A stunning report about drunken Secret Service agents partying with prostitutes in El Salvador last year came just hours after the head of homeland security defended the agency.
Janet Napolitano’s declaration that the Colombian hooker hijinks were likely a one-shot deal was followed by a Seattle television station’s report on raunchy revelry preceeding President Obama’s March 2011 visit to El Salvador.
An eyewitness described a dozen Secret Service agents, joined by U.S. military specialists, getting “wasted” inside a strip club, according to KIRO-TV.
The advance team members paid to enter a VIP area where the strippers provided sex for cash, the eyewitness claimed. At least two agents also brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms, he said.
The agents ignored the witness’s advice that it was a “really bad idea” to bring the working girls back to the rooms, KIRO-TV said.
Several agents told the man that the behavior was business as usual, advising him “not to worry about it,” the television report said.
A Secret Service official told The Associated Press that the agency is investigating to see if the KIRO report was accurate.
A dozen Secret Service workers, including two supervisors, and a dozen military personnel were implicated in the sexual shenanigans prior to the president’s trip to Cartegena this month.
Napolitano made her comments before the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying the Secret Service had received no previous complaints about inappropriate behavior in the last 2 1/2 years.
“It really was, I think, a huge disappointment to the men and women of the Secret Service to begin with, who uphold very high standards and who feel their own reputations are now besmirched by the actions of a few,” Napolitano said.
The director of Homeland Security added that it “would be a surprise to me” if misbehavior was part of a pattern.
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