Did Secret Service agents hire prostitutes in El Salvador too?

An investigative reporter says Secret Service agents went to a strip club and hired prostitutes in El Salvador last year, prior to a visit by President Obama. The Secret Service is investigating the accuracy of the report. 

|
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha arriving in San Salvador, El Salvador, in March 2011. Did Secret Service agents do in El Salvador what they did in Colombia?

The Secret Service is investigating news reports of other trips in which employees allegedly engaged the services of prostitutes while traveling abroad in advance of the president, an agency official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing investigations, said the agency is trying to determine whether the reports are accurate.

Seattle television station KIRO-TV reported Wednesday on allegations that during a trip last year to El Salvador, agents engaged in activities similar to those in a prostitution scandal that emerged after a presidential trip to Colombia.

KIRO-TV reporter Chris Halsne just returned from El Salvador where a U.S. government subcontractor, who worked extensively with the Secret Service advance team in March 2011, says he joined Secret Service and US military personnel at a strip club in San Salvador. He claims he warned them not to take any of the strippers back to their hotel and was told "we do this all the time." The subcontractor said that at least two agents brought prostitutes to their rooms. KIRO-TV plans to air the report Thursday evening.

RELATED: No pattern of partying, says Janet Napolitano

The report came hours after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers that what happened in Colombia was an isolated incident and that it would surprise her if there were a broader problem.

The Colombia scandal erupted the morning of April 12, when a fight over payment between a prostitute and a Secret Service officer spilled into the hallway of the Hotel Caribe. Since then, a dozen Secret Service employees, including two supervisors, and 12 military personnel have been implicated.

Eight of the Secret Service officers have been forced out, the agency is trying to permanently revoke the security clearance of one, and three others have been cleared of serious wrongdoing but will face administrative discipline.

One of the Secret Service officers was staying at the Hilton hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, the same hotel where President Barack Obama later stayed for the Summit of the Americas.

Little is known about the fate of the six Army soldiers, two Marines, two Naval personnel and one Air Force airman, though Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said this week that all have had their security clearances suspended. A 12th serviceman, assigned to the White House Communications Agency, a military unit that provides security communications for the president, has been relieved of his duties at the White House.

Napolitano's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday was the first public questioning of a Homeland Security official since the tawdry affair became public.

She said the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility had never received previous complaints in the past 2 1/2 years, but it was unclear why she specified that period.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., praised the Secret Service as "wise, very professional men and women" and called it shocking that so many of the agency's employees were involved in the scandal.

"It really was, I think, a huge disappointment to the men and women of the Secret Service to begin with, who uphold very high standards and who feel their own reputations are now besmirched by the actions of a few," Napolitano said.

Napolitano said if the misconduct was a pattern, "that would be a surprise to me."

The Seattle television report also included allegations that U.S. embassy officials and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI have routinely engaged the services of prostitutes in San Salvador.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

RELATED: No pattern of partying, says Janet Napolitano

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Did Secret Service agents hire prostitutes in El Salvador too?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0426/Did-Secret-Service-agents-hire-prostitutes-in-El-Salvador-too
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe