By Earlier this month, a military veteran carrying a 3-and-a-half-inch serrated knife breached the outer perimeter of the White House and sprinted 70 yards to the front entrance. Although protocol requires the officer stationed at the front entrance to immediately lock the door when an intruder makes a dash for the White House, the guard stationed at the door failed to do so, likely because the alarm box meant to alert officers of an intrusion was muted.
The intruder, Omar Jose Gonzalez, dashed past the guard at the front entrance and sprinted past the stairway that leads to the president’s living quarters; he then turned the corner and ran into the East Room, an ornate space often used for presidential addresses and hosting heads of state. A counterassault agent stationed in the far end of the East Room finally tackled Gonzalez.
The Washington Post reported that Gonzalez had 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete in his car. In short, this incident, along with many others before it, seriously calls into question the ability of the Secret Service to protect the president and his family.
On Wednesday, Julia Pierson resigned from her position as the director of the Secret Service following revelations of stunning breaches in security at the White House and on presidential outings.
Her resignation could not have come soon enough. During her tenure as the director of the Secret Service, she has consistently misrepresented serious lapses in security and withheld critical information from the public. The gravity of her lackadaisical leadership is clear for all to see – this incident, which does not stand alone, put the president’s life, and his family’s lives, in jeopardy.
On a dark November night in 2011, a lone gunman pointed his semiautomatic rifle out of his Honda parked in front of the White House, took aim and pulled the trigger. He fired at least seven bullets at the president’s home, almost hitting the family’s living room. Secret Service agents feverishly drew their weapons and scanned the South Lawn for a shooter, when suddenly, a baffling order came over the radio.
“No shots have been fired… Stand down,” a supervisor said over the radio, according to a report by the Washington Post issued on Sept. 27. The supervisor attributed the source of the gunshot sounds to backfire from the exhaust of a nearby vehicle, an incredible claim since the vehicle would have needed to backfire at least seven times for this claim to be accurate.
By the end of the week after the incident, Secret Service supervisors changed their theory and asserted that rival gangs must have engaged in a firefight near the White House Lawn, another highly implausible claim due to the touristy nature of the capital. According to the Washington Post, it took four days before agents discovered the bullets embedded in the White House, and this discovery only occurred after a housekeeper pointed them out.
Although Obama and the first lady were out of town at the time, Obama’s younger daughter Sasha was present in the White House while the bullets ripped into the White House residence.
Another disturbing incident occurred two weeks ago, and this further calls into question the ability of the Secret Service to protect our commander-in-chief: during the president’s trip to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, a private security contractor with a gun and three convictions for assault and battery shared an elevator ride with Obama in violation of protocol.
When the embattled director of the Secret Service was grilled by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Pierson stated that she is responsible for informing the president whenever a serious incident occurs which endangers either his life or the lives of his family. However, when questioned about how many times she briefed the president in the year 2014, she testified that she only briefed him about the incident in which the fence jumper ran into the White House wielding a knife.
“I believe the President’s security was unnecessarily compromised,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CNN in late September. “A convict with a gun in an elevator with the President put his life in danger. The Director should have informed the President, yet she testified she did not. Did she lie to Congress or fail to inform the President?”
Not only does the Secret Service fail to properly ensure the safety of the president and his family, but the Secret Service has deliberately covered up the incidents thereafter. These egregious presidential security breaches have raised serious questions regarding the Secret Service’s ability to protect our president; and their deliberate misrepresentations of the facts thereafter only drive home the desperate need for them to act more professionally.
In sum, the Secret Service has been a little too secret and provided not enough service.
