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94–541 PDF

2015

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: HOLDING THE PROTECTORS

ACCOUNTABLE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 24, 2015

Serial No. 114–16

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN J. DUNCAN, J

., Tennessee

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

TIM WALBERG, Michigan

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona

SCOTT D

JARLAIS, Tennessee

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina

RON D

SANTIS, Florida

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina

KEN BUCK, Colorado

MARK WALKER, North Carolina

ROD BLUM, Iowa

JODY B. HICE, Georgia

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin

WILL HURD, Texas

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking

Minority Member

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan

TED LIEU, California

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands

MARK DeSAULNIER, California

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

PETER WELCH, Vermont

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico

EAN

AUGHLIN

, Staff Director

AVID

APALLO

, Minority Staff Director

RISTAN

EAVITT

, Counsel

IKE

OWELL

, Counsel

ELISSA

EAUMONT

, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 24, 2015 ............................................................................ 1

WITNESS

Mr. Joseph P. Clancy, Director, U.S. Secret Service, Department of Homeland

Security

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 11

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14

APPENDIX

Statement for the Record, submitted by Rep. Connolly ....................................... 104

Slides entered by Mr. Chaffetz ............................................................................... 106

(1)

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: HOLDING THE

PROTECTORS ACCOUNTABLE

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

OUSE OF

EPRESENTATIVES

OMMITTEE ON

VERSIGHT AND

OVERNMENT

EFORM

ASHINGTON

, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2154

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz (chairman of

the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Duncan, Jordan,

Walberg, Amash, Gowdy, Massie, Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney,

Buck, Walker, Hice, Carter, Grothman, Palmer, Cummings,

Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Connolly, Cartwright, Kelly, Law-

rence, Lieu, Plaskett, DeSaulnier, and Lujan Grisham.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. The Committee on Oversight and Govern-

ment Reform will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is au-

thorized to declare a recess at any time. Appreciate everybody

being here.

Reforming the United States Secret Service is not a partisan

issue. Ranking Member Cummings and I have presented a united

front on this issue, and I look forward to continuing this important

work with him on both sides of the aisle.

The most important mission for the Secret Service is protecting

the President and his family. However, a litany of recent mishaps

raise major concerns.

In 2011, nobody recognized shots were fired at the White House

until bullets were discovered by maintenance staff. It has been well

publicized that Secret Service Agents engaged in misconduct in

Cartagena, and Amsterdam, and Miami.

In September of last year, a security contractor with an arrest

record rode in an elevator with the President in Atlanta armed

with a gun completely unbeknownst to the President’s detail. A few

days later, a man armed with a knife jumped the White House

fence, made it past the Secret Service, well into the White House.

And now on March 4th, the second-in-command of the Presi-

dent’s detail drove his car through a crime scene involving a bomb

threat while the President was in the White House.

This has to stop. The Secret Service has a zero fail mission to

protect our President and his family. This is especially true for the

President’s Protective Detail, or what is often referred to as the

PPD. We need to understand why these incidents keep happening.

This Committee requested the Special Agent in Charge of the

PPD, Robert Buster, attend a bipartisan closed-door briefing re-

garding the incident. Director Clancy said no.

The Committee requested the supervisors on duty before and

during the incident in March to testify today, but Director Clancy

said no.

We asked Director Clancy to turn over video footage of the inci-

dent, and again the Director said no.

In our closed-door briefing last week, Director Clancy was unable

to adequately answer questions about the events of March 4th. In-

stead, he asserted that by referring the matter to the Inspector

General, he was unable to ask any questions of his own, but Con-

gress is also doing an investigation. To not do an investigation

would be malpractice on our part. Congress has a role, we have a

duty, we have a responsibility to conduct our own investigation.

By refusing to allow the witnesses we invited to testify with first-

hand knowledge of the incident, Director Clancy is keeping Con-

gress and the American people in the dark. On top of that, the Se-

cret Service has missed every deadline to provide this Committee

with information, with no legitimate explanation as to why.

It is unclear why Director Clancy is choosing at the start of his

tenure to be so unhelpful to Congress. While I was hopeful Director

Clancy would assist Congress in understanding how we can restore

the Agency to its prior stature, this does not appear to be the case.

The March 4th incident is concerning on three major points. (1)

the interference of crime scenes by senior Secret Service personnel;

(2) allegations involving decisions, communications, and disposi-

tions of senior Secret Service personnel; and (3) the Agency’s ap-

parent botched response to a bomb threat while the President was

in the White House.

Although the Secret Service has refused to provide video footage

of the incident, the Metropolitan D.C. Police Department has. Ini-

tially, I had indicated that I was frustrated about the lack of re-

sponse by the Metropolitan Police Department. This was based on

information given to us by the Secret Service. I was critical of the

Chief, and suggested that Chief Lanier was going to get a nasty

gram from Congress, which we sent. But I can tell you, I have

nothing but praise and thankfulness for her and her Department

and Agency for swiftly and completely responding to Congress’ re-

quest.

We appreciate her, the men and women who work at the Metro-

politan Police Department, and their swift response to our request.

It certainly stands in great contrast from what we’ve seen from the

Secret Service.

Now, we’re going to show part of a video here that was provided

to us by the Metropolitan Police Department, but a few things be-

fore you see this.

On March 4th, at 10:24 p.m., a woman drove her vehicle to a se-

curity gate outside the White House fence line on 15th Street and

left a package she claimed to be a bomb. Secret Service agents and

officers at the scene confronted the suspect, but were unable to ap-

prehend her. The package sat unattended as traffic drove by for a

long period of time. It took 11 minutes for the Secret Service to call

the Metropolitan Police Department bomb squad. For 17 minutes,

17 minutes traffic continued through the intersection and several

pedestrians walked within feet of the potential bomb. I don’t under-

stand how that happens.

When the Secret Service finally did call, they failed to mention

to the Metro Police Department that it was an actual bomb threat,

rather than just a suspicious package. It has been explained to us

there is a difference, a difference in the response time, and the ap-

proach that they take. You can understand how around the perim-

eter of the White House there are oftentimes items that are left un-

attended, but it is a wholly different situation when somebody

comes up and places at the perimeter of the White House a pack-

age that they claim to be an actual bomb.

Let me show this video, and I’ll try the best I can. We have this.

We’ll put this up on our YouTube channel. To try to describe what’s

happening, it’s 10:30—roughly 10 to 20 plus at night, 15th Street.

There’s the car, it pulls up. You can start to see the person who

has dropped off the bomb, and then you’ll see an officer come out

and try to apprehend the person who’s actually been charged now

with a variety of different crimes.

The potential bomb really sits next to that building right there.

And, again, we’re doing time lapse video, but you can see the cars

have been driving by and whatnot. Then we’re zooming in here,

and you can see that the agents that were in question about what

they were doing. This is a full 30 minutes after the initial would-

be bomb was placed there.

You can see that there are some big cones, or big barrels that

are put out. Now, I—again, we have two crime scenes at this point;

the assault on the officer, and then you have within just a couple

of feet, you can see they’re actually bumping into that barricade

there. That is not much of a barricade, in my personal opinion, but

driving right within a couple of feet of this would-be bomb, which

begs a lot of additional questions.

It takes the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Depart-

ment about an hour and 20 minutes to finally come to the conclu-

sion that this is not a bomb, and that the scene is then rendered

safe.

An officer followed the suspect in her car, so we get to another

part of the story which begs a lot of questions. Somebody drives up,

drops off a would-be bomb, and then the Secret Service actually

gets an officer behind this person, but they were mistakenly called

off the pursuit when the Secret Service identified the wrong car as

the suspect’s. So, actually, right behind, I can only imagine this of-

ficer saying I’ve got this person in my sights, but instead of pulling

this person over, instead of maybe going the extra step to just

check, gets waved off. And they pursue another car, who isn’t actu-

ally the suspect.

Thirty minutes, thirty minutes after the woman fled the scene,

the Secret Service finally issued a BOLO, a Be On The Lookout for

a vehicle to local law enforcement. Metropolitan Police Department

didn’t know for 30 minutes what vehicle they were to be looking

for, 30 minutes.

The suspect was finally arrested 3 days later 90 miles away by

a different police agency on an unrelated charge, unrelated

charges. The day before she was arrested, she was interviewed by

the Secret Service agent, but the Secret Service claimed they were

unable to arrest her and, instead, canceled the lookout for the

woman.

Back at the White House on March 4th, two senior Secret Serv-

ice agents, including Mark Connolly, the President’s second-in-com-

mand on his Protective Detail, disrupted the crime scene. These

agents placed themselves, their colleagues, and the President and

his family in potential danger by driving their government vehicle

through a barricade within feet of a potential bomb.

Under Secret Service’s policy, video footage of the incident should

have been retained; however, most of the footage has evidently, ac-

cording to the Secret Service, has mysteriously gone missing. I find

this highly suspicious.

In a briefing last week, Director Clancy and Deputy Secretary

Mayorkas played Committee Members two tapes of the incident

that showed the same few seconds from two different angles, just

a few seconds out of an incident that lasted more than an hour and

20 minutes. There were eight Members there, three Committee

Chairmen, several Ranking Members, four Democrats, four Repub-

licans. Though limited, the footage clearly showed the agents pur-

posely moving the barricade aside with their car.

I want to set aside for a second the concern that the Secret Serv-

ice is only maintaining video footage for one of the most important

buildings in our country for only 72 hours. That makes absolutely

no sense on any level to me, because there are issues related to na-

tional security, the prosecution of the actual event, and the basic

ability to learn from past instances, as we’re having to deal with

now. But based on the Secret Service’s policy, video footage of this

incident should, nevertheless, been retained.

We have two crimes scenes that should have immediately been

highlighted; yet, an agency spokesperson told CNN: ‘‘In the event

of an operational security incident at the White House complex,

specific video footage is maintained for investigative and protective

intelligence purposes.’’ That would seem to make sense, but that’s

not what’s happened here.

Yet, Director Clancy and Deputy Secretary Mayorkas only

showed two very limited views of the incident to the Committee.

Does a potential bomb near the White House not qualify as ‘‘an

operational security incident?’’ If a potential bomb doesn’t qualify,

then what does?

These tapes should have been retained, and this Committee in-

tends to find out why they were not. We were only shown seconds

of a video for an incident that lasted for more than an hour.

Director Clancy, today we expect answers, and we expect you to

know them. We’re nearly 3 weeks after the incident. To help you

prepare for the hearing today, my staff reached out to your con-

gressional Affairs Office to let you know what subjects we would

be covering here today. Your staff was fully briefed on what we ex-

pect you to know. I want to let you know that the ‘‘I don’t know’’

strategy is not going to sit well with our Committee.

We look forward to your answering the questions and providing

clarity on what happened March 4th. We do appreciate you being

here. I can tell you that you have been personally very accessible,

and I greatly personally very much appreciate that.

So, with that, let me now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr.

Cummings.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I

thank you for calling this hearing today.

Director Clancy, welcome, again. And let me start off by saying,

Director, that there are moments in life that are and should be

transformative moments. In other words, there are moments in all

of our lives where something happens. It may very well be nega-

tive; usually, it is. And then we have to pause for a moment and

learn from it, and correct it. And if we do not correct it at that mo-

ment, in my 64 years on earth I’ve discovered it usually gets worse.

I am here to tell you that we are at such a moment. And the sad

part about it is that these moments seem to keep coming. Usually,

in life it’s one moment or two, but they seem to just keep coming,

and coming. And I tell you, I have great concerns. And I’m glad

this is a bipartisan effort because this is bigger than us. This is

bigger than the Secret Service.

This is about the security of the most powerful person in the

world, so this is not—I know that this will not get down to a par-

tisan battle, will not get down to a gotcha. But this is about us try-

ing to do our job.

Your job, and the great men and women of the Secret Service’s

job is to guard the President and his family, our former President,

and other protectees. Our job is to make sure you do your job, and

to make sure that you and the agents are accountable.

Now, I must tell you that I was disappointed to find out that we

will not hear from the other Secret Service witnesses the Com-

mittee invited to testify here today.

Director Clancy, I have the greatest respect for you, and your

service to our country. Your job is crucial. Your reputation is excep-

tional, and sound, and you desire to protect your agents and offi-

cers against unwarranted intrusion is admirable. But as I’ve said

to you before, if we are going to err, let us err on the side of the

safety and security of the President of the United States of Amer-

ica.

So, we wanted to speak with these witnesses for a very simple

reason. According to your own testimony, you did not know about

this incident until 5 days after it happened. You, yourself, had said

that is unacceptable. And, again, as I said, we have those trans-

formative moments, and that’s one symptom of the problem saying

that we need to do some transforming.

Your predecessor, in my conversations with her, one of the things

that she said was that quite often she did not get information, she

did not get complete information, she got inaccurate information,

and in some instances got no information. Something is wrong with

that picture, it was wrong with that one and, obviously, there’s

something wrong here.

With all due respect, I have to say how disappointed I was with

your initial letter on Friday. It simply announced that you would

be the only witness today without providing any reason for the

other witnesses not testifying. No other Committee is doing more

on this issue than our’s, and we are trying to conduct our work in

a responsible, bipartisan manner. We really have no room for error,

and if we’re going to err, we err on the side of the safety of the

President.

But when we receive a response that rejects our request with no

explanation at all, it’s difficult to view that response as respectful,

which I know is not your intent. I understand that.

For these reasons, I was heartened to receive your letter yester-

day in which you outline your specific concerns with the public tes-

timony of agents charged with protecting the President. I also ap-

preciate your offer to work with this Committee to examine other

ways to provide us with the information we need to fulfill our con-

stitutional oversight responsibilities.

Of course, we all understand that there is an ongoing Inspector

General investigation of this incident, and we respect that. The IG

has informed us that he will be moving quickly, and should be able

to answer key questions in weeks, not months.

We recognize the Inspector General’s investigation could result in

recommendations for disciplinary action, and the last thing we

want to do is interfere with that process. But keep in mind what

I said, if we are going to err, we must err on the side of the safety

and security of the President.

That is why the Chairman and I have committed to consulting

with the IG directly before taking any significant action that could

impact this work.

Director Clancy, my most significant concern has always been

and remains today that you did not know about this incident, and

that nobody in the entire agency told you about it. There’s some-

thing awfully wrong with that. Five days, 5 days, 5 days went by

while you were in the dark.

Last year when the former Director of the Secret Service, Julia

Pierson, sat in the same chair that you’re now sitting in, I warned

her that she was not getting the information she needed to do her

job. I alerted her that agents and officers believe they were better

off staying silent instead of raising their concerns up the chain. I

informed her that there were agents that felt more comfortable

coming to Members of the Congress of the United States than talk-

ing to people who were the higher ups at the Secret Service. Some-

thing wrong with the picture. And I lamented an environment in

Secret Service that would allow these deficiencies to continue; yet,

that appears to be exactly what happened here.

I believe that when the chain of command is broken, when the

chain of command is broken there is no command. It’s like a body

without a head. And when there is no command, there is vulner-

ability. Again, that vulnerability goes to the safety of the President

of the United States of America. So, let me make something very

clear.

This is not business as usual. This is not just another Oversight

hearing about just another agency. I admire this President greatly.

I admire him for his challenges, the challenges he’s overcome to be

President, the accomplishments he has achieved since then, the

principles he stands for on behalf of our country and the world, and

the contribution he’s made to our Nation’s history. I also admire

the people, our former Presidents and their families. I want to

make sure, and all of us want to make sure that they are pro-

tected, so I don’t want you to take this personally. This is about

us doing our job.

You have to be accountable to us, but your job is, of course, to

guard the President. So, I do not want anything to happen to him,

not under my watch, not under this watch. So, this would not be

about politics, it cannot be. It cannot be about headlines, or unnec-

essary disputes that contribute nothing to the solution. We must

come together in a nonpartisan way to take concrete steps both

publicly and privately to turn this agency around.

Again, this is a transformative moment. If we fail to do that in

this moment, it can only get worse. The agents and officers of the

Secret Service risk their lives on behalf of this great nation. They

are great human beings, great public servants, and they deserve an

agency that they can be proud of.

One of the things that has concerned me greatly is the anony-

mous email that you got to us. Would somebody put this up? This

email—you’re familiar with it, are you not?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And this email concerns me, ‘‘Since last Wednes-

day night, the Uniform Division established a crime scene at Spe-

cial Post 15 at the White House after a package was thrown at an

officer. The officer was told the package was a bomb, so they taped

off the area and made it a crime scene. Then at some point an

DSAIC from WFO, and a PPD DSAIC drove through the crime

scene tape. Duty officers at the scene said they were both ex-

tremely intoxicated. They were coming home from Ed Donovan’s re-

tirement dinner. They apparently flipped on the lights on their gov-

ernment vehicles to go around the roadblocks. Then the nudged the

barrels close to closing the post with their government vehicles.

Then were waving their White House passes around confused as to

why the post was evacuated.

UD officers were going to arrest both of them, but the UD Watch

Commander said not to. Apparently, the whole incident was cap-

tured on video from inside the JLC.’’

What I don’t understand is this. A lot of people got this email,

a lot of them got it, but you didn’t. That is a problem. But you

know what really bothers me, as I read this, I kept reading this

email this morning over, and over, and over, and you know what

I concluded, it appears that we have an agency at war against

itself.

The idea that in an organization like this that somebody would

create this kind of document to bring this kind of disruption when

they are supposed to be guarding the President of the United

States of America. We’re better than that, and some kind of way

we have to take advantage of this transformative moment. If we

don’t, it can only get worse. And with that, I yield back.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I now recognize Mr. DeSantis of Florida.

He’s the Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security. Mr.

DeSantis.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The website, Secret Service lays out the vision and that’s ‘‘to up-

hold the tradition of excellence in its investigative and protective

mission through a dedicated, highly trained, diverse partner-ori-

ented work force that employs progressive technology, and pro-

motes professionalism.’’

Notwithstanding that Statement, the Secret Service has been

falling short of that standard, and I think the Chairman did a good

job of enumerating some of the problems we’ve seen in recent

years.

We are here to examine this most recent incident, and I’ve got

to say, I join the Chairman in expressing my disappointment of the

lack of cooperation. We wanted to speak with witnesses, we wanted

to have information sooner, and I think that that’s not the way

that this is going to be productive.

This is a very important role that the agency plays not only in

protecting our leaders against threats foreign and domestic, but

that’s part of a larger mission to protect the integrity of our govern-

ment, and to make sure that elections are honored, and that the

people who are elected to those high positions are safe. And I think

to do that effectively, you have got to have a system that has ro-

bust accountability.

And I think that’s what the questions that we’re looking at today

say OK, where is the accountability in the agency? And it just

seemed throughout the whole saga with different problems that

there’s not swift accountability. And I think that’s going to make

it more difficult to get the agency where we all want it to be.

But I do commend the Chairman, Mr. Chaffetz, Ranking Member

Cummings, and my colleague on the National Security Sub-

committee, Mr. Lynch, for their diligence in insuring that those

that carry out this important mission are given the tools they need

to carry out their responsibilities.

We want high standards, we want accountability. That’s impor-

tant, and I think the American people want nothing less. And I

look forward to Director Clancy’s testimony, and I yield back.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I thank the gentleman. I will now recognize

the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on National Security,

Mr. Lynch of Massachusetts, for 5 minutes.

Mr. L

YNCH

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank Ranking

Member Cummings for his work on this, as well as Chairman

DeSantis. We really appreciate the fact that we’re working together

on this.

This hearing is to examine the continuing lapses in security in-

volving the U.S. Secret Service. I’d also like to thank Director

Clancy for being here, and to testify this morning.

I have the utmost respect for Mr. Clancy, but I have to agree

with the Chairman, Mr. Chaffetz, and the Ranking Member, and

Mr. DeSantis that the fact that you were not notified of this inci-

dent for 5 days concerning your two agents is totally unacceptable,

and it shows a deep problem within the organization that we have

to deal with.

At the outset, I’d like to notice that the purpose that we’re hav-

ing this hearing today is not to disparage our dedicated Secret

Service work force; rather, this bipartisan investigation into recent

security incidents at the White House and other Secret Service pro-

tected locations and events is founded in our genuine concern over

the safety of the President, his wife, and his daughters, his mother-

in-law, and White House personnel.

Regrettably, systemic challenges, antiquated security protocols

and entrenched agency culture have given rise to glaring gaps in

the security, and the critical protection mission of the Secret Serv-

ice demands that we make every effort to address them.

On the heels of the White House fence jumping incident that oc-

curred in September 2014, and reported gunshots near the Dela-

ware residence of the Vice President in January 2015, we’ve now

learned about two security incidents that occurred on the White

House grounds on the night of March 4th that again call into ques-

tion the effectiveness of existing security protocols, security tech-

nology, information sharing, and post-incident review at the Secret

Service.

In briefing this Committee on March 17th regarding the alleged

interference of two Secret Service agents with a live bomb threat

investigation at the White House, the Secret Service played us two

brief and seemingly incomplete video clips of a slow-moving vehicle

bumping gently into a plastic barrier that were—those videos were

taken from almost identical angles and contained absolutely no

audio. In response to member request that he provide us with addi-

tional videos of the incident, Director Clancy revealed that the Se-

cret Service routinely overwrites security camera footage after only

72 hours.

Given that Director Clancy also informed us that he did not re-

ceive notification of the alleged interference until 5 days later on

March 9th, the security footage in question was reportedly purged

two full days before the Director even found out about the security

incident. That is simply unacceptable, and it tells me that we need

a stem to stern review of our security technology policy at the

White House.

Director, you invited us over, members of the Committee, to re-

view the command post for the surveillance of the White House,

and I know for a fact we have full spectrum review and surveil-

lance over that area. We probably have five or six cameras at least

that would have given us useful information regarding this inci-

dent. And as the Chairman pointed out, we have overlapping inci-

dents, so we have a bomb threat, an active bomb threat while the

President is in the White House, and his family is in the White

House. We have an active bomb threat, and then we have an inter-

ference by these two agents during that bomb threat, during that

incident, and we purge the tapes, we purge the tapes.

That active bomb threat against the White House was something

that should have raised red flags with personnel from the Secret

Service. It should have been on everyone’s mind. I know that mul-

tiple emails went out to supervisory personnel. Everyone knew this

was a bomb threat; and, yet, we went ahead, at least that’s what

I’m hearing so far, that we went ahead and purged the tapes sur-

rounding that 72—excuse me, surrounding that bomb threat to the

White House within 72 hours. We destroyed the evidence, and that

completely is—that is just mind boggling that we might do some-

thing like that.

Now, I’ve got a lot of questions. I know the members of the Com-

mittee do, as well, but as a frame of reference indicating the inad-

equacy of the 72-hour video retention policy, I would note that my

own State of Massachusetts requires State and municipal agencies

to retain their security video tapes for 30 days under the State

Public Record Statute. That’s why agencies ranging from the Mas-

sachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, to the Boston Housing

Authority have a 1-month video storage policy in place.

In addition, under its current Memorandum of Agreement with

the Federal Transportation Security Administration regarding the

use of consolidated camera surveillance systems at Logan Inter-

national Airport, the Massachusetts Port Authority also has ex-

pressly agreed to retain captured images for 30 days. That’s at the

request of a Federal agency, we’re retaining that for 30 days.

Moreover, local educational institutions, such as Tufts Univer-

sity, University of Massachusetts have also implemented 30-day re-

tention policies for the campus security cameras.

In addition, I have a number of kindergartens in my district that

retain, because of the security interests of those children, they have

a 30-day policy.

You know, I have to tell you, and I’ve said this before, you know,

my local store 24 has a better surveillance system than we have

at the White House. That’s a sad Statement of affairs, and that’s

been the—that’s been because of a number of directors going back

beyond your own service. So, there’s a lot of questions to be an-

swered here.

I’m going to let the rest of my Statement go. I appreciate the

Chairman’s indulgence, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I thank the gentleman.

I will hold the record open for five legislative days for any mem-

bers who would like to submit a written Statement.

We welcome today our witness, the Honorable Joseph P. Clancy,

Director of the United States Secret Service.

Before we go forward, though, let me say that the members of

this Committee, I do not believe that the presence of Mr. Clancy

alone is sufficient to achieve the goals of this hearing today. It is

the Committee’s intention to bring forward a series of people in

transcribed interviews. We would prefer to have done this a dif-

ferent way. The Secret Service has refused our ability to do that,

but the people involved in these incidents should know that they

will be invited by this Committee, both sides will be present for

transcribed interviews as we conduct this further.

To our dismay, the Secret Service refuses let other invited wit-

nesses testify. In fact, the Committee has questions. When we

issued these letters and invitations for these individuals to appear,

did they receive those invitations, or was the Secret Service

prompted, did Homeland Security become involved? We have a lot

of questions about why those individuals who were asked to appear

are not sitting here today.

We do expect to close the loop with these witnesses in the future,

whether that be at a followup hearing, but I said it is the intention

that we will most likely do transcribed interviews through this

process.

With that said, Mr. Clancy, we do appreciate you being here.

Pursuant to Committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn before

they testify. If you will please rise and raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I do.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the

witness answered in the affirmative.

Mr. Clancy, we will now recognize you for your opening State-

ment. And please know that your entire written Statement will be

part of the record. But we’re pretty lenient on the time, but please

share with this Committee your thoughts and perspectives. Mr.

Clancy.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH P. CLANCY, DIRECTOR, UNITED

STATES SECRET SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SE-

CURITY

Mr. C

LANCY

. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Mem-

ber Cummings, and distinguished members of the Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here to discuss the recent alle-

gations of misconduct on March 4th, 2015, and the agency’s

progress in fulfilling the recommendations of the independent U.S.

Secret Service Protective Mission Panel. As Director, I’m honored

to lead the men and women of this important agency through this

challenging time.

With respect to the recent allegations, I personally became aware

of the incident on March 9th, when I received a phone call from

a former agent informing me of an anonymous email that was cir-

culating. On that same date, I determined that the allegations

should be referred to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office

of the Inspector General. I made this decision because allegations

of misconduct involving employees at the GS–15 and higher level

must be referred to the OIG in accordance with departmental pol-

icy. I trust the OIG’s investigation will be thorough. I have com-

mitted the Secret Service’s full cooperation to the OIG, and eagerly

await the findings of their investigation.

The fact that I did not learn of this allegation until 5 days after

it is said to have occurred infuriates me. This is unacceptable. I

called my senior staff together the week before last. I made clear

my expectation for prompt notification of allegations of misconduct

that could impact our mission, or that violate the agency’s stand-

ards of conduct.

If it is determined that any of our employees failed to report in-

formation about this alleged incident, they will be held account-

able. Our mission is too important for this to happen. It under-

mines my leadership, and I won’t stand for it.

I am resolved to holding people accountable for their actions, but

I want to make clear that I do not have the ability to simply termi-

nate employees based solely on allegations of misconduct. This is

not because I’m being lenient, but because the agency’s ability to

take action is controlled by Title V of the United States Code,

which provides Federal Government employees with certain statu-

tory due process rights. I must respect these rights and the proce-

dures Congress has put in place to preserve them.

As it stands, the next step in this process is to wait for the

issuance of the OIG report, at which point we will determine the

appropriate disciplinary actions consistent with our established

Table of Penalties. Once again, if the OIG investigation reveals

misconduct, those involved will be held accountable.

I have personally reviewed video footage from the evening of

March 4th with members of this Committee. The initial reports of

a vehicle crash were inaccurate; there was no crash. The video

shows a vehicle entering the White House complex at a very slow

speed and pushing aside a plastic barrel. There was no damage to

the vehicle.

However, many people have expressed serious concerns that the

available footage from the night does not provide a full picture rel-

ative to the alleged misconduct. While the primary function of the

camera systems at the White House complex is for operational se-

curity, specific video footage is routinely maintained for investiga-

tive and protective intelligence purposes.

I share the concerns of this Committee that more video footage

from the night of March 4th was not preserved. After receiving con-

sent from the OIG, the Secret Service has contacted the manufac-

turers of the digital storage unit and is leveraging our capabilities

in cyber forensics to make every attempt to recover additional video

footage from that night.

Although it predates my appointment as Director, Secret Service

practice has been to retain footage from camera systems at the

White House for a period of 72 hours. This practice concerns me.

Therefore, I have directed that the video footage storage period be

increased to 7 days effective immediately. I have also directed my

staff to explore the feasibility of further expanding this timeframe

while being mindful of concerns related to security and privacy.

Turning to fulfilling the recommendations made by the inde-

pendent Protective Mission Panel. I will touch briefly on each of

these three areas identified in the report. First, training and per-

sonnel; second, technology, perimeter security and operations; and

third, leadership.

Regarding training and personnel, I have consistently held that

a primary focus of mine has been to increase the critical staffing

in the Secret Service to meet the demands of the mission, and to

incorporate regular and consistent training to sharpen skills, in-

sure preparedness at all times. The Secret Service is expected to

exceed its hiring goals for this fiscal year, and maintain this pace

for Fiscal Year 2016.

We have also fully completed integrated training for officers and

specialty teams within the White House Branch, and made im-

provements with respect to the amount of training received during

fourth shifts by agents on protective details.

With respect to technology and perimeter security recommenda-

tions, the Secret Service is in the midst of a multi-phase project to

replace the current fence around the White House. The goal of this

project is to mitigate security concerns identified by the panel, in-

cluding delaying potential intruders to give Secret Service per-

sonnel more time to react. The selection of a final fence option will

be followed by design, procurement, and construction phases.

As discussed in the classified briefings provided to this Com-

mittee, the Secret Service acknowledges the need for interim meas-

ures during this process, and has conducted initial testing, re-

search, and development to that end.

Finally, with respect to leadership, I am moving to rebuild, re-

structure, and reinvigorate the Secret Service, including elevating

and empowering those with specialized professional skills within

our civilian force by insuring our people have the necessary re-

sources by developing budgets from the ground up, and utilizing a

mission-based approach.

In closing, I would like to make clear, I am proud of our work

force, and would be remiss if I did not recognize that the vast ma-

jority of these men and women perform their duties with honor and

distinction. They deserve strong leadership, clear and consistent

policies, and appropriate resources to support the important work

they do every day. It is my life’s work to insure they get it.

I thank the Committee for this opportunity, and welcome any

questions you have at this time.

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Clancy follows:]

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank you. Now recognize the gentleman

from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Director Clancy, do you believe Congress has a constitutional

right to provide oversight over the Secret Service?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Do you believe that Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking

Member Cummings are motivated solely by a desire to see what is

best for the President, and for the agency, itself?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. G

OWDY

. With those two thoughts in mind, does this Com-

mittee have every single bit of video footage available from that

evening?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I’m sorry, sir. Would you——

Mr. G

OWDY

. Does this Committee have all available video footage

from that evening?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It does not, sir.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Why not?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, we have provided that footage video that we

have to this Committee.

Mr. G

OWDY

. All of it?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We have shown two clips. We have not shown all

of it.

Mr. G

OWDY

. That’s not my question, Director. You just said that

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight.

You just agreed with me that Ranking Member Cummings and

Chairman Chaffetz have the best interest of the President and the

agency in mind, so why would you not turn over all video footage

to this Committee?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Congressman, we will show all video at any time

day or night that this Committee would like to review the footage

that we have. We will—we have done that. In fact, the Chairman

was the first, I believe, to see this video before we showed——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. With all due respect, that’s not true. Go

ahead, Mr. Gowdy.

Mr. G

OWDY

. No, I would want——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Mr. Chairman, I’d like to just correct—if I have to

correct the record, I’d like to correct it.

Mr. G

OWDY

. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Utah,

because I was under the misapprehension, apparently, that this

Committee was not in possession of all available video from that

night.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct; they are not in possession of the

video, but we did allow the Chairman to view the video.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You’ve shown us less than 1 minute of

video.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. Yes, sir.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, back to my question. Will you make all avail-

able video, and I say available because we’re going to get in a sec-

ond to the fact that all of it was not preserved. Will you make all

available video available to this Committee?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We will make all video available to this Committee

for your review at any time day or night.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Will you make a copy of it available so we can retain

custody, as opposed to simply showing it to us?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I will not release a copy of this video at this point.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Why not?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The OIG has an ongoing investigation.

Mr. G

OWDY

. You think the OIG’s responsibilities supersede those

of Congress?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, I know that they have an ongoing investigation.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, can’t you have simultaneous ongoing investiga-

tions? Why can’t Congress provide oversight while the IG is inves-

tigating? Why do you have to pick and choose?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, again, I think we have one initial investigation

from the OIG, and we’ve given them the film to look at.

Mr. G

OWDY

. But you understand the responsibility of the IG is

very different from the responsibility of Congress. Congress deter-

mines funding among other things, the IG does not. So, those two

are not exclusive. Why can’t Congress investigate what’s in its ju-

risdiction while the IG does what’s in its jurisdiction?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Congressman, I’m sure after the OIG’s investiga-

tion——

Mr. G

OWDY

. I don’t want to wait until after, because that makes

me think that you believe that Congress’ constitutional responsi-

bility to provide oversight is subservient to the IG. And surely to

the world, you can’t believe that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, the ongoing investigation that the Secret Serv-

ice has, as well, regarding the Protective Intelligence case, we have

an individual who committed a crime, made a threat, and that in-

vestigation is also going on at this time within the Secret Service.

Mr. G

OWDY

. And how will providing that video footage to Con-

gress jeopardize that ongoing investigation?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That——

Mr. G

OWDY

. With precision, how will it?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That video shows the actions of the individual who

would be accused of a criminal act.

Mr. G

OWDY

. I get that. My question is, how will providing that

to Mr. Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz jeopardize an ongoing inves-

tigation?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, again——

Mr. G

OWDY

. With specificity.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am happy to show that video all day, and be avail-

able at all hours of the day and night to show that video, but at

this point we cannot release that video.

Mr. G

OWDY

. All right. That’s the video that is available. The

video that is not available, will you agree with me that there are

at least two potential crime scenes at play on the evening of March

4th, at least two? There’s an assault on an officer, and there’s a

suspicious package.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. G

OWDY

. All right. Why would the video not be preserved as

part of that ongoing investigation that you just cited as the reason

you can’t give the video to Congress? Why wouldn’t you preserve

it?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The process—my understanding of the process is

that the watch commander onsite relays back the incident that he

is the incident commander for, and he calls back to our Joint Oper-

ation Center and says we do have an incident here. We have a sus-

picious package. Preserve the video from this incident.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Director, I’m out of time, but I want you to consider

for just a moment the dueling narratives that you just portrayed.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir.

Mr. G

OWDY

. No. 1, we’re not going to give the video that does

exist to Congress because its investigation is subservient to the IG

investigation. That’s narrative No. 1. And narrative No. 2 is, you’re

not even going to preserve video that could be used in a investiga-

tion of two potential crimes. Did I hear that right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, we did preserve the video, the footage from

the incident as those in the Joint Operation Center viewed it.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Are you familiar——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. The gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, some of my time was taken by the Chairman,

but that is the Chairman’s prerogative, and I would, of course, not

ask for any more.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. And the Chairman, obviously, made the

right ruling.

Mr. G

OWDY

. I yield back.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Good decision. We’ll now recognize the gen-

tlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5 minutes.

Ms. N

ORTON

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think, Mr. Clancy, that you understand that the kind—the

anger, the outrage that you hear really comes from this notion that

you are a zero failure agency. We don’t expect that, frankly, of most

Federal officials.

I was really surprised to see that you were just now, and I’m

reading from your testimony on page 3, sent an agency-wide memo-

randum saying that they have to report allegations, apparently,

right away. When, for example, before you came to the agency, you

knew of the White House incident where they actually shot into the

White House, and they learned about that, the Secret Service

learned about it perhaps months later when an attendant found

these bullets. It seems to me that the very first order that should

have been given is please let me know. Don’t put me on the hot

seat of not knowing.

And I say that, because I think the Committee did the right

thing. It began at the right place with the leadership. So, we said

we wanted new leadership. You’re the new leadership. It said we

want an expert panel. We had that expert panel.

Now, I think we ought to go—I realize you’ve not been in place

for a very long time, but I’d like to focus us on the men and women

who are under you, because I don’t think there’s been any focus ex-

cept for that panel. And that panel really did focus on what I was

amazed to hear that people were working sometimes 14 days, and

with a day off, if they got it, but it could be denied. And that—and

I tried to link this to what I knew about the Secret Service. A kind

of serial misconduct, you know, in Columbia, for example, in the

Netherlands, all of the drunken agents.

Well, see, I don’t think that the Secret Service is a bunch of

bums. I’ve got to look at what is happening to these men and

women. I asked the staff to get—tell me something, are these peo-

ple being trained? Are these people kind of letting it all out? And

it looks like some of that is happening. And nobody’s spoken up,

and if somebody doesn’t speak up, I’m not sure that this mis-

conduct is not going to continue. This also was a drunken incident.

Then I learned that in terms of the training, there’s barely any

training going on at the Secret Service. There were eight special

agent basic classes in 3 years, 1908, 1909, and 1910, but 2012

there were zero, by 2013 there was one. The panel said that you

needed staff urgently, for starters. What is the problem? Is the

problem with the leadership, is the problem with the men and

women, you’re not getting good people? Why don’t you speak up for

these men and women? If, in fact, they’re letting off steam because

you’re overworking them, are they being overworked? Will this

budget that you’ve just gotten begin to relieve some of those serial

days in which people don’t get any days off?

So, would you describe that, and would you tell us more about

training, and what training sessions are expected so that some of

this misbehavior will be understood to be absolutely verboten.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. Congresswoman, thank you. I have the same

concerns you have. In fact, I want to hear more and more from

these agents and these officers what their issues are.

Just in a nutshell, I’ll tell you that I walk by and around the pe-

rimeter of the White House frequently. This past Sunday, I went

to the Roll Call Midnight Shift, the following morning went to the

Roll Call, and wanted to hear what are their concerns. And in

terms of the staff——

Ms. N

ORTON

. But you can see what their concerns are, you know,

the days off. Are people going to—according to the panel, the

agents were consistently working 12-hour shifts under high stress,

often with no days off. Is that going to change now that your budg-

et has finally been released by the Congress, which has to take

some of the responsibility for what’s been happening, as well?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, you’re exactly right. When I first came back

here, my No. 1 initiative was to increase the staffing. We’ve got to

increase staffing, and to do that, we’ve separated one of our direc-

torates, which is H.R. and Training. We separated them apart to

give each more specific training. And we have been working over-

time to buildup——

Ms. N

ORTON

. You had a little class for 2013, there was only one

class. If you need more agents and need more training——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Ms. N

ORTON

[continuing]. With this new appropriation is there

going to be another class of agents trained, and will the agents who

are there who used to get training I understand every 4 weeks or

so, will they have that regimen of training again?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. In fact, we will exceed our goals this year. We

have six UD Officer’s classes, and six special agent classes that

were scheduled. We will now go to nine and eight classes, so we

expect to hire a lot more people in Fiscal Year 15, and continue

that into 1916. That is a critical need for the Service, and that will

also help with getting more people out to training. In fact, since

September 19th, the Uniform Division training has increased 110

percent. That’s just a snapshot that we’ve got to keep the momen-

tum going. And with the agent side of the house, and the Presi-

dent’s detail, that training has increased 78 percent. Again, not

where we want to be, but as we increase the staff we’ll get more

training for our people.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I thank the gentlewoman. Now recognize

the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica, for 5 minutes.

Mr. M

ICA

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning, Mr. Di-

rector.

I’ve got some questions. I guess this is sort of another gotcha

hearing. We just have incident after incident. We’ve had

Cartagena, we have the fence jumper, we have this most recent

one. And you testified that you cannot take action because—on per-

sonnel as far as discipline because of Title V. But as Chapter 102

of Title V sets some requirements, have you seen a draft that was

prepared last year? Can you give the Director a copy of this draft?

It’s Deliberate Draft 72214, and its amendments to the hiring,

managing, and discipline of its work force. This is amendments for

Secret Service.

So, rather than just talk about more incidents, let’s get down to

the brass tacks of the issues you face. Right?

First is hiring. Right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. M

ICA

. You’ve got to hire good people. You came and you said

you need more people. I submit that you need better people, and

you need better qualifications.

When I left the White House about a week ago, I followed a Se-

cret Service car just by accident and I said, ‘‘What’s that on the

bumper?’’ And it’s actually soliciting for folks to work on the bump-

er of a police vehicle. This is the way we hire folks for the Secret

Service.

I didn’t know your predecessor, Ms. Pierson, although she came

from my local town. She called me after she was there for a while

and she says, ‘‘It’s very difficult to get this place under control. I’ve

got to have some ability to hire better qualified people.’’ I didn’t

know that you didn’t need a college education for some of those po-

sitions. Is that correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. M

ICA

. She said that by law we’ve dumbed down the quali-

fications. So, first you’ve got to hire people. You don’t hire them

with an advertisement on a bumper of a vehicle. You want quali-

fied personnel with the highest qualifications. Right?

Second, you’ve got to be able to manage those personnel. And she

asked for these things way back; in fact, on July 2d there was a

meeting with Government Reform staff. Do you know where these

recommendations are? I was told they went back to DHS.

Mr. C

LANCY

. We have——

Mr. M

ICA

. Where these suggestions for improvement are. Do you

know where they are? Does anyone know? I want to know where

they are, because they’ve been sitting around. She knew what was

wrong before, you know, she was railroaded out. You’ll be rail-

roaded out, too, if we don’t make changes. But the fault is in the

guidelines that you have to follow.

She told me managing personnel, administering them, you have

a 20-year, I guess, retirement, then you have to retire on the law

enforcement side?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s-the older plan was a 20-year retirement, but

the FERS is not 20 years.

Mr. M

ICA

. OK. Well, in any event, when you get to the retire-

ment, then it took 2 years to get people trained for SES positions.

That still exists. Right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. M

ICA

. OK. She said that needed to be changed, because the

time we’re able to administer, you’re hiring people getting the best

qualified. Then you want the best administration. Right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. M

ICA

. OK. so, we have an impediment in that she asked for

that change. Nothing’s been done. It’s probably sitting somewhere

over—then, finally, she said to hold people accountable; Secret

Service holding protectors accountable. That’s what this hearing is

about.

She asked for the ability to hire and fire an exempt agency under

Title V. Do you agree with that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, we do.

Mr. M

ICA

. And that’s one of her recommendations. But we have

to do that, because you—we heard oh, there’s no command. Well,

hell, you don’t have the ability to command, because your hands

are tied by Title V. You can’t hire and fire. You have to go through

this layer.

I chaired Civil Service, and I know how difficult it is to get rid

of folks, even discipline folks. Most people are just moved hori-

zontally to some other position. Isn’t that just the case?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct, yes.

Mr. M

ICA

. OK. So, again, you’ve got to have the ability to hire

and fire.

This proposal, I submit, which was last July, and I read the rec-

ommendations of the little group that came up with some. Until

you address this fundamental problem, that Director, or whoever

succeeds him will not succeed in managing his personnel, because

one, he can’t hire people that are qualified. Two, he can’t manage

or administer those folks. And, three, can’t discipline, and hire and

fire people that need to be held accountable. Is that right, basi-

cally?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Basically, yes, sir.

Mr. M

ICA

. OK. And, finally, if a bullet hits the White House, a

window, or the building, has something been done to address that?

You talked about the fence.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, we have procedures now if there’s any—any-

thing hits the White House. We have instituted procedures since

2011.

Mr. M

ICA

. And I’d like to know more for the record, or behind

the scenes about drones, and how they can penetrate the perim-

eter. Thank you. Yield back.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the

Ranking Member, Mr. Cummings, for 5 minutes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Thank you very much.

Director Clancy, I want to get down to something that you said,

that you said was unacceptable, and that is when you found out

about this incident. You learned of these allegations on May 9th,

which was 5 days after the incident occurred. And that is a big con-

cern for me, and I know it is for this Committee, too.

First and foremost, there’s no doubt that you should have been

informed about this incident immediately. Is that right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct. Yes, sir.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. So, you should have been informed about it the

day of.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, that’s correct.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. At our briefing last week, you told us that no one

in the immediate office had been aware of this incident. Is that cor-

rect?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Last week you testified that the Secret Service

personnel should have reported this incident up the chain. If I have

this right, they should have reported as follows: from personnel on

the ground to the Deputy Chief of the Uniform Division, to the Spe-

cial Agent-in-Charge of Presidential Protective Division, to the As-

sistant Director of Protective Operations, and then to you. Is that

correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Now, yesterday, the Secret Service produced doc-

uments to the Committee indicating that the Deputy Chief of the

Uniform Division, Alfonso Dyson, became aware of these allega-

tions on the night of the incident.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. According to a briefing she sent to the Inspector

General, and I quote; and I guess the briefing sheet is what you

sent to start the investigation in the Inspector General’s Office. Is

that right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct. And let me, if I can, correct the

record, because I know I met with you and other members in a

closed door briefing, and you had asked how was that process start-

ed? And I said, ‘‘I think it’s a phone call.’’ And it was started with

a phone call, but I found out subsequently that there is a followup

letter which is what we provided to you, that followup letter with

our preliminary findings the very first day, on the 9th.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. So, in his—in the briefing sheet it says, and I

quote: ‘‘Deputy Chief Dyson advised that he was familiar with an

incident involving DSAIC Connolly and ATSAIC Ogilvie, and was

briefed about the incident on the evening of March 4th, 2015.’’

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. So, Director, if the Deputy Chief of the Uniform

Division knew about the allegations, did he alert the Special Agent-

in-Charge of the Presidential Protective Division? Did he?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know, sir. I’m going to tell you that I am in-

furiated that I have not been advised on March 4th. Why I didn’t

hear any of that information, I don’t know, but I will tell you that

the Deputy Chief needed to raise that up through the chain of com-

mand. And this is something that I’ve been battling since I first

came back, in a very brief time here. I’ve been back about 30 days,

and we are working furiously to try to break down these barriers

where people feel that they can’t talk up the chain.

I can tell you personally, I’m going out and reaching out to peo-

ple, going to these roll calls and individually. We’ve got our Assist-

ant Director of Investigations going out to the field talking to peo-

ple. We’ve got our Assistant Director of Protective Operations going

out talking to people. We’ve made all these avenues through om-

budsmen, through hotlines and web pages to even anonymously get

information up the chain. And why it didn’t happen in this case,

I don’t know. If you’re not comfortable, and our work force I’m sure

is listening today, if you’re not comfortable going up through your

chain of command, you have all these other avenues anonymously.

You can go and report incidents of misconduct, or whatever you

want to report, but you’ve got to make use of these outlets.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Let me ask you this. How about the Assistant

Director for Protective Operations, when did he learn about these

allegations? Do you know?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know—well, March 9th. March 9th, because

when I found out. I found out the morning of March 9th. I reached

out to the Assistant Director of Protective Operations. He did not

know at that point. I asked him to go find what he knew about it,

what he could find out about it.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. All right. I understand there’s an ongoing IG in-

vestigation, but according to your own testimony you did not learn

about these allegations from anyone at the Secret Service. Correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. I’m concerned about whether there’s still a prob-

lem with the chain of command right now, and it sounds like there

is. Based on what you know today, who is the highest ranked per-

son who knew about this incident and failed to report it, to your

knowledge?

Mr. C

LANCY

. To my knowledge, again, on March 9th is when I

was given all the details we had, and we turned it over to the OIG.

Then I stepped out of it. In all candor, right or wrong, I compart-

mentalize things, and I didn’t want to see it. The Deputy Chief is

the last one that was—that’s how it went.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Well, on more than one time here this morning

you said you had a meeting with your higher ups.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And you told them, this is—you’re not going to

tolerate this. Did you ask them, any of them, did you all know

about this?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, I didn’t. I was very blunt with what was

my——

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Rewind.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. These are your top people. Right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Would that be the top—the eight Assistants?

Mr. C

LANCY

. There would be more than that in this room. At

that point, there were——

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. But you never asked them, you didn’t say, ladies

and gentlemen, who knew about this?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I did not.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Why not?

Mr. C

LANCY

. At that point, I honestly did not want to interfere

with this OIG investigation. I wanted no indication where I might

be pressuring someone, no indication that we’ve reached out to peo-

ple, or people to leave that room and say hey, the Director is ask-

ing for more information. I wanted to give this OIG complete own-

ership of this investigation.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Just one last question, Mr. Chairman. Director,

at any time did you have a staff meeting where you would have

expected—I mean, you know, you and I have talked about the sa-

cred trust in Secret Service, these jobs of honor. Would you have

expected—did you have any meeting amongst your higher ups

where you would have expected somebody who knew about this to

say it to you?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Absolutely. Absolutely. When I heard this on March

9th, I was in disbelief. I didn’t believe it, but I called the ADMPO

and said hey, look, run this out. But I honestly could not believe,

especially over that timeframe.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Now recognize the gentleman from Ten-

nessee, Mr. Duncan, for 5 minutes.

Mr. D

UNCAN

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Director Clancy, all over this country there’s been a growing be-

lief for many years now that the Federal Government and many

top-level Federal employees have been becoming more and more

bureaucratic, elitist, arrogant, and there’s—along with this, there’s

been a growing belief that we’ve ended up with a government that’s

out vying for the bureaucrats instead of one that is up vying for

the people. And when you refuse to allow these four witnesses to

come here and testify to us who are supposed to represent the peo-

ple as best we can, when you refuse to allow these four witnesses

to come, and you refuse to release most of the video that’s been re-

quested, you should realize that this looks very bureaucratic,

elitist, and arrogant.

And it looks as though you feel you’re working—you’re not really

working for the people of this country, that you’re working to pro-

tect the people of the Secret Service. And last week in the House

Appropriations Committee, Chairman Rogers said in a very strong,

very emphatic way that he felt there should be terminations and

firings for all these incidents that have happened. And I hope that

you agree with that.

I assume that you are close friends with Mr. Connolly and Mr.

Ogilvie, but I hope that you feel that you have more of a duty to

the people of this country than you have a duty to protect Mr.

Ogilvie and Mr. Connolly, and the others who have been involved

in this other instance. What do you have to say about that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, you’re absolutely correct, and I’ve already made

changes in our agency of people that I know, and who served hon-

orably, but I wanted a fresh perspective. Friends of mine, I have

moved them, offered them positions in other components in DHS,

so I’m not opposed to moving people that I know. It’s all about the

agency. In terms of

Mr. D

UNCAN

. Well, that’s one of the problems, though. Too often,

Federal employees who really mess up, they aren’t really dis-

ciplined. They’re not cut in pay, they’re not fired, they’re not termi-

nated, they’re just moved to a nice desk job someplace else. And

I’ve already been told that Ogilvie and Connolly have been moved

to some other desk job someplace, and not much at all has been

done to them.

I’m going to yield the balance of my time, though, to Mr. Gowdy.

I think he has another question or two that he wishes to ask.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Thank the gentleman from Tennessee.

Director, who has custody of the video that was retained and pre-

served?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Our Technical Security Division.

Mr. G

OWDY

. And who has the power to make a copy of that video

and turn it over to Mr. Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, I would in consultation with my legal counsel,

but I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t know that for certain.

I’m relatively new in the position. I’ll have to go back——

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, to the extent that you do have the power, or

you have influence over those who do have power, will you rec-

ommend that a copy of all video footage be made available to Mr.

Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Congressman, I’ll certainly talk to our department

and with our legal counsel.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, you don’t need lawyers for everything. I mean,

you’ve got a bunch of them on this panel. And I’m telling you, if

the only excuse they have for not turning it over is there some the-

oretical, potential investigation or prosecution, I promise Mr.

Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz, they’re not going to interfere with ei-

ther one. I’ll promise you that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. G

OWDY

. So, we can eliminate that concern. Now, will you

turn over all available video to Mr. Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, the video will be available at all times, but

I will go back to the department within our agency and revisit this.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Do you know if there was, emphasis on the word

‘‘was,’’ video footage of the alleged officer misconduct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, I’m not aware.

Mr. G

OWDY

. You don’t know whether any of the cameras were

trained on the car that these two agents were in?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The only video I’m aware of, Congressman, is what

we have provided as they entered the gate at the South Park.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, do you have a policy of retention and preserva-

tion of any video that could be potentially part of a criminal inves-

tigation, or officer misconduct? Is that part of your policy?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, we retain video that is related to any incident

on the complex.

Mr. G

OWDY

. So, if there were video of that, no one would have

taped over it, or destroyed it.

Mr. C

LANCY

. The video would not have been destroyed if there

was—if someone saw an incident somewhere else in the complex,

yes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. How about taped over, would it have been taped

over?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, by practice, it’s automatic. You have to—my

understanding is, you have to selectively decide what you want to

preserve; otherwise——

Mr. G

OWDY

. Wouldn’t potential officer misconduct be one of those

things that you wanted to preserve?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Without knowing the facts, I don’t know what took

place beyond that entry point.

Mr. G

OWDY

. I yield to the Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s

time has expired. We now recognize the gentleman from Massachu-

setts, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on National Secu-

rity, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. L

YNCH

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’m a little bit, more than a little bit put out by the willful igno-

rance here. You know, when you—let’s just back up a second. The

Secret Service is an intelligence gathering organization, and then

you don’t ask questions, and you destroy evidence.

I guess the—I’m trying to have faith, I really am. And I offer no

disrespect whatsoever. I think you’re an honorable man, but I’ll tell

you, this whole system—you said at the tail end of your testimony

that you had implemented a change to go to 7 days retention of

video. Is that correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mr. L

YNCH

. So, we went from 72 hours now to 7 days.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct, with the intent to look at our storage

capabilities to go beyond that.

Mr. L

YNCH

. All right. I’m actually going to—if we have to do it

legislatively, the fact that the Department of Homeland Security

requires Logan Airport to retain their video tapes, TSA, for 30

days, if I have to do it legislatively, I’m going to make a rec-

ommendation that we have—we adopt legislation that requires

that Secret Service keep video for 30 days, if that’s what we’ve got

to do.

Director Clancy, who is responsible, who is the individual respon-

sible for Technical Security Division, because I want to send them

a subpoena, as well. They’re not on this list of folks that we had,

but who’s that person?

Mr. C

LANCY

. OK. Now, he is relatively new in the position,

just——

Mr. L

YNCH

. That’s OK.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Joseph DePietro is the Chief of the Technical Divi-

sion now.

Mr. L

YNCH

. OK. So, would it be correct in me assuming that he

is responsible for that whole surveillance around the White House,

and the technology, the tapes, you know, the purging or scrubbing

of the tapes, and all that? Is that the person I want?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, he would be able to talk to those questions that

you have.

Mr. L

YNCH

. OK.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. L

YNCH

. All right. And we would give him a subpoena deuces

tecum, as well, to have him bring whatever information he has.

That would be good.

You know, I mean, the local Piggly Wiggly, my local supermarket

has 30 days of retained tapes, so it’s—you know, by scrubbing

those tapes, not asking for questions, it just—and coming from an

intelligence gathering organization, it’s just—it leaves me almost

speechless. And I just can’t imagine a more deliberate attempt not

to understand the nature of the problem.

Let me see. What’s the penalty—now, it’s clear from the tape

that the two officers drove into an active bomb investigation. I

don’t think there’s any question about that. Right? Mr. Ogilvie and

the other gentleman, I’m blanking on his name, but the two agents.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Mr. Connolly.

Mr. L

YNCH

. Mr. Connolly. OK. So, you have an active bomb in-

vestigation going on, and they drive right into the—you know, they

drive right through it. I guess they were going back to—they left

their car at the White House, so they were going to get their car,

I understand that. But in the meantime, they drove right through

an active bomb investigation. Any disagreement on that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know the facts in terms of going to get a ve-

hicle, but I know they absolutely drove through an active investiga-

tion.

Mr. L

YNCH

. OK. So, there’s no question about that. And, yet, we

reassign them, so we know that. We don’t even ask them questions

about that, and yet, we just reassign them to desk jobs. There’s no

discipline at all. What’s the thinking behind that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. To put them on administrative leave, they would

have administrative leave with pay, and I felt that we could still

get some work out of them. And, also, I didn’t want to do the dis-

cipline in a piecemeal fashion.

Mr. L

YNCH

. Well, I need to interrupt you right there. The signal

that you’re sending to every other Secret Service agent, Uniformed

and PPD, is that those folks were not penalized at all for doing

what they did. And so, you didn’t remove them, you didn’t remove

them. You know, I think it would have been a clear signal to send

to every other member of the Secret Service that those two guys

screwed up, and they’re gone for now. And we’re going to hold them

responsible. Instead, and now you’re thinking about OK, they’ll be

sitting at home instead of working. But I think on balance, I think

it was more important, especially with the history we’ve got here

of folks shooting at the White House, and jumping over the fence,

and it’s like the Keystone Cops here. So, you know, I think it would

be more important message to send to the employees that these

guys screwed up, and they are being held accountable, rather than

just putting them on a desk job.

Mr. C

LANCY

. And, Congressman, rest assured, once we get the

final report which, again, I’m told will be weeks, people will be held

accountable.

Mr. L

YNCH

. Yes.

Mr. C

LANCY

. And I can understand the frustration for many here

on the Committee, as well as within our work force, but they’re

looking to see how are these things handled, and how do you han-

dle agents as opposed to Uniform Division.

Mr. L

YNCH

. Yes.

Mr. C

LANCY

. So, I respect your view, sir.

Mr. L

YNCH

. I just want to—in closing, I just want to say there

needs to be a rapid response to these incidents. We can’t put this

into a bureaucratic process where I get an answer in 8 weeks, or

10 weeks.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. L

YNCH

. That cannot happen. We need to—you need to have

the ability to act right now on an incident like that, rather than,

you know, file some forms, and bring in somebody else and, you

know, engage in willful ignorance, and let somebody else handle

the stuff.

You’re in that spot because you’re very capable, and we need to—

in the future, we need you to have the ability to act. I’ll yield back.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank you gentleman. Now recognize the

gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows, for 5 minutes.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Clancy, thank you for your testimony. I want to return to

what you said earlier about meeting with your senior staff and not

asking what they knew. When did that happen?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, it happened—forgive me, sir, my memory with

everything else is converging. If somebody can—Wednesday.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. Wednesday.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. Wednesday, what date?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That would have been the 11th.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. All right. So, you met with your senior staff, but

you waited until Wednesday to meet with your senior staff when

you were informed of this on the 9th? Why would you wait 2 days

to meet with your senior staff?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I had a hearing on the day in between, and—Mr.

EADOWS

. I have hearings every single day. It doesn’t preclude me

from asking detailed questions like that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Forgive me, sir, let me correct the record. I did not

have a hearing. I don’t know what my schedule was, what I was

doing on Tuesday.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. So, why did you wait 2 days? Was it not impor-

tant to you, Mr. Clancy?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, as I expressed earlier, this is hugely important

to me and to the agency.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. All right. So, why did you—you said earlier you

didn’t ask a question what they knew. You’re not interfering with

an investigation for you to be informed of what they knew. That

wouldn’t have interfered with an investigation. Why wouldn’t you

have asked the question? Is it so that you could pull a Sergeant

Schultz here today that you know nothing? I don’t understand.

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. In fact, when I pulled that group together, this

hearing was not scheduled. I did that because, again, I—it’s prob-

ably hard to understand for this Committee.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. It is very hard for Mr. Lynch and I to understand

how there would be a lack of inquisitive nature on why the Direc-

tor would not want to know.

Mr. C

LANCY

. To be candid, I compartmentalized this incident. I

gave it to the OIG so I could concentrate on—I have protectees all

around the world, classified documents I have to keep up with, the

President of Afghanistan. I’ve got all these other issues that really

I need to focus on today and future threats, and this, in my mind,

I——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. Well, the President of Afghanistan may be very

important and, indeed, he probably is, but the President of the

United States is a lot more important, and I wouldn’t compartmen-

talize and put that somewhere else. Would you?

Mr. C

LANCY

. All of our protectees are important, but certainly

this—in my mind, I gave it to the OIG, and I was content to wait

until we get all the facts and not do things piecemeal because I

thought that was a dangerous path to take, to do things in a piece-

meal fashion, because information starts to leak out, and informa-

tion would have started to leak out. People would start——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. So, keeping these guys there working on adminis-

trative duties, do you not think that they have the ability to talk

to some of their fellow workers and spin a different narrative in-

stead of sending them home, as Mr. Lynch had suggested? Do you

think it’s not dangerous that they might interfere with the inves-

tigation?

Mr. C

LANCY

. They could still converse, in my view, at their resi-

dences with anyone they wanted to, so keeping them——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. So, you haven’t told them not to converse and tell

a different story.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I haven’t spoken to those individuals.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. So, these are GS–15, and you haven’t spoken to

them, why?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The two individuals——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. Right. Why have you not spoken to them?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I didn’t want to, again, interfere with the investiga-

tion. One is an SES and one is a——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. Mr. Clancy, we-you were hired to clean up the

mess.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. And you and I have met personally, before you

were actually the official Director. And I told you about a number

of things where I was actually getting emails.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. And I still get emails, anonymous emails on all

kinds of different things that are happening, details in Honolulu

where we’ve had some of the same accusations made that have

been made in other parts of the country. Details where people have

actually had major offenses and then were left within the Secret

Service and allowed to retire a year later. What are you going to

do, because I asked you specifically about forced transfers and how

the threatening of taking away their security clearance for some of

the rank and file, and yet nothing has been done with that, Mr.

Clancy. Are you going to act on that eventually?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. In terms of threatening to take away their

clearances, I understand that was in a letter that went out to peo-

ple when they were—routinely, we move people around the coun-

try, and it is——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. It’s used as a force of manipulation for most of

the rank and file, at least that’s the way they see it. And so, are

you going to make sure that they know that their security clear-

ance will not be taken away? Pure and simple, yes or no?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Their security clearance is not taken away as——

Mr. M

EADOWS

. If they decide not to transfer, you’re not going to

affect their security clearance.

Mr. C

LANCY

. You can’t do that, Congressman. We need to have

people—for example, now the President’s Detail needs additional

personnel, so we have to move people from the field offices to the

President’s Detail. If they say no, I don’t want to go to the Presi-

dent’s Detail, now we’re short on the President’s Detail. So, we

have to—it’s the nature of our business, and they’re informed of

that when they’re hired.

Mr. M

EADOWS

. You know, this sounds like just the same old

problem that we had under the previous Director, Mr. Clancy, and

I’m very troubled. And I’ll yield back.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the

gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for 5 minutes.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. Thank you. And, Mr. Clancy, welcome to the

Committee, and thank you for your service to your country.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. I want to cite—well, first of all, I think there’s

bipartisan, a lot of bipartisan agreement on this Committee about

a problem, obviously, at Secret Service, and I think that you’re

going to find there’s bipartisan comity and agreement on an ap-

proach to how we resolve this.

My friend, Mr. Gowdy, in his questioning raised a very inter-

esting point, and I’m pretty sympathetic with his point of view, but

I’m open to hearing a counter argument.

You’ve got an OIG investigation going on, so they’re got the

tapes. Well, Congress has a constitutional role irrespective of what

an OIG is doing. Now, the fact that we have the power to compel

doesn’t always mean we should use it, especially with an ongoing

investigation. There are plenty of precedents for not doing that, for

not dropping that hammer because we don’t want to unduly inter-

fere with a prosecution, or whatever it may be. But I will say, to

underscore Mr. Gowdy’s point, I think the burden is on you and

your lawyers to make a case before this Committee representing

the institution of Congress for why at this time it would otherwise

corrupt an ongoing investigation.

Absent such compelling testimony or rationale, it seems to me

this Committee is entitled to those tapes for its own investigative

purposes. We are an independent branch of government and we

have every right to exercise our oversight. Hopefully, we do it re-

sponsibly, but I just—I’m telling you in my view, we’re going to

move forward on a bipartisan basis on this issue, not always the

tradition of this Committee, but in this case, I think that’s where

we’re heading, and I don’t speak for the Ranking Member, but I

join with him in his observations. And I just—a word to the wise,

Mr. Clancy, that’s where we’re headed.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Congressman, I sense all of you, your outrage, all

of you. And I will go back and revisit this with our folks and with

the department, and see if we can accommodate the request. I’ve

heard all of you loud and clear today with what we need to do.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. I thank you. I’m going to try to get through five

questions quickly, and hopefully you’ll cooperate.

Do you believe, given your new responsibilities, and I know

you’ve got a lifetime invested in this very noble service with his-

toric history. Is there, however, do you think parallel with that, or

sort of superimposed on that noble tradition perhaps a creeping

cultural problem that has to be addressed in your ranks? I think

both the Chairman and the Ranking Member catalogued a history

going back of unfortunate headlines.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. Congressman, I think we do. I think, to be can-

did——

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. We do what?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We do have an element that has——

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. OK.

Mr. C

LANCY

. We do have a small element that has a culture of,

in this case—in most of our recent cases, alcohol has been involved

in the most recent cases. However, I will say that the OIG did a

report, and I think 8 percent of our incidents involved alcohol. But

irregardless, in our—looking back at our recent history, some alco-

hol has been used, so that is clearly something I’m concerned

about. And we’re looking at how to address that.

In terms of the culture of not bringing information up through

the ranks there, obviously, is a concern with that as all of you are

getting these anonymous calls, or maybe not anonymous. Either

way, that’s something we’ve got to fix. And I know it’s not a proper

answer, but some of these things take some time, and it has to

come with building trust, and it’s communication, and we’re trying

to hammer this home. Give us a chance through communication.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. OK. The 5-day delay, to what do you ascribe it?

Was it bureaucratic inertia, or do you believe somebody was delib-

erately trying to withhold that from you so that—to preclude your

taking action?

Mr. C

LANCY

. This is speculation on my part. I don’t think anyone

was intentionally hiding it from me, but at a lower level, if they

felt that—I don’t know how they viewed the incident. And the OIG,

again, I’m sorry to keep leaning on him, but we’ll find out those

facts. I don’t want to speculate for those at that level, that rank.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. Obviously, it would be very troubling if it were

the latter. Right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Absolutely.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. Bureaucratic inertia, we can manage through

that and try to clean it up, but if somebody’s deliberately stymying

your ability to scrutinize, you know, an unfortunate incident that

doesn’t put us in a favorable light, then you’ve got a different prob-

lem, Mr. Clancy.

Mr. C

LANCY

. It would be a direct reflection of my leadership.

Mr. C

ONNOLLY

. Well, it would be a direct challenge of your lead-

ership. I don’t know that it yet reflects your leadership. And that’s

another element of concern, I think both for us and for the public.

We had a review panel that recommended strongly that the Presi-

dent should seek an outside Director for your position. He didn’t

take that advice. He chose you, because he had confidence in your,

apparently. And there is an argument to be made that only an in-

sider, a careerist like yourself, can actually make the tough deci-

sions, knows where the bodies are buried, and doesn’t put up with

sort of nonsensical arguments.

On the other hand, the counter argument can be yes, we’ll put

somebody in there who’s co-opted, who couldn’t possibly be a

change agent, and isn’t what we need. I’d like to give you the op-

portunity as my final moment of questioning to respond to that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, thank you, Congressman. Let me just say, one

of the things we’ve done since I’ve come in, it’s not the same old

upper tier of management. We have made some changes, and pri-

marily because we wanted to take better advantage of our subject

matter civilian experts. So, what we’ve done in the past, we’ve had

a Director and a Deputy Director. Now we have a Deputy, just re-

cently made a Deputy Director was named, but additionally at the

same level, a Chief Operating Officer. We’re reaching out for a

Chief Operating Officer who will not be from within the agency. He

or she will be from the private sector. And then underneath that

Chief Operating Officer, who again is on equal level with the agent,

the Deputy Director, we have a tier of several, a Chief Financial

Officer, a Chief Information Officer, several other civilian experts

in that side of the house, and we’re integrating both of them. So,

this is not the same old Secret Service from 1 month ago. In the

short time, 30 days I’ve been here, we’ve made significant changes

to the traditional culture and the structure of the upper manage-

ment. And we are new, including myself, and I’d like to have some

time to try to let that progress.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the

Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, the gen-

tleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, for 5 minutes.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. Director, I’m trying to figure out with this video

policy, last week you said that there were three clips of the woman

with the suspicious package, but only two clips of the agents in the

vehicle, so why is there one more clip of the woman than of the

agents?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Where the female was positioned, it’s outside of

that gate area, just outside, so that is specific to that incident with

the suspicious package, and the confrontation between the officer

and the lady. So, there are three very short clips of that and her

actions.

The other two clips are more—although, it captures the package,

the suspicious package, but it also captures the agents nudging

that barrel and coming through a secure zone.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. So, the third angle just would not have captured

the vehicle. Is that why?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The first one would not have—well, there are two

different timeframes. Yes, I can’t answer that question, sir. I

don’t——

Mr. D

ANTIS

. OK. So, the—because on Mr. Gowdy’s questions

about allowing Congress access, you do not want to provide Con-

gress with any of its own versions or copies that we could then

look, review with the staff, and then determine the next steps that

we may want to take with the investigation. Is that your position?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I just recently said that I will revisit it.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. OK.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I understand the outrage on this. Our initial offer

was to be there whenever you needed to view it. We would provide

it at any time day or night, but I understand that’s not——

Mr. D

ANTIS

. OK, good. Yes, and I’ve been bouncing around, so

I apologize, I did not hear that.

Now, Mr. Gowdy also raised the issue of this Inspector General.

And I know you’re doing what you think you’re required to do, but

sitting here in hearings and across the whole Federal Government

conducting oversight, the number of times when witnesses say

well, that’s the IG, you know. We can’t do anything. We can’t give

you information, Congress, because of the IG. And I just don’t be-

lieve that that was ever the intent of Inspector Generals to cause

the rest of the world to stand still. I mean, we have an independent

duty to conduct oversight over all these agencies. We are asked to

fund the agencies, and I think the American people, obviously,

need to know what’s going on, so that we can make decisions about

that.

What is the timeline of the IG investigation?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I’m told weeks. Now, again, I haven’t been con-

versing with the IG. I did have one call with the Inspector General,

but I’m told that it would be a matter of weeks, not months.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. And he’s also doing a kind of look-back investiga-

tion for some of the previous incidents. Is that correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I saw that somewhere in print, but I’m not sure we

talked about that.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. So, that was not something that you asked the

IG. You went to the IG with the incident at the gate.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Specifically, this incident, yes.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. OK. And then at that point—well, let me ask you

this. With the witnesses that were invited, we had four witnesses

that we asked to attend. They are not, obviously, here, so what is

the reason for not bringing those witnesses here today?

Mr. C

LANCY

. There’s a couple of reasons for that, right or wrong.

They’re the rank and file. They didn’t sign up for coming in front

of an open hearing with this—with the cameras, and lights. And

I think it’s my responsibility. It’s my responsibility——

Mr. D

ANTIS

. But, did you—correct me if I’m wrong, but you

have not allowed them to be interviewed behind the scenes, have

you?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We have not. I understand the staffs may still be

discussing that, and correct me if I’m wrong in this, but my under-

standing is that we’re not doing that. Again, it goes back to inter-

viewing people twice, you get different stories. Every time you

interview someone, you get a little slight difference, not inten-

tionally, but it could be perceived different. And we went through

some examples of this in the closed-door hearing, but I think you

should have one investigation, initially, to do their investigation,

and then if there are gaps or whatever, then certainly others can

followup.

Mr. D

ANTIS

. Well, I think that that’s problematic. I mean, we

have our own duty to conduct oversight, and the questions that we

may ask from a congressional perspective may be different than

what an IG would be looking at. And I think we’re all interested

in accountability, but how that accountability will be done within

the executive branch will be different than how we, as a group that

has received recommendations, that knows that there’s going to be

funding issues with this, of some of the issues that we would want

to examine. So, I’m not satisfied that that is the way to do it, and

I join the Chairman. I wish, you know, at a minimum that these

witnesses would have been provided, at least behind the scenes so

that we could have received some answers. And I yield back.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I will revisit that, sir.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the

gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs. Lawrence, for 5 minutes.

Mrs. L

AWRENCE

. Thank you, Chairman.

Director Clancy, I looked for the core values of the Secret Serv-

ice, and on the website it says that the agency has five core values,

‘‘Justice, duty, courage, honesty, and loyalty. These values in the

Secret Service which is worthy of trust and confidence. And that

to reinforce these values, Secret Service leaders and employees pro-

mote and measure personal accountable and program performance

across the agency by holding each person to the highest standards

of personal and professional integrity. The Secret Service assures

that they preserve the core values and the fulfillment of the vision

and the success of that mission.’’

And then I’m always interested in leadership, and so I under-

stand that you have 27 years as a veteran of the Secret Service.

And during your career, you were a special agent in charge of the

Presidential Protection Division.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Mrs. L

AWRENCE

. You, yourself was in charge of that division.

And that during your tenure of 27 years, you also served in the Se-

cret Service Office of Investigation, the agency’s Internal Affairs

Division. Is that correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct, for a brief time.

Mrs. L

AWRENCE

. So, my concern after listening to all the testi-

mony, and my question to you today, is that I recognize that you

were brought into this office, or given this opportunity. You’ve been

in the office a little more than 30 days, but you were brought in

in February of this year. Correct? And I would—in looking at your

resume, I would think that experience like this would put you in

a position where investigative skills, the knowledge of how a de-

partment should operate having—because you went up through the

ranks, so you have actually performed the duties of the people you

are now the Director of.

But I hear things like I don’t know, I’m outraged, that shouldn’t

have happened, yes, there is a culture. When you’re put into the

job, you’re expected to bring all those skills and to provide leader-

ship, and to be able to address issues and concerns.

I’m really challenged right now. My question to you, with all of

your experience, and with the continuing—because when you were

brought on, we already had those issues that we have outlined

today. What—how are you going to make a difference? I know that

you said you need time, but when I hear you didn’t talk to those

who were your executive level to investigate this, when you, your-

self were in charge of the agency’s Internal Affairs, I would think

that you would be really prepared to be able to dig right into that.

And to sit here today and have a clear vision, and a clear mission

under your leadership, how you’re going to address these. And I’m

not hearing that.

So, my question to you today as a Member of Congress and of

this Committee is, where is the vision, the leadership, and just the

fierce commitment to these core values that you took yourself per-

sonally, that you now personally are in charge of making sure that

that is the mission of this agency? I need you to give that to me,

because I’m not hearing it.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Congresswoman, in my opening Statement I said

this is my life’s work. I’ve spent most of my life, 27–28 years pro-

tecting four Presidents. I’ve given everything I had at great ex-

pense, personal expense, to insure that our protectees, our Presi-

dents are safe. I didn’t come back from private industry to just

enjoy the ride. This is critical for me, it’s critical for the country.

I’m going to give it everything I have. I’m immersed in it, I spend

hours talking to people at all levels, and we’re pushing it out to

this new leadership team that we’ve just built. We built this new

leadership team, we’re bringing up the professional people to marry

the responsibilities of law enforcement, get them working together.

This is a new look. We’re trying to reinvigorate the look of the

Secret Service. And, unfortunately, I can’t—I don’t have a magic

wand. It’s going to take a little bit of time, but one of the things

that’s going to be key here is once this report is done, our people

are held accountable. And we have this Table of Penalties that

we’ll work with, and it’s based on what other agencies use, and

we’ve only had it for about a year, but we will definitely be holding

people accountable. And that’s what our people want to see. You

know, when you go around and ask why is their morale down,

there’s several reasons. Quality of life is one of them, but the other

thing is we’re not holding people accountable in a consistent man-

ner. And I think that’s what one of the members said here today,

so that’s our first test. Are we being consistent with the way we

hold people accountable? And insure we followup with that ac-

countability.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I thank the gentlewoman.

Mrs. L

AWRENCE

. I yield back my time, but results is what will

measure your leadership.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mrs. L

AWRENCE

. Thank you.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentlewoman. Will now recog-

nize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mulvaney, for 5 min-

utes.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.

Clancy, for being here.

I’m going to ask you a couple of specific questions about the inci-

dent that we’ve been discussing here today, and then we’ll talk

more generally, I think, about the agency.

As best I can tell, a layman summary of this is that a woman

dropped off what she said was a bomb at 10:24 on a Wednesday

night. Yet, it looks like the Be On The Lookout order didn’t go out

until Thursday afternoon at 4:15. Is that—does that delay surprise

you? Is that ordinary course of business? Is that unusual?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can’t confirm. I’m going to ask my staff if that’s

the actual timeframe for that to go out.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Well, let’s assume for sake of discussion that it

is. Would that be too long?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It would be too long.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Have you all looked into why, because I can as-

sure you it did take that long. I’m looking at the document in front

of me. I’d be happy to share it with you, but have you investigated

why that happened yet?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Our Investigative Office certainly will investigate

why. They’re going to look at the whole process.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. OK. But you’ve talked to your folks about this.

Right? I mean, you said you talked to your senior folks about it.

You’ve done perhaps not a formal investigation, but you’ve asked

them why. Right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. On the incident involving the lady throwing the

suspicious package, I have talked to our people about that, been

briefed on the incident.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. But you still don’t have any idea why it took

that long to put out the Be On The Lookout Order?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know why it took that long, no.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. And then—and, again, I’m just coming to this

issue for the first time. You found her, Friday morning, the woman

who threw a package at the White House, and then ran over a Se-

cret Service agent with an open car door as she was speeding away.

Well, you found her on Friday morning at a hotel in Virginia. Your

agents talked to her in the lobby of the hotel while she’s having

breakfast and they didn’t detain her. Were you aware of that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am aware of it after being briefed, yes.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Why didn’t they detain her?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I’m going to make an assumption here. Other than

the fact that there was no arrest warrant out, the arrest warrant

came out the following day, I believe.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. How long should it take you to get a warrant for

somebody who throws a bomb at the White House?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, the other factors here, again, making an as-

sumption, is that at this point we know there are—we know that

she has a history with the Secret Service, and she has been inter-

viewed in the past.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. She does have a history, so you knew who she

was. The arrest warrant, by the way, didn’t go out until the fol-

lowing Tuesday. It took you 7 days to get the warrant to arrest this

lady, which takes me to the next step in the timeline. On Saturday,

she was arrested by local police in Virginia, and the local police

called your PIOC, and the PIOC told the local police that the sus-

pect is no longer a Secret Service—on the Secret Service Lookout.

Were you aware of that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I was not.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Does that strike you as something unusual and

strange, and perhaps wrong?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It does. I’m not sure why she would not be a look-

out.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. And I guess we—I don’t want to pile on, Mr.

Clancy, because I know it’s been a rough day for you, but I would

hope that—this has been a month now since this happened. You

knew it was a high-profile event, and granted a lot of the attention

went to what happened with the officers that evening, but still, a

woman threw a bomb at the White House, at least something she

said was a bomb when she dropped it off. It turned out that it

wasn’t. And for you at this point, sir, not to know these details is

a little disappointing to me, but we’ll leave that for another day.

Let me ask you my general question. You’ve been there 27 years.

You seem like a very dedicated public servant, and I thank you for

your service. I think people undervalue folks like you and what you

do for this Nation. Has it always been this bad?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, sir.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. What changed?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Sir, I’ve got—I don’t know that answer. I wish I did.

I know there was great dedication when I was younger, and I think

there is—I know there’s great dedication now.

I honestly believe it’s a smaller element of people that are not

satisfied. And, again, it goes back to how we’re treating our people,

you know. And they’re getting crushed, some of them, with the

hours because the staffing is so limited. And we’re up for some real

challenges as we go into the fall here with the Pope’s visit, and the

U.N. That is going to be a tremendous challenge which, again, is

going to create a tremendous burden on our work force. And I

think that’s part of it, too.

I think that the demands on the work force as our mission has

somewhat expanded, but primarily our staffing levels haven’t kept

up. And I think that’s affecting our morale, but I don’t want to dis-

miss the leadership. You know, leadership is a key part of this, too,

and that’s something that I’ve got to correct and have got to work

on. But the staffing levels which we’re making some headway to,

I think that’s going to help over time.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Let’s look at that together. Let me ask you one

last question, Mr. Clancy, just out of curiosity. Was it better when

you all were under Treasury? Is that part of the problem here, that

you’re under Homeland now, and not Treasury?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, I was a young agent, a young manager when

we were under Treasury, so I don’t know those relationships and

how that worked during that timeframe, so I wouldn’t be able to

give a good answer on that.

Mr. M

ULVANEY

. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the

gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Plaskett, for 5 minutes.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. Yes, good morning. And thank you very much,

Chairman and Ranking Member. Mr. Clancy, thank you so much

for your time here.

My questions really go along the same line, but a much more

condensed timeframe, as my colleague, Mr. Mulvaney. And I want-

ed to really talk with you about allegations that are out there, as

opposed to facts. I have a real problem with people putting infor-

mation out that is not substantiated by direct facts, so I wanted to

talk about this anonymous email, and some of the allegations that

are in it.

We understand that you received this anonymous email 5 days

after the fact. Correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. And you’re now very familiar with this, and it

was given to this Committee yesterday. And I wanted to walk you

through some of the allegations that were in there to see what you

have been able to ascertain as being factual, as opposed to those

which are not credible, or you still do not have information about.

In the email, it says at some point an ATSAIC from WFO,

George Ogilvie, and a PPD DSAIC, Marc Connolly, drove through

a crime scene tape. Now, I’m going to get back to that allegations

of a crime scene tape specifically, but later on it says the officers

at the scene said that they were both extremely intoxicated. They

were coming home from Ed Donovan’s retirement dinner.

Were they, in fact, coming home—coming, returning from a re-

tirement dinner? Do you know that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I know there was a retirement dinner that night.

I don’t know if they were coming from the retirement dinner.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. You haven’t been able to ascertain the list of the

guests or individuals who were there?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have not. I stepped away from it, for the OIG.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK. But the OIG is looking into that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, they are.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. All right. And they apparently flipped on the

lights of their GOVs to go around the roadblocks. What’s a GOV?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It’s a Government-Owned Vehicle.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. So, they were in government vehicles coming back

to the White House.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That’s correct.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. And they went—did they, in fact, go around the

roadblock? What does that mean?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know that. It would be an assumption on my

part. I know that when they arrived at the gate on E Street and

15th Street, there was a barrel there that was placed there by our

officers to secure the zone, and they did go through, they moved

that barrel over.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK. Well, it says—the email says apparently,

flipped on the lights. Does that mean—you know, I’ve been an in-

vestigator and a prosecutor. Apparently means that the person

doesn’t know themselves. What do you think? Were they—do you

believe that this individual who sent this email was, in fact, there

at the scene?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can only—I don’t know that, because I don’t know

if the lights were flipped on or not. You know, reading that, it

sounds like it’s secondhand information, but that would be an as-

sumption on my part.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. That’s what I get out of it. And that the agents

nudged the barrel, as opposed to—we have heard nudged, we’ve

heard crashed. Which one was it?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It was more of a nudge. It was on the right side of

the bumper. It was——

Ms. P

LASKETT

. And why would you call it a nudge, as opposed

to a crash?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Because there was—the barrel didn’t crossover. It

wasn’t—it was more of a purposeful move, it wasn’t losing control

of a vehicle. It was a very delicate movement of the barrel with the

vehicle.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. How fast were they going?

Mr. C

LANCY

. One to two miles an hour.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. So, to crash something would probably require a

much greater speed.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, the barrel would have been tipped over.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK. Now, I want to talk about a specific time pe-

riod. We have, and you tell me if I’m correct with these times, at

10:24 the suspect drives up. Correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, that’s correct.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. And then at 10:30, the Joint Operation Center no-

tifies the Metropolitan Police Department.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, that’s correct.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. 10:32, they report the—the Uniform Division re-

ports the incident to the Joint Operating Center. Right, 10:32?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t have the timeline in front of me, but yes.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. And then at 10:47, a notification message goes

out. Right, at 10——

Mr. C

LANCY

. According to the timeline, yes, I believe.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK. Now, at 10:47 the PIC sends a notification

message regarding the suspicious package.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. And then at 11:12, the PIC issues the first of two

notification alerts regarding the suspicious package.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK. What is the difference between the one at

10:47, a notification message, and the 11:12, the notification alerts?

Mr. C

LANCY

. 11:12, the alerts should be the same. They’re both

Protective alerts to alert the Director staff that there is a sus-

picious package, or there’s an incident at the White House, or

whatever the incident is. So, they are updates to the original alert.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK. And when did the officers arrive on the

scene?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Metropolitan arrived——

Ms. P

LASKETT

. No, the two officers in question.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Oh, the two officers in question arrived at——

Ms. P

LASKETT

. 10:58.

Mr. C

LANCY

. 10:58.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. 10:58, so they didn’t know that there was a scene

there, did they, at 11:12 when the notifications went out?

Mr. C

LANCY

. They should have. They would have received the no-

tification. Typically, senior staff would receive these notifications,

so they should know. And the assumption is they saw the barrels

there, and they should know.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. But was, based on the emails, was there crime

scene tape? Was there any notification, was there anything there

that would have let them know that this was a scene, a crime

scene?

Mr. C

LANCY

. From the video that I looked at, the Committee has

looked, I don’t remember seeing any crime tape or any tape. There

may have been some out there, but I just—I didn’t see it in the

video that I saw.

Ms. P

LASKETT

. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indul-

gence with the time. It just appears that this anonymous email

does not, necessarily, comport with the information that we have.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. That is why we need to see the tapes.

We will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, for

5 minutes.

Mr. H

ICE

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Clancy, who is required, under the policies of the Secret

Service, to report misconduct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Anyone can report misconduct.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. We have a slide in that regard. So my question

is not, can anyone report misconduct, but who is required to do so?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Every supervisor is required—is required to report

misconduct.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. And if a supervisor fails to report misconduct,

there are penalties.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. H

ICE

. And we have another slide. OK.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That is correct.

Mr. H

ICE

. All right. So these slides are accurate in terms of what

is required and the punishment, the penalty, if policy is not fol-

lowed.

On the night of March 4, Captain Michael Braun was a watch

commander overseeing the White House. Is that correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That is correct.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. And in a nutshell, what does the ‘‘watch com-

mander’’ mean?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The watch commander is the on-duty supervisor for

the White House complex.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. So the on-duty supervisor in charge that night.

Who does the supervisor, the watch commander, report to?

Mr. C

LANCY

. He reports to the—to an inspector in uniformed di-

vision.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. Who does the inspector report to?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The inspector reports to the Deputy Chief in uni-

formed division.

Mr. H

ICE

. Which would be who?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Which would be Alfonso Dyson.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. Who does Deputy Chief Dyson report to?

Mr. C

LANCY

. He reports to the special agent in charge of the

President’s detail.

Mr. H

ICE

. Which would be who?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Robert Buster.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. Now, you have confirmed that the incident was

reported. Is that correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The——

Mr. H

ICE

. Yes. The incident on March 4, it was all reported. Did

it go through the proper chain of command?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It was reported up to the Deputy Chief of the White

House complex, Mr. Dyson, and from that point on I don’t know

what notifications were made.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. Were the reports that were made done so in a

timely manner? When were they reported?

Mr. C

LANCY

. And, again, there is two separate incidents, though.

If you are talking about the misconduct, I know that it stopped

at——

Mr. H

ICE

. Or, really, both. I mean, the question, I am trying to

determine if we are following the proper chain of command——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Right.

Mr. H

ICE

[continuing]. And doing so properly.

Mr. C

LANCY

. The incident involving the throwing of the books,

that followed the proper chain of command. The incident involving

the misconduct, it did not follow.

Mr. H

ICE

. It did not. OK. And so it did not. Could it be that it

did not follow the proper chain of command for the misconduct be-

cause he was a superior officer, a superior agent? Could they have

been intimidated, fearful, or even instructed not to report Mr.

Connolly?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can’t answer that, but I am sure when they inter-

view the watch commander that would come out. But I don’t—I

can’t answer that. I don’t know.

Mr. H

ICE

. Don’t you think you should know?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, I will know once the investigation is com-

pleted.

Mr. H

ICE

. OK. What would have happened to this crime scene

had it been disturbed by someone other than Secret Service agents?

Would anything have been handled differently? What if someone

driving a car ran into the area?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. I would say they would be interviewed—they

would be detained, they would be interviewed, and see if there was

intent. Did they know what they were doing? Was there intent to

disrupt the zone?

Mr. H

ICE

. But that did not happen if it is an agent. So is one

set of policies for an agent, which is basically nothing, versus had

it been a civilian, the entire scenario would have been treated dif-

ferently?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, not knowing all the facts, it may have been

longer——

Mr. H

ICE

. But that is what you seem to be indicating. Had it

been someone else——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. H

ICE

[continuing]. It would have all been treated differently.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. H

ICE

. Do you have policies for agents who are intoxicated?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. If you are driving under the influence and op-

erating a motor vehicle, there are penalties for that.

Mr. H

ICE

. Do you believe that the agents who responded to this

incident should be reprimanded for any failure not to report accord-

ing to policy?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Now, I am prejudging here, but—the investigation,

but if they—if we find that people did not report to their—all the

way up through the chain of command, absolutely.

Mr. H

ICE

. But you have already admitted——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Absolutely.

Mr. H

ICE

[continuing]. You have already admitted that that did

not happen.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. I can’t say that I know that it went to the Dep-

uty Chief, but I don’t know where it went after that.

Mr. H

ICE

. But there was a breakdown. So there was obvi-

ously——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, there is a breakdown, yes, sir.

Mr. H

ICE

[continuing]. A breakdown.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Because I——

Mr. H

ICE

. Yes. OK.

Mr. C

LANCY

[continuing]. I didn’t hear about it. Yes, sir.

Mr. H

ICE

. And so you have also admitted that there should be

reprimands.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. H

ICE

. What reprimands have taken place to this point for

those agents who did not properly report?

Mr. C

LANCY

. None to this point, sir, because, right or wrong, I

don’t want to piecemeal some of these disciplinary actions. And I

want to wait until I hear all the facts, too, because there is a lot

of hearsay out there right now, and I would like to get the one de-

finitive report.

Mr. H

ICE

. You have Stated a significant number of facts, and

there has still been no reprimand. I find that inexcusable, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman.

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms.

Lujan Grisham, for 5 minutes.

Ms. L

UJAN

RISHAM

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Clancy, I recognize that this is a difficult environment, and

I have to say that I think there is general agreement by both sides

of the aisle in this Committee, and in other committees of jurisdic-

tion, that this is a significant series of issues that affect the Secret

Service, and then ultimately affect the security and safety of the

Commander-in-Chief, and largely everybody else in the White

House, and the credibility of the country as a whole about our abil-

ity to provide that level of protection and security here and cur-

rently abroad.

And I also know that no amount of money will fix an environ-

ment that is like the environment that you are describing, where

there are questions of accountability, transparency, whether there

are reprimands, whether those are fair, whether it is clear that you

have got low morale, that folks aren’t reporting incidents.

You have said—while you are having an independent review, you

did say that the chain of command on the face was not followed,

and I would have to agree that even if you get ancillary and addi-

tional information that that, in and of itself, warrants some action.

And there may be other actions as you garner more information

about what is coming. And so I believe that without a sustained

and concerted effort to change the culture of the Secret Service that

nothing will change.

Now, I say this because I have headed a difficult culture change

in my career when I was the Department of Health Secretary, and

it requires rigorous, constant work, and a clear timeframe where

you are evaluating whether or not those culture shifts are making

a difference. And while it is—I understand that you are making ad-

ministrative changes, that there will be some new folks, if you are

not careful and that is all administrative, you still aren’t going to

attract the right kinds of shifts in a culture change in that—in the

Secret Service.

And I also recognize that you have got a very difficult job, and

that we expect you, because that is part of your job, you have to

restore not only the operations but our trust, and the public’s trust,

that you can do that. I also know it is an honor and a privilege to

work for the Secret Service.

So here is the question. Tough environment, we don’t feel like we

are getting the right answers. You are trying to have some inde-

pendence, but we are not seeing the kind of work day to day that

would indicate leadership on culture change. Give me some sub-

stantive, clear examples, more than the CAO, about what you are

doing to instill a culture shift in the Secret Service.

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. 1 is staffing. We know that our people are being

overworked, and we are trying to buildup their staffing and, once

we do that, give them more training, so that they can—if they re-

ceive this training, they are going to feel more pride in their work

I think, be more efficient, and just operate better.

We have also initiated about 5 weeks ago, 6 weeks ago now, a

work life initiative, where we are reaching out to our work force

to see what is troubling them, what do they need from us, what

suggestions do they have. We have brought in an outside contractor

to do this. We expect to hear some very promising results.

But I would say also that some of these changes we are making,

including the COO and the CIO, et cetera, the chief financial offi-

cer, those changes are going to have an impact on the work force.

Ms. L

UJAN

RISHAM

. I am not getting a sense, though, about

that timeline. And I am not saying I disagree that those invest-

ments are important, but I am going to disagree that you need to

give me something—I would like something about your manage-

ment style.

If there is not accountability for every investment that you make

in supporting that work force, which I agree you have got to have

a work force that feels like they are supported, but they also have

to feel like it is a fair work environment. And if there is no ac-

countability or transparency, I don’t believe that you will have the

changes that you desire. What kind of management style, what is

the message that you are providing today to the Secret Service?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We are reaching out in ways that we haven’t done

it in the past, to hear our work force, all of our executives are get-

ting out to talk to the work force, an investigation. In fact, next

week I am going——

Ms. L

UJAN

RISHAM

. So accountability is not part of your man-

agement style.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Oh, absolutely, it is.

Ms. L

UJAN

RISHAM

. I mean, I am not hearing that from you,

Mr. Clancy.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, accountability—and, again, once this inves-

tigation is completed, then we will see what accountability is ad-

ministered. And we do have this table of penalties, which is very

strict, we have to follow, and it shows that we are serious about

holding people accountable.

So there is no making decisions on our own here, how do we dis-

cipline; we have it in stone and it is modeled after other agencies.

So, and you are right, that is what our people want to see—ac-

countability, fairness across the board.

Ms. L

UJAN

RISHAM

. I am still concerned, I have to say.

With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. We thank the gentlewoman.

We will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter,

for 5 minutes. Mr. Palmer, pardon. Mr. Palmer.

Mr. P

ALMER

. Second straight hearing where I have been mis-

appropriated to the wrong State. My jurisdiction has expanded.

Thank you, Mr. Clancy, for coming in today. There is many re-

ports that suggest the Secret Service morale is at an all-time low.

According to the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government

Report, the agency ranks 226 out of 300 agencies. There are rou-

tine requests for uniformed division officers to work on their days

off, and the Secret Service’s failure to pay proper overtime.

This is particularly troubling in the context of what we have

been discussing, because when you have low morale at what was

once one of the most respected agencies in the world, it seems to

be indicative of a climate and an environment not conducive to ex-

cellence and, in some respects, not conducive to integrity.

How do you respond to that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, you are exactly right. When I went to this roll

call the other night, the first question when I asked, what are the

issues here, what do you need and why, why are we having these

issues? And the staffing was the first thing they said. They said,

‘‘We can’t get a day off.’’ To get a day off in uniformed division,

very often you have to put in a leave slip to—sick leave, because—

and you may have a very important function within your family.

Now, we all grow up with that. You know, you miss your anni-

versaries and birthdays, and all that, growing up, but it is more

exasperated now, especially within uniformed division. They are

routinely held over for an additional 4 hours or their days off are

canceled, and that is one of the most important things we have got

to address.

Mr. P

ALMER

. Let us talk about the excessive overtime. And this

was brought up in a previous hearing and the lack of training. I

think they said that uniformed officers were getting 25 minutes of

training, and that the protection detail previously had been spend-

ing 25 percent of their on-duty time in training. It is now down to

2 percent.

Does that not indicate that you have got a staffing problem? And

not only that, in the context of what has happened, the quality of

the people that you are recruiting—I, frankly, don’t understand

why you are advertising for Secret Service agents on bumper stick-

ers instead of going to college campuses and recruiting the best and

brightest that you can find.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, first of all, we have corrected that. We have

asked for funding to go out to these universities, to the military

bases, and do a better job of recruiting. I will say, we get still, last

I heard, 40,000 people apply for a special agent position. So we are

getting a lot of people, but trying to get the right people, it takes

us a while to get to them.

Mr. P

ALMER

. All right. In that regard, though, Deputy Assistant

Director James Helminski sent an email to all of the Secret Service

field offices saying that because of an upcoming class the Secret

Service was trying to fill in March, all background investigations

had to be completed within 3 days. I, in a previous position, had

a national security clearance, and I can promise you that they did

not do the background check in 3 days. Are you familiar with this

email?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am not familiar with that particular email. I know

typically they are given 14 days, and I think there is some talk to

bring it back to 10 days, to speed up that background check. But

they still go through the polygraph examination, they still go

through several other steps.

Mr. P

ALMER

. Ten days, though. Even 10 days, you know——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, right.

Mr. P

ALMER

[continuing]. When you are responsible for safe-

guarding the President and his family and other members of the

executive branch, does it make sense to have in this case a 3-day

background check?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. Let me just say this, that there are specific re-

quirements in that background check, so they have to be met. We

don’t lessen the requirements. And, again, it is about a 7-month or

8-month process to ensure that we get right people, good people.

They are fully vetted, and that is one of the reasons why it takes

a while to get our staffing levels up.

Mr. P

ALMER

. You have had some foreign nationals——

Mr. C

LANCY

. And, yes, clearance. Yes, sir.

Mr. P

ALMER

[continuing]. You have had some foreign nationals

apply, and in one case you had a Chinese-born foreign national who

had—apparently had her review expedited in the Washington field

office, despite the fact that it wasn’t confirmed whether or not she

had renounced her Chinese citizenship. What is the Secret Serv-

ice’s policy for someone who applies—a foreign national who ap-

plies who has dual citizenship?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t have that answer. But to be an advisor, you

have to renounce your citizenship, renounce your citizenship. Man-

datory.

Mr. P

ALMER

. I realize that this country is a melting pot, but does

it make sense that we are not—that we are recruiting foreign na-

tionals to serve in the Secret Service?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. You have to be a U.S. citizen. That is—to be

employed by the Federal Government.

Mr. P

ALMER

. I believe my time has expired. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman from Alabama, great

State of Alabama.

Mr. P

ALMER

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Now recognize the gentleman from Wis-

consin, Mr. Grothman, for 5 minutes.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. Thanks much. First of all, I want to just say I

disagree a little bit for one of my Statements of one of my col-

leagues. It doesn’t bother me if some of your guys don’t have col-

lege degrees. That is overrated. I know so many great people with-

out college degrees.

But let me ask you some questions, digging a little bit more

about this situation with this woman’s vehicle. According to Metro-

politan Police, they weren’t contacted until 30 minutes after she

fled the scene. Is that an accurate Statement?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know if that is accurate or not, sir.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. I would look into it, because at least that

is what I have here on my paper. And, I mean, to me if you had

two law enforcement divisions—you know, say in my neck of the

woods the county and the city—and somebody was fleeing into the

county, man, the sheriff’s department would be notified imme-

diately. I mean, it is kind of scary if it took them 30 minutes.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I would just say that I know they in a very short

period of time I think reached out for the bomb explosive unit, so

it should have been in that same timeframe that the police force

was notified.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. Maybe my stuff here is wrong, but check into it.

Did you have a copy of her license plate right away?

Mr. C

LANCY

. They had a license plate.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. Did the officer—did you find somebody show

up like right away where she lived, assuming there was——

Mr. C

LANCY

. My understanding is that the license plate is what

helped identify who this individual was.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. Right, right, right. And I assume that once you

know who the person is at least they have an address on file. Did

somebody show up at the——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

[continuing]. House?

Mr. C

LANCY

. They showed up at the spouse’s address in the

Philadelphia region, and we had agents go out to that residence

and talk to the spouse, who indicated that this lady was down in

the Washington area.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. What was their name?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can’t say that in a public hearing. I will be happy

to give it to you later.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. What else can I say? For every open spot,

how many applications do you get for Secret Service?

Mr. C

LANCY

. When I first came back here at the Acting Director,

I was told that for a special agent vacancy announcement we had

45,000 people apply, and very few actually made it through the

process.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. Like ‘‘very few’’ means how many?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am told there are about 70 that made it through

the process. Now, that is on USAJobs, 45,000, and so it was very

cumbersome.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. But you get 70 people who at least make

the first thing for everybody—everybody in there. You have said a

lot of these problems are alcohol-related, which is kind of scary, but

you were not familiar with how to deal with them. I guess it kind

of bothers me because like I have a lot of trucking companies in

my district.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. And you can’t drink at all. And, nevertheless,

these guys never seem to have huge problems finding guys to drive

a truck who don’t have an alcohol problem. And I guess I will just

suggest you talk to some of the local trucking firms. And if, you

know, you guys are having a hard time finding guys without alco-

hol problems, you can ask them how they do it.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, first of all, we have changed the policy driv-

ing—within 10 hours, you cannot enter a government-owned vehi-

cle or a leased vehicle. That policy has gone out. We revisited that

and—yes.

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. OK. I would just wrap up with one more thing

and kind of a followup on what Congressman Palmer said there.

When I was a kid, I mean, the Secret Service was the top of the

top. I mean, if you heard the Secret Service was coming to town,

you really felt you had an elite institution.

And, you know, you go through the stuff in the file when they

got their name in the paper the last four or 5 years, it is kind of

embarrassing. I mean, it is almost like a screen play for some com-

edy or something like that. So just good luck in your new job, and

hope you can do something to bring back the pride, and just ex-

plain to the guys you are working with, and gals that you are

working with, that right now it is like—like I said, you look at it,

it is like it is some comedy movie starring Phil Silvers or some-

thing or other.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Congressman, thank you, and I will say that as we

are focusing on certainly the negative aspect that we have had over

several years here, I don’t want to paint the entire 6,500 force in

a negative light. We have people that are doing great work, and

they are pained by this as much as we are here. But there is cer-

tainly an element, and rightfully so, we have got to work to try to

get them to where they need to be.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. G

ROTHMAN

. Thanks much for coming over. I yield the re-

mainder of my time.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Let me ask you, 45,000 applications. Why do—

what is the reason most of these people don’t make it? And I think

a lot of people don’t realize that we are hitting a brick wall in this

country, in many instances with regard to quality of people. And

I hate to say it, when I listen to my Bowman City Police Depart-

ment and others, they tell me they have to go through a whole lot

of applications before they can get to a few people.

And I am just wondering, when you are talking about 45,000, to

fill how many positions?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That would be a class of 24 is my understanding,

that that is what I heard when I first came back.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And so what is the main reasons why—if you

know.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. Again, this is more anecdotal than having the

stats right in front of me, but primarily it is drugs, drug-related

past or credit issues in the past. They are two of the things that

rule people out.

But one of the things we are doing now is with this excepted

service we can bring people in that we may know that have a good

background, and they can get into that pipeline a little bit quicker

to go through the polygraph and do the background check and all

that. So rather than waste a lot of time on people that we don’t

know if they are going to make it through or not, we can highlight

those that we know will probably get through that process.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Thank you.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Pursuant to Clause

B of Committee Rule 9, we will use the next 60 minutes for an ex-

tended period of questioning of the witness. I will now recognize

myself for 30 minutes.

Director Clancy, who was the most senior official on duty the

evening of March 4?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Most senior official on duty at the White House was

the watch commander, Captain Braun.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Captain Braun. Did the individual act ap-

propriately and report the incident per United States Secret Serv-

ice policy?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I know he reported it up to the next level.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Which is?

Mr. C

LANCY

. To the lieutenant or, I am sorry, the inspector. He

reported it up to his inspector, who was not on the complex.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Is it the Joint Operations Center?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. The inspector is just his in-line supervisor.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. And he did report it.

Mr. C

LANCY

. To the inspector. That is my understanding.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Did the inspector report it, then, to who?

Mr. C

LANCY

. My understanding, again, from the initial prelimi-

nary review was he reported it to the Deputy Chief, Alfonso Dyson.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who is he supposed to report it to?

Mr. C

LANCY

. He would report it or should report it to the special

agent in charge, Robert Buster.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Both of which these—again, these people

were invited, too. You indicated that you learned of the event from

a former Secret Service agent.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That is correct.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Can you describe that call?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. On the morning of March 9, I was getting

ready to leave our headquarters to an offsite meeting, and I re-

ceived this call from this individual who said, ‘‘Hey, are you aware

of this incident that happened supposedly on March 4?’’ And I said,

‘‘No.’’ And he went into some of those details based on the email

that you put up there on the screen and——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who is the first person you called?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The first person I called I believe—now, again,

please forgive me as I go through this, because this is weeks ago

and I don’t have notes in front of me, so I don’t intentionally mean

to misspeak—but I believe it was the assistant director of protec-

tive operations.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who is?

Mr. C

LANCY

. William Callahan.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who counseled you not to ask questions on

your own following the incident?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am looking at the Management Directive from

Homeland Security regarding the OIG investigations.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who is that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, no. I am sorry. The Management Directive—it

is a memorandum with the Department of Homeland Security.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who did you consult with to make the deci-

sion that you couldn’t ask any questions?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know if I spoke to or—well, re security, the

Office of Professional Responsibility. And I think that is—they de-

scribed the process.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Did you consult with Homeland Security?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Not other than advising them of this incident. I

didn’t consult with them in terms of what I could investigate.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who in your chain of command is ulti-

mately responsible for briefing you about security threats around

the complex?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The assistant director of protective operations.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. When did you know that there was an as-

sault on one of your officers?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The evening of March 4, I would have received that

alert via email. And I believe they called me as well. They typically

call as well.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. So you knew that there was an assault on

your officer that night. What did you do?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. I know that there was a suspicious package,

and I would have to go back to the PIOC alert, but that there was

an altercation with an officer. That is routine. They happen al-

most—I wouldn’t say every day, but that is a routine event at the

White House complex.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Should that have triggered the saving of

the videos?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It would have—the fact that there was a suspicious

package would have triggered saving videos.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Assaulting—assault on one of your officers,

does that trigger——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. That would have as well. It was one in the

same. It was the same incident.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Well, two different incidents, but——

Mr. C

LANCY

. OK.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

[continuing]. What period of time is reason-

able before and after that altercation should they have saved the

videos?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I would say within—once things settled down, they

would call that evening. Before the shift—certainly before the shift

was over, I would assume that the watch commander would call

the Joint Operations Center.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. No. I am saying how much video before

and after the incident is a reasonable time to save?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I think anything that captures the incident—that

captures the incident.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you deal with these incidents different

when the President is in the residence?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am sorry. Do you mean video——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Does your policy change—all of these dis-

cussions about response and video and——

Mr. C

LANCY

. No.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Does not change if the President is in the

White House.

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, Mr. Chairman, it does not.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Was the President or anybody in the White

House briefed on the March 4 incident?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The White House was briefed on the March 4 inci-

dent, not on March 4, though. When I found out about it on March

9. That is my assumption. March 9, when I found out about it

was——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who was briefed?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The Deputy Chief of staff.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. And who briefed him?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The special agent—no, I am sorry. Initially, I did

via an email, and I think the special agent in charge may have fol-

lowed up on that.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. So you sent an email to the Deputy Chief

of Staff. Who is the Deputy Chief of Staff?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Anita Breckenridge.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Have you ever spoken with Metropolitan

Police Chief Lanier regarding this incident?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have not.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Have you ever visited with her?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have not. We had a——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You are the director of the Secret Service.

She is the Chief of Police.

Mr. C

LANCY

. And can I just say that we did have a meeting

scheduled, and it was—there was a conflict.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You have been in this position for 6 months

as the acting and current director, and you are—you have never

had a personal conversation with the Chief of Police for the Metro-

politan Police Department?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Since I have been back, I have not had a per-

sonal——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. In the last 6 months.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That is correct.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. And not about this incident.

Mr. C

LANCY

. And not about this incident. Again, there is inter-

action all the time with Metro around the White House complex.

There are issues every day. There are arrests every day.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I just don’t understand when the principals

don’t talk to each other.

Mr. C

LANCY

. And I don’t think the Chief would want me to call

every time we have an incident at the White House complex.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. But I would think there would be some

open lines of communication, some indication that—do you all even

know each other, and that you have each other’s telephone number.

What time did the Protective Intelligence Operations Center

alert Secret Service personnel about the bomb—about the email

about the bomb threat? I believe the answer is 11:12 p.m., correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. This is 47 minutes after the package was

dropped and 15 minutes after the crime scene was disrupted. Who

drafted the alert?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Protective Intelligence Division would draft the

alert.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you have a specific name or title?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you think it was complete?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I think based on the information they received it

was complete. I don’t——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You have reviewed this.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am sorry?

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You have reviewed this. You have gone

back, looked at it.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have read the PIOC alert, yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Why didn’t this alert contain information

about the suspicious package barrier being breached by Mr.

Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know that they were aware of it. I don’t

know that the Protective Intelligence Division was aware of it.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. They are watching this on—there is a live

feed of this, correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. There is, yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. And nobody notices that a car kind of just

drives right through the scene?

Mr. C

LANCY

. They may have noticed it. I can’t answer, but I do

know——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. That is why we are going to drag these

people in and have a discussion with them. We tried to invite Mr.

Buster, Kimberly Tello, Thomas Rizza, and Michael Braun, very

senior people within the organization. Did the witnesses we sent

invitations to for this hearing personally receive those invitations?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know that answer. I know they were aware,

but I don’t have the answer if they personally received them.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. How do you know that they were aware of

it?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Because I know that some of our people have talked

to them.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. But not you.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have not.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Did they personally decline?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Did they personally?

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Decline to come testify before Congress.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I was not involved in those conversations, but I——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Whose decision——

Mr. C

LANCY

[continuing]. Don’t know if they were asked.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Whose decision was it to not allow wit-

nesses invited to testify before this Committee? Who made that de-

cision?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Ultimately, it is my decision.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Why is it your decision?

Mr. C

LANCY

. They work in the Secret Service, and it is my re-

sponsibility to make those decisions.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. So you told them not to come testify before

Congress.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I didn’t specifically tell them. Through our staffs I

said, working with the department, that we would not provide

them in this open hearing.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Why?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, I was focused on this open hearing, and I

didn’t think it was proper to have them in an open hearing giving

testimony which would—as we have heard today, the morale in the

Secret Service among many people is not where it should be. And

as we bring out——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Are you concerned that it would have been

embarrassing?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am concerned that some of the information that

would have been released would have generated a lot more con-

versation within the ranks, and they would have said, well, if those

four were brought up, why didn’t we have others, or why were they

representatives, or their story doesn’t sound right. It might taint

others that have to be investigated or interviewed. So there is a

number of things that would have——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. So instead of transparency, you opted for

just keep it close to the vest and don’t provide that transparency,

correct?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. I wanted—again, I——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You wanted one filter point.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I wanted the Office of the Inspector General to give

them some——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. We will go back to the conversation that we

had. Did you or your staff have any conversations with any White

House officials regarding their appearance?

Mr. C

LANCY

. With the White—no. No.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You had no conversations with anybody at

the White House.

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. My conversations were with—actually, it was

through my staff, with the Department of Homeland Security.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who at the Department of Homeland Secu-

rity?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can’t answer who at the Department of——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Was it Mr. Mayorkas?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No. I did not speak to Mr. Mayorkas regarding——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Will you give us the answer to that later?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I will research that. Yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. When will you give us that answer?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We should be able to get that this afternoon, I

would assume. Yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank you. That would be great.

If we invite these individuals, and others within the Secret Serv-

ice, if we invite them in for transcribed interviews, will you provide

these individuals to the Committee?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I will.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Will you provide all personnel we request

to the Committee for transcribed interviews?

Mr. C

LANCY

. With the department, I will certainly work through

this. But I answered——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You are the director.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am the director under the Department of Home-

land Security.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Can you make this decision by yourself?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can take responsibility for it.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Can you make this decision by yourself?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, we would have to see. We would have to see.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. What does it depend on?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am sorry?

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Is it Jeh Johnson that makes the decision?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Is it the President that makes the decision?

Who makes the decision?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I would seriously doubt this raises to that level. I

would imagine—again, I am assuming—that it gets to the legal of-

fices, and decisions are made there. And I don’t know if they are

looking at precedent. I don’t know what they might look at there.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Why haven’t you fully responded to the

Committee’s letter, done in a very bipartisan way, the letter of

March 19 for our document request?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I think some of that takes time to acquire all——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you intend to fully comply with it?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, we do.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. By what timeframe?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I can’t answer that. I know the intent was to try

to have it ready completely by today. But some of these things it

just takes time.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Have you had conversations with Home-

land Security about the fulfillment of these requests?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Our staff, I would assume, has.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Is anybody else in the administration clear-

ing or approving your response to the Committee?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. But Homeland Security is.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Homeland Security is looking at the work and the

decisions that we make, yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Anybody at the White House?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Not that I am aware of.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Why haven’t you provided the Committee

a detailed description and timeline of when you became aware of

the alleged misconduct or other events of March 4?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know. I thought I was forthright in the testi-

mony today of what my account of that day was.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. We need a more complete timeline. You

have yet to provide a list of all the personnel on duty or otherwise

involved in the response on March 4. Is that something you will

provide to the Committee?

Mr. C

LANCY

. We will.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. When?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t have a timeframe for that.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. What is reasonable?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Depends.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. It shouldn’t be that hard to tell who is on

duty.

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, it shouldn’t be that hard, so I would assume by

the early—early tomorrow.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. That would be great. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Let me ask you, when you were the special agent in charge of

the Presidential Protective Detail, the PPD, did you ever have a

situation in which a lower level agent or officer raised concerns

about security at the White House complex?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, I am assuming yes, because I was pretty open

talking to officers.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. How did you respond?

Mr. C

LANCY

. This is when I was a special agent in charge?

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Yes.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, I——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. How did you deal with those?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, I would talk frankly with them, what is your

concern, what can we do, what vulnerability do you see, have you

talked to your chain of command, I am glad you came to me, but

be—you should be comfortable going through your chain of com-

mand. But I don’t think it would be unusual for me to say, ‘‘I won’t

talk to you.’’

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you think you encouraged junior officers

or agents to raise concerns up the chain of command?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I think I did, and I think my manner was the same

as it is today, that I am very—I would think very approachable.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. What is a fireable offense?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, something that would require your security

clearance to be removed if you have something that might affect

national security in terms of your relations with foreign nationals.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Did you take any disciplinary action re-

garding the failure to report misconduct by your staff?

Mr. C

LANCY

. In this case, I have not at this point. Well, the

only—it is not discipline, but I did move the two individuals in-

volved until we get through this investigation.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. At the time of the March 4 incident, what

was the Secret Service policy for driving a government vehicle after

drinking alcohol?

Mr. C

LANCY

. At the time of the incident, you cannot drive a gov-

ernment vehicle under the influence of alcohol.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Can you have a drink? What level is ac-

ceptable?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The way the policy reads, going off memory here,

is that if you are impaired, if you have—you are not able to control

your actions. So it is not a legal limit. It is not the legal limit. So,

in other words, it could be less. You may not be intoxicated by a

legal limit, but someone could say that you don’t have proper abili-

ties.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Will the Chairman yield for a question?

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Yes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Has the Chairman or the Ranking Member been

able to establish who asked Agents Connolly and Ogilvie to respond

to the scene?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, I don’t know the facts of this case. What I

have heard—and, again, at this point, some are news reports and

so much information, but I am told that they were returning to re-

trieve a vehicle. They were not responding back to the White

house.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Can you determine somebody’s level of in-

toxication based on a phone call?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t think so.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you know how many people attended

the retirement party of March 4?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I do not.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Will the Chairman yield for another question?

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Yes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Director, I am trying to understand this dichotomy

between the inspector general and you. Does the inspector general

have jurisdiction to issue subpoenas to people outside the Secret

Service?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know that answer.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Does the inspector general have jurisdiction to inter-

view former agents?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am assuming he can ask. They are private citi-

zens.

Mr. G

OWDY

. But the answer might very well be different, right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Different in which way, sir?

Mr. G

OWDY

. Different from a current agent than a former agent.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. You can’t discipline a former agent.

Mr. C

LANCY

. You are absolutely——

Mr. G

OWDY

. Does the inspector general have the power to sub-

poena, say, surveillance video or credit card receipts from a bar,

hypothetically, where a retirement party may have taken place?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. So the inspector general does have subpoena power.

Mr. C

LANCY

. My understanding is they do. My understanding is

they are 1811s. They are investigators.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, my understanding was that they had less

power than even you would have to investigate your own folks,

which is why I am kind of wondering, and I am sure the Chairman

is headed there, why you would stand down your investigation of

agents in lieu of the inspector general who has no authority over

former agents at all.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. I may be wrong on that in terms of the sub-

poena power, but I believe they are investigators and we can con-

firm that. And also, looking at the Management Directive from the

Department of Homeland Security, specifically says that you have

to stand down with your investigation.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Let me jump in on this, and we can come

back if that is all right with the gentleman. So I understand that

the Washington field office requested the video the morning after

the incident, within the 72-hour period whereby the video should

be retained. Why were the videos then erased if they were re-

quested within that period?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am not aware of that.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Do you think it is suspicious?

Mr. C

LANCY

. From what I understand of the process, it does not

seem suspicious to me, first of all, no. You can argue that that loop

every 72 hours, you can argue that that is not enough. But we are

not in the position where we delete—we intentionally delete film.

It is a matter of just selecting what you think is pertinent to the

incident.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. By the way, the Washington field office re-

quested, and something that you actually did produce to this Com-

mittee, but how many different videos or angles have you re-

viewed?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I would say the same—well, I would say including

the lady who—yes, I would say three, four. I don’t know. I know

there were five clips.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Right.

Mr. C

LANCY

. So there may have been five views, very similar——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. When did you first get to the see the vid-

eos?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Again, the days, I don’t know when the days are.

I know I saw it before——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. It is kind of important.

Mr. C

LANCY

[continuing]. Before you saw it. I wanted to see what

we were going to present to your Committee.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. By the way, the timeline, Thursday, March

5, 10:40 a.m., WFO requests a copy of the surveillance video re-

cording of the incident, is where this comes from.

Would it have been U.S. Secret Service policy to train cameras

on the alleged misconduct by Mr. Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie in the

event—in the evening of March 4?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I wouldn’t say it is policy, but I think if there is an

incident the watch commander has to decide what an incident is,

and then he calls back to the Joint Operations Center and says,

‘‘Preserve this video,’’ if he saw—whatever he sees as an incident.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Have you discussed providing custody of

the video to our Committee with Homeland Security?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have not personally, but I believe our staff has.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Have you communicated with the White

House, you or your staff, on possession of the video?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, not that I am aware of.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You said you sent an email to the White

House Chief of Staff regarding the Deputy Chief of Staff on the

March 4 incident. Did it reference that your staff had interrupted

a crime scene?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It referenced—yes, it—I think the way I phrased it

was that two individuals drove through the secure zone. I think

that is it.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Did you receive a response?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am trying to recall if I spoke to the Deputy Chief

of Staff or the special agent in charge did. I don’t honestly remem-

ber. I know I did speak to the deputy special agent—I am sorry,

to the Deputy Chief of Staff. But I don’t know if the SAIC spoke

to her first. I don’t know that timeframe.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. So, but you did speak with her.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I spoke to her, yes. Yes. I don’t know the timeframe,

though. I honestly don’t know the timeframe.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. But you will get that to us?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I will look for it. I didn’t keep notes, but I will look

for when I may have spoken to her.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. And will you give us a copy of the email

you sent?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. Sure.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who in the Joint Operations Center would

have been responsible for real-time flagging of the video during the

March 4 incident? Who at the Joint Operations Center is respon-

sible for that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. There is an on-duty supervisor at the Joint Oper-

ations Center that——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You have a forensic services division, cor-

rect, at the——

Mr. C

LANCY

. We do.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Have they been engaged in this?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I think everyone has been trying to retrieve these

videos.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. When you say ‘‘everyone’’——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, I am sorry. I should be more concise. I know

that when we didn’t have these videos available that you requested

we brought in some of our people from cyber investigations, as well

as some of our people from our technical side, as well as the manu-

facturer. I directed the staff——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. So did you engage the forensic services di-

vision?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know personally who—I just don’t know.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who gave orders on which tapes to pre-

serve, which to not, during the March 4 timeframe?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know that answer.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who should have been responsible for that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I would—there is a sergeant, a lieutenant in the

Joint Operations Center, as well as a GS–14 supervisor. And the

watch commander decides who or what—what is an incident, and

typically, as I understand it, would call back and make that re-

quest.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Recognize the gentleman from South Caro-

lina.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly, and then I

want to go to the gentleman of North Carolina who has done so

much work on this issue.

Director, I am a little bit vexed as to whether or not these two

agents were on duty or not. I am sure that you have policies on

the consumption of alcohol while you are on duty, and I don’t know

whether or not either of these agents consumed alcohol. Do you?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know if they consumed alcohol. That will be

a matter of the investigation. It will come out.

Mr. G

OWDY

. What we do know is that they either responded to

a crime scene, which would be problematic because they potentially

contaminated a crime scene, or, secondarily, they were unaware

and they just can’t drive worth a damn and drove over a barricade,

neither of which would be good scenarios, right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That is correct.

Mr. G

OWDY

. I continue—and then I want to go to the gentleman

from North Carolina—I continue, honestly, to not understand this

desire/willingness of government agencies to stand down for the in-

spector general and suspend their own internal investigations. I

just—you have been an investigator for how long?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, I have been in the business 27 years.

Mr. G

OWDY

. All right. Twenty-seven years. If you saw two GS–

15s fighting in the parking lot, would you call the inspector gen-

eral?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, we call the inspector general, and then it is

their option whether to take it or give it back to our agency. They

could have refused to investigate and give it back to us, but I

think, again, in an effort to try to be transparent, you know—and,

again, I am required to do that by the Department of Homeland

Security’s memorandum.

Mr. G

OWDY

. But if there were an ongoing theft, just an ongoing

theft of, say, a vending machine at your headquarters, you wouldn’t

call the inspector general. Wouldn’t you interrupt that theft?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, that one would not be required, because it is

not a GS–15.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, what if it were a GS–15?

Mr. C

LANCY

. If it is a GS–15, we could notify the OIG, and then

they could make a decision on——

Mr. G

OWDY

. I cannot believe that in the throes of an ongoing

crime you would notify the inspector general. I mean, we trust you

to protect the life of the President of the United States, and you

can’t investigate a suspected drunk driving?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, we would investigate the incident that—of the

protective interest, which is the female with the bomb. That is

ours, and we would take that. With regard to misconduct, that is

something that we would offer to the special agent—or to the OIG.

Mr. G

OWDY

. Well, I am going to say this in conclusion, and then

I am going to give the time to the gentleman from North Carolina,

it is great to correct and punish misconduct after the fact. It is

even better to prevent it in the first place.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. G

OWDY

. And there is not a person here who does not want

to see you successful, Director. Not a single person on either side

of the aisle does not want to see you successful. I just don’t think

this is a training issue, and I don’t think it is a resource issue. But

you have got to get to the bottom of whatever is pervading the cul-

ture, and I hope you can because it is a venerable, well-respected

agency, and I hate to participate in hearings like this.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. I reclaim my time.

Director, it was, according to the Metropolitan Police Depart-

ment, 11 minutes after a suspect has dropped what might be a

bomb on the gate of the White House with the President in the res-

idence. It takes 11 minutes to call Metro Police Department. Why

does it take so long?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. I don’t know the answer to that.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. But how do you not know? This is what is

so infuriating. You are the director of the Secret Service. It is al-

most 3 weeks after the incident, and you don’t know why it takes

11 minutes to pick up the phone and say, ‘‘Hey, Metro Police De-

partment, we have got a problem down here and we need your

help.’’ It takes 27 minutes to secure the scene, 27 minutes. What

if it was a real bomb? What if it was a real bomb?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Mr. Chairman, I have been at the White House

complex when we have cordoned off areas, when we have secured

zones, and it happens very rapidly from my——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. But this didn’t, and this is the most recent

example. Why didn’t it happen?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know, and——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Who are you holding accountable?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, we are going to wait—we are not going to——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. You are going to wait. That is the problem.

Mr. C

LANCY

. We are going to wait and not——

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. That is the problem: we are going to wait.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. That is the problem.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. That is the problem. It took you 30 min-

utes—30 minutes—to be on the lookout for a woman who dropped

a package at the White House and said, ‘‘This is a bomb.’’ I want

her taken down. I want a net to go over that city. I want her in

custody immediately. You take 11 minutes to call Metro Police De-

partment, you take 27 minutes to secure the area, and you take 30

minutes to say, ‘‘Hey, we have got a problem here.’’

You get an officer behind the right car and they get waved off.

They didn’t pull them over. You said you had the license plate

number. We spent millions of dollars building a video capability.

Somebody can’t push rewind and go see what that car make,

model, and license plate is? Don’t we trust that officer who had

that person in their sight and say, ‘‘Go ahead and pull them over

until we clear this up.’’ But, no, that is not what happened.

Then, you go out to Virginia, you find the person and the agents

say, ‘‘Well, we don’t—we can’t really arrest this person.’’ This is

somebody who had already come in contact with us, and the prob-

lem is, you are still waiting. We are not playing games.

This is the life, safety, and security of the President of the

United States and the White House. Don’t let anybody get in that

gate. And when they come to the gate and they have got a bomb,

and they say they have a bomb, believe them. Take them down.

Take them down. That is what I want to see. I want to see deter-

mination. I want those officers and those agents to know we have

got their back. You take those people down. You do not let that

happen.

This is the United States of America. The threat is real, but I

don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and it is unacceptable.

Time has expired. Yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Clancy, I want to just go back for a few minutes, because

when all of the dust settles the question is—when all of the dust

settles, is the President of the United States and his family and all

of the other protectees safe?

Mr. C

LANCY

. The President, the White House, the First Family,

is safe. Absolutely.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And tell us why you say that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have protected four Presidents. Four Presidents

who apparently respect the work that I have done. I have directly

protected Presidents. I know what it takes to protect Presidents

and their families, and I know that we are not a perfect agency.

And this is not a perfect science.

When you look at the number of sites that we have per year, you

look at the 36,000 people that come through that White House

every month, we know what we are doing. But do we make mis-

takes? Yes, we do. We make mistakes, and we followup on them.

Our mistakes, compared to the number of visits that we have

throughout a year, 5,700 sites in 1 year, we have got a pretty good

track record. Doesn’t mean that we have got to—we have a problem

here, definitely have a problem. We are going to fix it.

But it is not that all of our practices are off or our foundation

is bad. We have just got to get—do a better job of training our peo-

ple and responding quicker to some of these events. I could list sev-

eral very positive events where we have saved lives, where we have

responded very quickly to individuals who wanted to climb the

fence. I could cite numerous examples of that. But I know that

today we are looking at the—this negative incident.

But I am confident that because of the good work that is being

done by the vast majority of our people that the President is safe,

the First Family is safe, and the White House is safe. But it is not

an easy task. It is a challenge in an urban environment.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. A little earlier I said that when I looked at the

memo, the email, the anonymous email, that it made me realize

that—or believe that we had an agency in war with itself.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Do you understand why I say that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. There is conflict within the agency.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. The idea that someone would even create the

email, would create it, put it out there—let us assume it is not

true. That makes it even worse——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Right.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

[continuing]. To put it out there. You know, there

used to be a—when I was a kid, there was a saying that said,

‘‘When two elephants fight, the ground suffers.’’ And the point is

is that when people are involved in conflict, and that is dis-

tracting—I know that is—from the mission——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

[continuing]. That is a problem. Would you agree?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Absolutely.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Just the idea that somebody would put that out

there.

Mr. C

LANCY

. It is a reflection on all of us that we are not—there

is not enough trust within the agency that you can’t bring things

up through the agency. Somehow we have got to regain that trust.

Rather than going out and doing an anonymous email, bring it to

someone’s attention.

And, again, we have so many avenues that we have created so

that you can do that, even outside your chain of command, use

these hotlines and ombudsmen and—or call me directly. I have had

people directly contact me with issues that they have, and then I

have followed up on them.

So, and to the work force that is listening today, if you are not

getting results, contact me so that we can get results.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. What is the—you know, I think one of the things

that becomes frustrating for a lot of us up here is that—is some-

thing I sent to you a little bit earlier. It is one thing when you have

one incident here, then maybe 2 years go by and you have a little

incident there. But when you see them and they just keep coming,

keep coming, keep coming, that is when you move into that zone

of culture.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And It seems like the problems, because they

keep coming, it seems like we are not maybe digging down deep

enough to try to get to that ongoing situation.

Now, hold that point, and let me go to number 2 with that. One

of the things you also talked about, and Congresswoman Eleanor

Holmes Norton talked about, was this overtime and the fact that

people can’t even get a day off and all that. And all of that—and

I am sure that plays a role. But help us try to understand how you

see it.

I mean, you have got to be sitting there scratching your head

saying, OK, it is one thing after another. Is it—am I digging deep

enough to get to the problems? What else do I have to do? I mean,

when you look at all that you have seen, what—I am sure you see

some daylight at the end. The question is: how do you see yourself

getting to that daylight?

And when I say ‘‘that daylight’’ I mean bringing the agency back

to the level of integrity that it once held. And how do you do that?

I mean, how do you see yourself doing it? And can you see yourself

accomplishing that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I am trying to stay the course. I am trying to stay

the course of what we have started 30 days ago when I was named

the director. As an acting director, you do some things, you make

some changes, but you are not the permanent director. And to be

honest with you, I thought if they brought in someone else, they

would want to bring in their own team, bring in their own restruc-

turing, and I didn’t want to extend too far out until I was the direc-

tor.

And now in the last 30 days, I want to stay this course of trying

to do all we can to hire this staffing. That is the biggest issue we

have. And I admit there are other issues we have got to work on

with the way we have handled this incident. But if we handle this

staffing problem, I honestly believe it is going to help the morale

a little bit. When people start to get days off, then they are more

excited to work as a team and get back into the business. But that

is something we have just got to fix, the staffing and the commu-

nication. I can’t say it enough and I know it doesn’t mean maybe

a lot here as I speak to the committee, but we have been stressing

with all of our officials in Uniform Division, as well as my execu-

tive staff. And I have personally tried to engage people, engage

them and make them feel comfortable to talk to us and try to make

this agency better.

It is that 1 percent. And I have said this to our roll call. It is

the 1-percent that is tearing down the 99 percent and it is that 99

percent who has got to stand up to that 1 percent. And that is what

I am asking our work force to do. If you see someone starting to

go south on their professional or personal conduct, then that 99

percent has got to straighten it out. That person in that vicinity

has to grab that individual and say that is not what we do. And

somehow I need the help of the work force, too, besides the super-

visors, I need the help of the work force to stand up for that agency

and make it the way it was so many years ago.

And one last thing, I know I am talking too much here, but

again, we are talking about some very negative things here, but

there are so many wonderful, wonderful agents and officers, these

professional people—I am sorry.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. I agree with you. They are great agents. And I

have talked to a number of them and as a matter of fact, I had one

visit with me not long ago. And this was an agent who has been

around for a good while. As a matter of fact, he is about to retire.

But he really wanted to make sure that the Agency got back to

that place that I just talked about.

And the reason why I ask you these questions is because I am

trying to figure out can we—I mean it seems as if some people

probably have to go. And do you understand that? That there may

be some people who maybe this is not where they need to be or

maybe they are good people, but it doesn’t mean that they are nec-

essarily good for this Agency.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Right.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And so I mean how do you make those deter-

minations? I mean how do you come to that? How do you come to

those kind of decisions? And do you feel that you can make those

decisions? If you know somebody, known them for 20 years, I mean

it is——

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have made that decision with some people that we

did offer some other positions in DHS. Again, good people, but I

wanted this fresh look and this aggressive work that we need to

have done on the upper levels. If we can set a tone, if we can set

a tone at the upper levels, that is going to filter down. Not only

the work ethic, but the professionalism, but also this idea of trust.

I am a great believer in trust. You have got to try to through

your actions, through your actions, gain trust of people. I think we

just have to—it is going to take time. But I am not giving up. It

is going to take time. But we are going to have to just keep work-

ing through it.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Now Chief Lanier had told the committee that

30 minutes was a quick time response. Do you see that as quick,

30 minutes?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know. I can’t evaluate the chief’s force. But

ideally, we want them there as soon as possible. We have our own

people on the complex.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Is there a bomb expert inside?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Inside the complex, but not for the metropolitan

streets. Not for the District.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. But inside the White House.

Mr. C

LANCY

. It is actually in the—I believe it is in the NEOB,

the New Executive Office Building, so they can respond within

minutes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. A question also came up with regard to the IG.

And according to code, the IG does have the—the IG is authorized

to require by subpoena the production of all the information, docu-

ments, reports, answers, records, accounts, papers, and other data.

Did you know that? Were you aware of that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I made an assumption and an answer to an earlier

question, I thought that they could, yes. They are 1811s.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Yes, I just want to make sure that we are clear

on that.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Thank you.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Tell me, describe your relationship with—be-

tween the relationship between the Secret Service and the Metro-

politan Police Department.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, with our Washington Field Office, the Agent-

in-Charge or Washington Field Office, they work very closely with

the Metropolitan Police Department. And I can see it myself as I

walk around the White House, as we have protestors and incidents

at the White House. They are very responsive. I can see them in

force. It is actually very comforting as just maybe it was a week

ago, 2 weeks ago, I walked down, it was St. Patrick’s Sunday, I

think, I walked around—or that weekend. We had a St. Patrick’s

Day Parade, and there was a Syrian protest group and there was

a large crowd on the north fence line. And the Metropolitan Police

was there offering a lot of support.

And I remember talking to some of the officers as I walked

around. My view, it is much better than it was from years ago. So

I think the relationship was very strong, but their support has

been very helpful to us. I think there is a very good relationship.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And what has their communications been? How

has that been between your agency and theirs?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, at the level with the Washington Field Office,

it has been very good. But to the chairman’s point I agree that I

should have made more of an effort to meet with Commissioner La-

nier.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Do you plan to do that any time soon?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I do. It is on the schedule for maybe next week. I

can’t remember off the top of my head, but I know that it had been

canceled, and then we had another event that we were going to

have a table top exercise and that had to be canceled, so we have

missed a couple of opportunities, but that is on me. I should have

made more of an effort to reach out to the chief.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Now going back to the incidents of March 4th,

I understand what you were saying when you said that you were

concerned. You turned this investigation over to the IG. Do you

think your Agency, if you had the authority, could have done the

investigation?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Absolutely. I think we could have done it much fast-

er. I think we would have worked, again, I don’t want to cast judg-

ment on the OIG. I am sure they are doing a very good, thorough

job, and that is why we gave it to them, but we would have worked

on this very quickly. But I didn’t want that view. The concern was

that it is the Service taking over their investigation of their people

and then I just didn’t want to take that chance. And again, I am

required to give it to the OIG.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. I understand that. But I have heard you say this

many times about being concerned about—first of all, you had a

duty to do it, but putting that aside, this idea of the perception——

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Talk about that for a minute, the perception that

if you had gotten involved. Because I have heard you say this now

at least five or six times.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, I just wanted to be as transparent. Maybe the

best example I can give you is I know many members wanted an

outsider in this position so that that outsider could make decisions.

So here we have this incident and I have reached to an outsider

to investigate. And now I am being told that it should have been

an insider, us, to do it. So I am trying to be transparent here.

I admit that being new in the role that there is a lot for me to

learn and I am going to learn from my mistakes, but I did want

to be transparent. I just didn’t want to have any indication that we

were tainting the investigation. And that is why again right or

wrong, I compartmentalized things and said OK, the OIG has got

it, let me focus on the protection of the White House today and to-

morrow and future trips, the First Lady who is making a trip over-

seas.

There are so many other issues and threats that are coming in

and this is my third hearing and I had the closed hearing, too. As

you can imagine, that takes considerable amount of time from some

of my other duties that I am concerned that are in the future here.

And I have got to focus on these like the Pope’s visit, and the cam-

paign. These are things that I should be looking at now, in ad-

vance, to make sure that we don’t go down the wrong path. And

again, it is on us. We put ourselves in this position, I realize that.

But it has taken a considerable amount of my time to look back

when I was content, at this point, to let the OIG do that investiga-

tion so I could, I had hoped to be able to focus on the protection

today and our future events.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. You know, I told you that one of my concerns all

along here is that, and I think you are getting a feel that it is prob-

ably the concerns of a number of us is that in the process of wait-

ing for the OIG to come back with their findings, recommendations,

and what have you, that the President still has to be seen.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And a lot of the concern went to if there are

things that could be threatening to the safety and welfare of the

President and the family and all the others that you protect,

whether while we are waiting something could not be happening.

Now let me finish. You had mentioned to me, you had told us that

you were going to go back a few days later to the OIG and be in

contact with them as to things that they could let you know that

would allow you, if they being serious enough to be able to act with

regard to disciplinary issues. Did you have that conversation?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I did not have a second conversation with the OIG.

I will say that as a result of what I do know here where these

agents drove through the secure zone, we had our assistant direc-

tor for training. We gave him the task of going back out and look-

ing at our model for incident commands, what do we do when we

have an incident like this? Are we securing the zone properly? Is

the communication done properly? So that directive has gone out

from my office to the training director. So we are looking at this

from where we are now from the outside. And just from that, we

know there are things that we can do better and we are addressing

those. The piece that is missing, primarily, is the accountability

piece, and that comes when we get the definitive facts as they come

through.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Now you were going to, you told the chairman

that you were going to produce certain witnesses. Now I am not

trying to put words in your mouth now, let me finish. I want to

make sure we are all on the same page and I want to make sure

you said what I think you said, that you are going to produce cer-

tain witnesses for interviews. Is that right? Is that your under-

standing?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I have to go back to the Department, but that will

be my recommendation that if we go back to the Department and

not in open hearing though.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Right.

Mr. C

LANCY

. We will do it in a closed hearing.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Right.

Mr. C

LANCY

. And do it in that mode.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And would that satisfy your concerns with re-

gard to interfering with the IG? And by the way, we told the IG

that we would work with them so as we would avoid those kinds

of problems.

Mr. C

LANCY

. It would satisfy my concerns. In all candor, that

will go through the work force and they will know who has been

brought in, who hasn’t, and it generates a lot of chatter, but it

would satisfy my concerns.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. But you know, when you say it would cause a

lot of chatter, a lot of chatter is going to be caused no matter what

because the IG has to interview the same people we want to inter-

view. You understand that, right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes. If you are going to do all the interviews they

are doing, yes, sure.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. We probably will do quite a few interviews. And

so what is the difference?

Mr. C

LANCY

. There may not be, Congressman, in a closed hear-

ing.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Yes, I am talking about closed. Yes, I am talking

about closed. So what can you tell us, so if you were working with

the IG, you said that if you had done the investigation, it would

have been much faster. Is that right?

Mr. C

LANCY

. That is my view. Again, it would be an assumption,

but knowing that we would throw all of the assets that we have

available, we would take investigators, we would empty out our In-

ternal Affairs and 24 hours a day, we would follow through on this

to get it done so we can act on it quicker.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Now when you have a shortage of manpower,

how do you deal with that? You talked about all the vacancies. I

still can’t get over this 45,000 people.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir. When we have a shortage of manpower,

operationally, we pull people in. Just as an example, at the White

House now, the Uniform Division, as we have discussed is short in

terms of manpower. So we have brought in agents to assist in some

of these positions until they get up to staff. And we are working

toward building up their staff. In fact, this year we should hire ap-

proximately 192 officers, maybe a little bit more to bring them on.

Now the key here is the retention piece of it. It is one thing to

bring them on, but if we lose a hundred, then our increase is not

as great as we would like. So we are looking at both, not just the

hiring, we are looking at retention matters, too. Should there be bo-

nuses available, retention bonuses? We are looking at other op-

tions, too, looking at annuitants, people who have retired. Can we

bring them back in some kind of a role with our Uniform Division?

So we are looking at as many different options available to try to

buildup our staff and that is where we are.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Does it surprise that out of 45,000 people, you

can’t get a few? I mean does that surprise you?

Mr. C

LANCY

. It absolutely does.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And you said mainly because of drugs.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Primarily because of drugs.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And when you say drugs, do you mean a history

of drugs or they come in for a drug test and they are still on drugs?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Very often it is through the polygraph examination,

when they are asked questions through the polygraph examina-

tions, there are admissions to possibly selling drugs or having some

kind of a past, crime in the past or something.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Let us say if somebody is asked have you ever

used marijuana? And they say, yes, I used it in high school and

now they are 27 years old. What happens to that person? In other

words, is that the kind of thing that disqualify them?

Mr. C

LANCY

. I don’t know that I can go into specifics for each

one. Because, I am sorry, others may hear that——

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. I got you. So it is a major problem though.

Mr. C

LANCY

. It is a dilemma, but we have to go through that in

order to get good people. We are willing to—we are not going to

compromise our hiring standards.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Right.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Because we have got to get good people. Now the

thing I have got to battle with, we have done all this vetting and

it takes seven or 8 months and they go through the polygraph and

the background checks and they get this Top Secret clearance,

where do we lose them when they get to the 10-year mark, the 15-

year mark? Why are they not—why do they write to the members?

Why are they disgruntled? Why are they not reporting up through

the chain of command? That is something I have got to find a solu-

tion to that because we are getting good people on the front end.

And again, I am so sorry to keep saying this, but again, we are

looking at a smaller element. Our work force is listening to this,

probably saying hey, this isn’t the work force I know. But there is

an element that we have got to do a better job of reaching.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Do we have to do a better job of making sure

that the people in the supervisory roles are well selected? Because

I have told you several times I have been sitting for years on the

board of the Naval Academy. And one of the things I have noticed

is that they are very—the students are very selective about who

has leadership roles up and down the ranks. And it is earned. Peo-

ple have earned trust. People have shown good examples. And it

is not a I am going to scratch your back and you scratch mine,

none of that. But I am just wondering, are you looking at how you

are elevating people because you can have people at the top, but

if you have got folks in supervisory roles, for example, who might

say to officers rank and file don’t conduct a sobriety test, hypo-

thetically. We are still figuring all this out.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Right.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. That is pretty bad because then you have got the

person who is trying to do their job being told not to do their job.

You are talking about something that would be harmful to morale

and at the same time take away from the mission. That is a hell

of a dilemma. So are you looking at how you promote people and

trying to make sure you have the right people in the right posi-

tions?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, a couple of things. I know some things that

have taken place in the time that I was not in the Service when

I had left. To make it more objective, there is testing. So you have

got to either pass the test or you don’t pass the test to go on to

the next level. So that prevents someone from just tapping their

friend and saying you are going to be a supervisor. So you have got

to get through that test. But beyond that, we have got to do more

training with those supervisors we have in place today. We have

got to do more ongoing training so that they engage their work

force. I am just thinking of the Uniform Division, for example.

Those officials need to be walking around that complex as much as

possible, engaging their employees, testing our employees. Go up to

the officers and say OK, if this happens, what are you going to do?

I often give the example, you know, if you have ever played base-

ball, you sit out there in right field and you are thinking about

what if it is a ground ball or what if it is a fly ball, what am I

going to do with the ball? Well, that is what we have to do in our

line of work. I think you have always got to be thinking about if

this happens, what is my reaction so that you are not slow in react-

ing.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. Yes. My time is running out, but let me say that

first of all to the men and women of the Secret Service, I want to

thank them for what they do. And I have watched them whenever

they are around. I mean I have just seen phenomenal profes-

sionalism. But when these things happen, you are right, it just

takes away from all of those folks who are doing a great job. And

I am hoping that they will accept your directions. And that is that

if there are people who are not doing the right things, that they

themselves will weed them out, like they do in the Naval Academy.

They will weed them out in a minute because they want to make

sure that they keep this elite organization elite and maintain that

reputation. They want to make sure that the reputation matches

the performance.

So again, I want to thank you, but I have got to tell you, as I

have said many times, we have got a high-powered microscope on

this agency.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I understand.

Mr. C

UMMINGS

. And we will not rest in a bipartisan way. We will

not rest until we get back to where we need to be. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. I now recognize the gentleman from Geor-

gia, Mr. Carter, for 5 minutes.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Clancy, thank you

for being here. We appreciate this very much. I want to reiterate

what Representative Gowdy said earlier and that is that we all

want to see you succeed, we do. We truly, sincerely bipartisanly.

We want to see you succeed and we hope that you will do that. Un-

fortunately, off to a bad start.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

100

Mr. C

ARTER

. And that happens, OK? Let me ask you something.

When your agency hires a new employee, can you tell me what the

process—how much time it usually takes when you hire a new em-

ployee, the amount of time?

Mr. C

LANCY

. Well, to go through the hiring process is approxi-

mately 7 months, seven or 8 months. We have cut it down. It was

longer up until about a year ago, but we have cut it down to about

seven or 8 months. And then once we get them on board, they go

through training for 7 months. We send them down to Georgia for

three and a half months of training down at the Federal Law En-

forcement Training Center.

Mr. C

ARTER

. By the way, that is in my district. Thank you very

much.

Mr. C

LANCY

. It is a great facility. It has grown quite a bit since

I have been down there, but they get excellent training down there

in basic law enforcement training. And then they come up to Wash-

ington for more specific training related to the Secret Service laws,

investigations, and protection and of course, our cyber mission. So

it is about a 7-month training.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Of that 7-month training, and I am not talking spe-

cifically about training, but what about background investigations?

How long does that usually take?

Mr. C

LANCY

. And others can correct or we will correct the record

later if I am wrong on this, but it was 14 days——

Mr. C

ARTER

. I am looking specifically for the background check.

Mr. C

LANCY

. For the background, the field office to the best of

my knowledge is they get 14 days to go and go to your schools and

neighborhoods and do that background check.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Right.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Now it may have been brought down to 10 days.

Mr. C

ARTER

. But recently, has it been adjusted to be less than

even that, maybe just 3 days?

Mr. C

LANCY

. You know, one of the other members had mentioned

that. I am not aware of that down to 3 days. I was aware that it

may go down to 10 days. I will research that when I go back to

see if it dropped down to 3 days.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Wait, you weren’t aware of it. We have got informa-

tion that says there was an email sent out that said because you

were trying to fill a class for March that you wanted to decrease

it to 3 days, but you didn’t approve that?

Mr. C

LANCY

. No, now I don’t get involved at that level to be can-

did with you, sir, with how they are—I set the tone with how many

classes we wanted to get, what is the goal? To get nine classes or

eight classes, and then just fill those classes. I don’t know if they

have brought it down to 3 days. I am not aware of that.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Do you feel like you should get involved? I mean

that seems to me like that is a pretty high management decision

and that is something that you ought to run by the boss.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, well, the requirements stay the same though.

There is somewhat of a check box. You have to make sure you talk

to so many neighborhood—neighbors, somebody at schools. You

have to still do a background check. It is just that your time to do

it is condensed. It is not that you can knock off some parts of the

background check.

101

Mr. C

ARTER

. OK, well, let me ask you in the background check,

if you find someone who has got a dual nationality, does that im-

pact whether you hire them or not?

Mr. C

LANCY

. A dual nationality? You cannot have dual citizen-

ship.

Mr. C

ARTER

. You cannot have dual citizenship.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes.

Mr. C

ARTER

. But it is my understanding that that did happen

during this time that you had the 3-day background check period.

Mr. C

LANCY

. That someone was brought in with a dual citizen-

ship?

Mr. C

ARTER

. That is my understanding.

Mr. C

LANCY

. I will check on that. Our staff will check with yours

and we will followup on that.

Mr. C

ARTER

. OK. I am just concerned. It seems to me like when

there is an alteration in policy, you know, the one thing—look, I

am a small business owner. OK? The one thing I don’t like is sur-

prises. And that is all I tell my staff.

I believe you surround yourself with good people and you let

them go at it and I admire that and I think that is good manage-

ment practice, but at the same time I don’t like surprises. And it

would appear to me that going from a 14 or a 10 day background

check period to a 3 day, that is a surprise.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir. That is a considerable condensing of our

hiring process. We will definitely followup on that and certainly if

you will help us with that dual citizenship issue.

Mr. C

ARTER

. OK, back to the dual citizenship. If you do find out

they have dual citizenship, then they are ineligible? They have to

renounce one of their citizenships?

Mr. C

LANCY

. My understanding is yes, they have to renounce

their citizenship. They have to be American citizens.

Mr. C

ARTER

. OK. All right, well, again, let me reiterate that we

want to see you succeed and we don’t want to see you here. OK?

The less we see of you, the better off we are and the better off you

are.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Yes, sir.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Thank you.

Mr. C

LANCY

. Thank you, Congressman.

Mr. C

ARTER

. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

Chairman C

HAFFETZ

. Thank the gentleman. Listen, on behalf of

all of us, please convey to the men and women who do the hard

work day in and day out, holidays, weekends, they have got the

family lives going on and yet, they are asked to continue to perform

their duties. Please, I hope they know how much we love them,

care for them, and wish them nothing but the best. That is why

we go through this process. It is part of what makes the United

States of America the greatest country on the face of the planet is

we are self critical. You can’t do this type of discussion that we are

having in most countries.

As representatives of the people who care about what you do and

how you do it, that is the spirit in which we approach that and I

know you share that as well. So we thank you for your personal

service. We thank the men and women for all that they do and the

men and women who are behind you supporting you here today,

102

but probably most importantly back at the office or at home or on

the grounds of the White House or wherever it might be we thank

them. So this will continue. We do appreciate it, but the committee

stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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