WASHINGTON -- Two Secret Service supervisors and three elite agents were among those placed on administrative leave amid allegations they brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, in advance of a presidential visit this past weekend, NBC News reported Monday.
Eleven Secret Service agents were sent home to the US and replaced with other personnel before President Barack Obama arrived in the city on Friday for the Summit of the Americas.
Those agents have since been placed on administrative leave and, according to CBS News, lost their Top Secret security clearance in the wake of the scandal. CBS said they were also banned from Secret Service facilities and forced to surrender equipment.
The three elite agents sent home were members of the Secret Service's Counter-Assault Team (CAT), which plays a direct role in protecting the president, NBC News reported, citing law enforcement officials.
According to the source, two of the CAT team members were directly involved in a dispute with a prostitute that drew attention to the alleged misconduct.
The NBC News source noted that agents had copies of the president's schedule in their rooms and the incident may have caused a security breach.
Five US military members were also disciplined for alleged misconduct at the same hotel.
Further broadening the probe, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said Monday that additional military members and more than one military service may have been involved in the incident, according to FOX News Channel.
Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Pentagon press briefing Monday afternoon that he and his fellow military chiefs are "embarrassed" by the scandal and feel they disappointed the commander-in-chief.
"We let the boss down because nobody's talking about what went on in Colombia other than this incident," he said, referring to Obama's finalization of a free trade agreement with Colombia and other summit negotiations.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reiterated that the investigation is ongoing but stressed that military members serving overseas are expected "to abide by the highest standard of behavior."
The scandal has also put the culture of the Secret Service under scrutiny, with reports of long-running jokes like "wheels up, rings off" raising questions about discipline within the security agency.
Current and former officials told The Wall Street Journal that the joke implied that wedding rings could be shed once agents' planes took off for overseas trips.
Secret Service agency spokesman Edwin Donovan told The Journal that the internal investigation will look beyond last week's incident to include behavior on past overseas trips.
"The investigation will be comprehensive," Donovan added. "There are no limits at this point."
The incident is also coming under congressional scrutiny. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Sunday that he believes it was part of a broader pattern of misbehavior within the Secret Service.
"Things like this don't happen once if they didn't happen before," Issa said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
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