U.S. lawmakers scolded the head of the U.S. Secret
Service on Tuesday over a security breach that allowed a knife-wielding
intruder to run deep into the White House, and Director Julia Pierson promised
to make changes to agency procedures to ensure it would never happen again.
The incident is the latest black mark for the elite agency
charged with protecting the president, which has suffered a series of scandals
including a lone gunman firing shots at the White House in 2011, a prostitution
scandal involving agents in Colombia in 2012 and a night of drinking in March
that led to three agents being sent home from a presidential trip to Amsterdam.
Lawmakers from both parties said the incident had damaged
the agency's reputation and punctured the image of invulnerability that helps protect
President Barack Obama.
Republican Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said there was no
guard posted at the front door of the White House that evening and that
fence-jumper Omar Gonzalez, a 42-year-old Iraq war veteran, breached five rings
of security.
Pierson did not provide details of the breach in her
prepared testimony, deferring some issues to a closed classified session with
committee members to follow. But she did acknowledge the problems and missteps
that have dogged the Secret Service in recent years.
Obama appointed Pierson, 55, a 30-year Secret Service
veteran, in March 2013. The first female director in the agency's 148-history,
she was given the mission of cleaning up the agency's culture after the 2012
trip to Colombia in which up to a dozen agents were found to have hired
prostitutes.
The president and his family had left to spend the weekend
at the presidential retreat at Camp David shortly before the intrusion.
Click
here to access the full article on Reuters.