “flags concerns about ‘a number of recent Secret Service incidents indicative of inadequate training,’ a double standard in disciplinary actions and a vulnerability ‘to potential insider threats.’” Jacobs wrote that the petition calls for a congressional investigation. 

Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, told Government Executive in a statement that: “U.S. Secret Service employees, whose work is vital to the continuity of government, are held to the highest professional standards. At no time has the agency lowered these standards.” 

In newly-released data from the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, out of 459 agencies, the Secret Service scored 413 for employee engagement and satisfaction. Since 2013, the agency has ranked in the lowest quartile for such a score.