Talk about sloppy.
Three Secret Service agents on President Obama’s detail in Amsterdam this week are in some hot water, after it was discovered they went out for a night of drinking — a night that left one of the agents drunk and passed out in a hotel hallway.
Hotel staff alerted the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands after finding the inebriated agent acting more like a college student than someone sent to protect the President. According to three people familiar with the incident, the agents were put on administrative leave Sunday and sent home.
The three involved in the drinking incident were GS-13-level agents, according to one person familiar with the investigation of the case. One of the three was a “team leader” on counterassault, but he was not in a supervisory position in the agency, the person said.
All three people familiar with the case requested anonymity in order to discuss details of the ongoing investigation.
The incident occurred a day before Obama was set to arrive in the country.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirmed Tuesday evening that the agency “did send three employees home for disciplinary reasons” and that they were put on administrative leave pending an investigation. Donovan declined to comment further.
According to the Washington Post:
The alleged incident took place in Noordwijk at the Huis Ter Duin Hotel, where the president stayed Monday night, a White House official said Wednesday morning. This is a resort town in the Netherlands about 15 minutes outside The Hague.
Under Secret Service requirements, anyone on an official trip is forbidden to drink alcohol in the 10 hours leading up to an assignment. The three agents are members of the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team (CAT) which means they would have been called to duty sometime Sunday for a classified briefing ahead of the President’s arrival on Monday.
So getting wasted Saturday night into Sunday morning was definitely not the right move.
This isn’t the first time Obama’s security detail has decided to wild-out. In 2012, a dozen agents and officers brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms before the President arrived in Colombia for an economic summit.
The stresses of the job, we guess.
SOURCE: Washington Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
