Secret Service Issues Extend Beyond Amsterdam

Following up on Wednesday’s report of Secret Service agents getting sloshed in Amsterdam, another incident involving possible misconduct has come to light -- this time in Miami. According to The Washington Post, two counter-sniper officers were involved in a car accident during the president’s visit, and suspected of drinking (the driver did, however, pass a field sobriety test).

Those two officers involved in the car accident, like the ones in the Netherlands, were also sent back to Washington under a “no tolerance” policy. The driver was only issued a citation by local Miami police, and both continue to work for the Secret Service.

The incidents are the latest in a not-infrequent string of embarrassing blunders by the agency, which is still recovering from a Colombian prostitution scandal from two years ago. Last fall, an agent was removed from the president’s security detail after allegedly leaving a bullet in a woman’s hotel room after having drinks with her.

A spokesperson for the department cited a report from the Homeland Security Department last December that found that the Secret Service appropriately handled employees committing misconduct. An older review in the wake of the Colombian episode found that 83 percent of employees were not aware of colleagues who behaved like the ones involved in the scandal.

“The president believes, as he has said in the past, that everybody representing the United States of America overseas needs to hold himself or herself to the highest standards,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “and he supports Director [Julia] Pierson’s approach, zero-tolerance approach, on these matters.”