Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday put his department’s deputy in charge of an ongoing investigation by the Secret Service into the agency’s failure last month to stop a man from jumping a fence on the perimeter of the White House and accessing the first floor of the executive mansion and said also that an external panel will be convened to examine the incident and other issues affecting the service.
Johnson made the announcement along with his acceptance of Julia Pierson’s offer to resign as director of the Secret Service a day after she testified before a House panel about the fence jumping incident.
“I have also determined that scrutiny by a distinguished panel of independent experts of the Sept. 19 incident and related issues concerning the Secret Service is warranted,” Johnson said. Johnson said he will name the panelists shortly and they will report to him by Dec. 15 on their assessment and recommendations about White House security.
Johnson also said he will look to the independent panel for recommendations for a new Secret Service director, including people from outside the agency, and to advise him “about whether it believes, given the series of recent events, there should be a review of the broader issues concerning the Secret Service.”
Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who will be aided by the DHS general counsel, is expected to complete the Secret Service’s review and submit findings to Johnson by Nov. 1.
With Pierson’s resignation, Johnson is appointing Joseph Clancy, a former Secret Service official, in charge of the agency on an interim basis. Clancy was a former Special Agent in Charge of the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service and retired from the agency in 2011.
In addition to the fence jumping incident, the Secret Service took four days to realize that seven gun shots were fired into the exterior of the White House in 2011 by an individual from his car one evening. In 2012 a number of Secret Service agents responsible for security preparations ahead of a planned visit by President Barack Obama to Columbia were caught in a sex scandal involving prostitutes.
Despite the recent security lapses, Johnson praised the Secret Service as “one of the finest protection services in the world.”