Not Buying What Julia Pierson Is Selling
[guest post by Dana]
Secret Service Director Julia Pierson faced a tough grilling this morning at a House oversight hearing. She testified that she took “full responsibility” for the failures at the agency and also reassured the committee that “The president is safe today.”
Not everyone was buying:
“I wish to God you protected the White House like you protected your reputation here today,” Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch told Pierson at a public hearing that was followed by a classified, closed-door briefing. Rep. Chaffetz said afterward: “The more I learn, the more it scares me.”
Further, Darrell Issa brought up the questionable reporting of the incident by the agency:
But she also faced accusations — which she did not directly rebuff — that the agency initially gave a “false” account of what happened that evening.
In his opening statement, Issa noted that the knife-carrying intruder in fact made it to the East Room. Issa said that was contrary to an “early, false report” that claimed the intruder only got just inside the residence door.
…
Under questioning by Issa, Pierson acknowledged that the intruder “knocked back” an officer who was standing at the White House doorway, made it into the hallway and “stepped momentarily into the East Room.”
Ironically, just hours after Pierson’s grilling this morning, another incident was revealed:
A private security contractor with a gun and a violent criminal past rode in an elevator with President Obama during a visit to Atlanta in September, a congressional source confirmed Tuesday.
The presence of the armed man in a confined space with Obama violates restrictions blocking anyone but sworn law enforcement agents from carrying guns in a location the President is visiting.
It alarmed whistleblowers who reported the incident to Congress, the latest in a series of embarrassing missteps by the Secret Service.
But hey, the White House front door now has automatic locks!
–Dana
Julia Pierson resigned today:
“Today Julia Pierson, the director of the United States Secret Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. He announced that Joseph Clancy, retired head of the agency’s Presidential Protective Division, would come out of retirement to lead the Secret Service temporarily.
Hello.
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/30/2014 @ 5:31 pmsecret service lol
let them boink their third world hookers
food stamp’s safe as houses as long as America’s enemies continue to believe that leaving him alone and unmolested is far more harmful to America than otherwise
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/30/2014 @ 5:36 pmWhy should there be Congressional hearings on this? This is an executive matter. Some people get a fired; some new security protocols are written. Anything to distract the public’s attention from the Democrats’ mess-ups, right?
nk (dbc370) — 9/30/2014 @ 5:45 pmI agree. If the President doesn’t care about his personal protection, then it’s not really Congress’s concern. Just like it’s not the President’s business to decide when Congress is in session.
On another note, I’ll mention that I remember reading somewhere (I think it was the memoirs of one of Reagan’s agents) that Secret Service details tend to adopt the attitudes of whoever they’re assigned to protect. Considering Obama is lazy and arrogant, I’m not surprised the White House agents appear to be, too.
Edoc118 (c37322) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:05 pmnk (dbc370) — 9/30/2014 @ 5:45 pm
Some people get a fired; some new security protocols are written.
Fired?
Anything to distract the public’s attention from the Democrats’ mess-ups, right?
This is a Democratic mess-up.
Certainly the way Obama reacts to it.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:15 pmNot everyone was buying
The only one who is buying it is President Obama.
http://www.talkradionews.com/top-stories/2014/09/30/white-house-obama-still-confidence-secret-service.html
His approach toward the failures of the Secret Service is exactly like his approach toward faulty intelligence.
Now do you believe me? (about Benghazi and about him NOT having briefed that ISIS was great danger?)
You can’t explain this failure by saying President Obama caused this. (yes, Julia Pierson is a political appointee, but she’s not all that important)
It won’t work in this version of the movie.
Only my explanation works.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:21 pmObama retains incompetents or worse.
Nobody ever is held accountable.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:22 pmThe private security guard in Atlanta got fired.
But then, he didn’t work for the government, and probably didn’t have the protection of a union/
What happened was he was taking pictures (or video, rather) with his cellphone camera when he was in an elevator with President Obama. They told him to stop. He still continued. The secret service agents then ran a database check and discovered he had been convicted three times for charges of assault and battery. They informed his employer, who fired him and demanded he turn
unveiled his criminal history.
So they removed him and discovered he had a gun.
And he had a criminal record, and shouldn’t
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:34 pmThis is not Presidential level or Congressional level, Sammy. This is Third Deputy Assistant White House Chief of Staff to Special Agent in Charge level.
nk (dbc370) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:36 pmI was in the rpocess of correcting this post whenit got accidently sent.
[the employer fired him and] ….demanded he turn over his gun (which had been supplied to him by his employer? I guess the gun control laws only prevent a felon from owning a gun – is that right?)
Only after that did the Secret Service realize that the man had been all the time in the elavtor with President Obama and a gun.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:38 pmwe’re spending a lot of money for so these secret service losers can suck as bad as they do
happyfeet (a785d5) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:53 pm102 in the Weighing Romney thread:
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:26 pm
Chicken Little is alive and living in Minnesota!
No, that was Omar Gonzalez, the White House intruder.
He told a Secret Service agent (they say) that he had to speak to President Obama because e needed to tell him that the atmosphere was collapsing. (That sounds like technospeak for “the sky is falling”)
The only thing is, Obama probably already knew that.
http://www.space.com/8770-record-collapse-earth-upper-atmosphere-puzzles-scientists.html
(The good news is, the atmosphere almost immedoately rebounded.)
Also see:
http://chemtrailsplanet.net/2012/12/28/the-mystery-of-earths-collapsing-atmosphere/
http://news.discovery.com/earth/earth-atmosphere-shrinking.htm
It’s really solar activity, or its absence, though.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 9/30/2014 @ 6:53 pmJulia Pierson
Lois Lerner
Kathleen Sebelius
I do not like the looks of this—the optics of this. Along with being given great responsibility, competence in the job is supposed to be demonstrated. C’mon (Dem) women, you’re embarrassing, and there is no gender defense or excuse to be made for your epic fails!
elissa (090163) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:01 pmelissa,
I have previously wondered if the appointment of Pierson so quickly on the heels of the Cartagena scandal was a cynical move by the president to both clean house of the macho culture that was running rampant in the agency as well as making sure it was done by a woman. A win-win for the president , both in effectiveness and optics.
Which then begs the question, in light of the numerous incidents, was the best person hired for the job?
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:15 pmShe already testified that she took full responsibility with this issue.
Sam Kumar (a28d29) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:24 pmDana
elissa (090163) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:29 pmThat’s an interesting observation about Pierson. I had not necessarily put two and two together about the timing related to the Cartagena testosterone scandal, but I always suspected she was the secret service’s female check the box version of appointing the Wise Latina to the Supreme Court.
==She already testified that she took full responsibility with this issue.==
Oh really Sam Kumar? What does her taking “full responsibility” mean? What does that actually entail as a practical matter? What should be her punishment? What if the president or a family member or a staffer had been seriously harmed?
elissa (090163) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:34 pm“Along with being given great responsibility, competence in the job is supposed to be demonstrated”
C’mon… the Prez doesn’t want anyone showing him up. Actual “competence” is a deal breaker, elissa!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:35 pmObama is the kind of guy who wants women around to take care of him, and not a leader of men type. It’s the story of his life.
nk (dbc370) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:41 pm==Actual “competence” is a deal breaker==
Yeah, but possibly getting dead by a crazed White House intruder is also a deal breaker for the Pres, Haiku. If it really went down as is being reported (always a questionable assumption I know) this is a shocking breach.
elissa (090163) — 9/30/2014 @ 7:50 pmHe likes to live on the wild side… bath houses…lung darts… cheeseburgers…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:02 pmB’s absolutely never hire A’s
Kevin M (b357ee) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:08 pmHas it ever occurred to anyone that all the bad things that Dems say will happen under Republican administrations keep happening when the Dems are in power?
Also, every time an administration person testifies about whatever is the latest screw-up, he or she always says that they will take full responsibility. It never happens.
I won’t say we live in the most twisted period of American history only because we are no longer relying on the telegraph for information.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:09 pmThe words “I take full responsibility” have been rendered just as much a lie by the creatures infesting this administration as “If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.”
Mouthing the words “I take full responsibility” is simply the empty ritual these criminals go pass through on the way to avoiding responsibility entirely.
What next? These people who never have kept their word will no doubt be mouthing meaningless syllables that to the rest of us sound like, “I give you my word.”
Just as when Obama says, “Let me be clear” you know he is being unclear, when people in this administration say “I take full responsibility” they have no intention of accepting any responsibility.
How hard is this to understand, Sam Kumar? Do you somehow feel obligated to be taken in repeatedly by pathological liars? The rest of us don’t.
But there really is a sucker born every minute. That’s what this administration banks on. And we can see from the fact that there is a second Obama term that the percentages really do favor those who trust in the gullibility and stupidity of the American electorate.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:10 pmIt’s all about optics, elissa. And women.
Dana (4dbf62) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:10 pmThere was a report that the alarm on the front door was muted. I have wondered: On whose orders? Want to bet that Michelle or Barry didn’t like the sound it made and had them turn it off?
If it was a Secret Service type’s decision, shouldn’t they be held accountable? That’s one reason I think it was one of the Obamas or one of the other political types (Jarrett?). Sounds like something one of the stupids would do.
Bill M (906260) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:17 pmI have to confess that I also prefer the society of women to that of men in most situations. They smell nicer. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:18 pmIn truly professional organizations, taking “full responsibility” when something bad happens means losing your job (a.k.a.: resigning/being fired). With Mr. Obama’s “organization” taking “full responsibility” means getting a promotion.
navyvet (ec562e) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:20 pmDon’t forget Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Susan Rice. Barack Obama doesn’t value competence. He values, and rewards, the kind of blind loyalty that leads people to brazenly lie on his behalf. As DWS did at the Democratic National Convention, when the Obama administration needed certain words (God, Jerusalem as the recognized capitol of Israel) inserted back into the DNC platform after they had taken them out. And the delegates booed (whether they were booing the content or the procedure is irrelevant; they booed). When a CNN reporter asked about the discord she had just witnessed, DWS told her to her face that she didn’t see what she just saw. The reporters eyes lied to her; there was no discord.
And then there were the enormous, obvious lies Susan Rice spread on national TV following the Benghazi (and Cairo) assault. They were clearly lies that no sane, informed person could have believed.
But then, that wasn’t who Obama was trying to appeal to in order to get reelected.
They did their jobs. They’ve been rewarded with continued employment.
I can only conclude that Pierson is doing her job. And her actual job description doesn’t include securing the WH. I’m sure per her formal, public job description she’s supposed to secure the WH, but not the actual job description against which her bosses (particularly her main boss, the Preezy) evaluate her performance against their expectations.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:22 pmThe news report said the muting of the alarm took place at the request of the White House ushers.
Oh, and the White House janitorial staff ordered the bombing of ISIS/ISIL/Whatever.
navyvet (ec562e) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:24 pmThe only thing Obama does manly is pee standing up.
Occasionally.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 9/30/2014 @ 8:43 pm“………These are a few of my favorite things…..”
Bill H (f9e4cd) — 9/30/2014 @ 10:48 pmI saw a couple of reports blaming the House of Usher, errr, the house Usher. That provides some pretty convenient cover for Pierson. After all, you can’t blame the SS for being on par with the Three Stooges when there was nothing to rouse them.
Bill H (f9e4cd) — 9/30/2014 @ 10:56 pmThe alarm on the door is secondary. How did they let this guy get that far?
Earlier today (I guess at 2330hr almost all of today was earlier) I heard it commented that this one guy with mental issues was able to penetrate several layers of security and reach the East Room before any serious challenge was offered. One must consider the level of success that a team of trained and practiced assailants might achieve. I recall seeing a movie with this as a theme, but the name escapes me.
Up the comment pile the interest Congress has in this was questioned. Might one consider the state of turmoil that an actual assault on the head of state within the walls of the executive mansion would have on the operations of government. The House of Representatives is the direct link to the people paying the bills and it is their business to see that the People get what they are paying for.
Pierson is just another token to enhance the optics for those who value such things.
Gramps, the original (7adb80) — 9/30/2014 @ 11:43 pmThe House of Representatives is the direct link to the people paying the bills and it is their business to see that the People get what they are paying for.
Did you type that with a straight face? I saw it 7 minutes ago and I just now stopped laughing.
nk (dbc370) — 10/1/2014 @ 12:51 amI saw a couple of reports blaming the House of Usher, errr, the house Usher.
That’s convenient but sounds like BS to me. The ushers don’t control security responses for the White House (but with the bunch in there now, they may be the only adults). I’d think the head of the White House Detail would overrule that request. Sounds like a CYA to me; blame somebody else. Wonder where they got that idea….?
Bill M (906260) — 10/1/2014 @ 12:58 ama couple of meters of tangle-foot inside the fence, plus a triple coil backstop, with the odd half-attentive observer and homeslice never would have got near the White House.
we’re over-thinking & over-paying the SS for the White House security mission.
😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 10/1/2014 @ 2:18 amIsn’t affirmative action great. Look what it did for the presidency.
Jim (145e10) — 10/1/2014 @ 3:19 amObama getting assasinated because he undermined the very agency that is supposed to protect him is called evolution in action and it has the added benefit of saving the country and potentially the world. color me unconcerned.
Rorschach (61bf43) — 10/1/2014 @ 3:22 amIf she took “full responsibility”, then she would have resigned.
hadoop (f7d5ba) — 10/1/2014 @ 3:33 amExactly. I didn’t make that up. It was probably some MFM outlet that heard something from someone who has a close, personal friend who works in the laundry room, so I can’t vouch for the authenticity. However, you know full well that if the WH thinks they can run with this and fire the usher, thus diffusing the mini-scandal, they will. Bet on it.
Bill H (f9e4cd) — 10/1/2014 @ 4:18 amAccording to the testimony, the alarm box was muted at the request–the SS acceeded, did not take orders, is the implication–of the house usher.
Richard Aubrey (f6d8de) — 10/1/2014 @ 5:35 amThe women optics work for Bam-Bam. Women got him elected and re-elected. 57% of the ditzy dames voted for him.
nk (dbc370) — 10/1/2014 @ 7:21 amThe world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,
And black’s white today,
And day’s night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
42. Richard Aubrey (f6d8de) — 10/1/2014 @ 5:35 am
According to the testimony, the alarm box was muted at the request–the SS acceeded, did not take orders, is the implication–of the house usher.
According to the New York Times yesterday, Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Chairman of the sibcommittee looking into this, the ushers had complained the “crash box” or “boxes” (the sentence uses bioth the singular and the plural) were too noisy.
Which means that it (or they) either were supposed to go off all the time anyime the door was opened, or it wasn’t but there were false alarms.
And in any case it means that they did not work as intended or weren’t practical.
And rather than report the problem and with that confess some error in procurement, and wasted funds, and try to get the boxes replaced, or the sound level or pitch changed….
….the Secret Service simply muted them.
Problem solved?
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 10/1/2014 @ 10:39 amThe better question is, why have an audible alarm at all? I get that an audible alarm allows agents to respond quicker. With a silent alarm, you have to wait for someone in the command center to notice it and respond accordingly. But if the audible alarm was annoying the staff, why not make it inaudible? I know the Secret Service has a command center in the White House. I would hope they have a dedicated alarm monitor in there somewhere. Create a series of code words for each alarm, and all they have to do is transmit the appropriate code word across the radio and every agent with a radio should know there was a breach.
I’m pretty sure at least one Congressman understood this, which is why he mocked Ms. Pierson with an ADT sign.
edoc118 (c37322) — 10/1/2014 @ 11:00 amBill H (f9e4cd) — 10/1/2014 @ 4:18 am
if the WH thinks they can run with this and fire the usher, thus diffusing the mini-scandal, they will. Bet on it.
Nobody will get fired.
Or replaced wth somebody better.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 10/1/2014 @ 11:31 amThere was General Stanley McCrystal, but that was for a different reason: disloyalty and back-stabbing.
Although he wasn’t really fired, just relieved of duty.
Not for doing a bad job, although President Obama took the opportunity to bring back the man for all seasons: David Petraeus.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 10/1/2014 @ 11:36 amI’d be happy to see either Generals McCrystal or Petraeus put in charge of the secret service.
elissa (68eca7) — 10/1/2014 @ 11:44 aminteresting how a bogus story, by Hastings was all it took, to get him fired,
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/1/2014 @ 12:00 pmJulia Pierson resigned this morning.
Dana (e5bbe0) — 10/1/2014 @ 1:02 pmIt might have been a conspiracy by some aides, perhaps put up to it by other people. McCrystal seemed to say his resignation was voluntary and he did it because he was damaging the effort in Afghanistan, so it was actually a kind of mutual decision, like later that of the Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs Eric Shinseki, and done for essentially political reasons.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_A._McChrystal
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 10/1/2014 @ 1:09 pmYes, Dana. Apparently the Preezy wanted to keep her on because … lady parts!
She was the first woman to head the SS, and the reason Tiger Beat wanted her for the job was because of the Cartagena prostitution dust-up. Clearly, the SS agents were only patronizing hookers because they didn’t have a female figurehead in charge of the agency to “change the culture.”
But too many Congressional dems wanted her gone, historic first woman to head the SS or no. So under the bus she went.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/1/2014 @ 3:18 pmThe WH had to buy a new bus. Something with bigger tires and a lift kit for more ground clearance to accommodate all the people President Bieber has to throw under it.
This should do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXE5WPgFxJc
The funny thing was, Josh Earnest was on MSNBC this morning telling the world the Preezy still had full confidence in Julia Pierson.
Then Elijah Cummings and Chuck U. Schumer came out against her and, well …
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/1/2014 @ 4:38 pmI’m sure Earnest was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, but here he is on CNN expressing the Preezy’s confidence in Pierson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZjqkJ3G8XY
Right before crushing her with his monster bus.
Steve57 (b50fab) — 10/1/2014 @ 4:46 pmthe problem is certainly more ‘cromulent’ than just Pierson, as we discovered there was that fellow who shot at the white house, three years ago, and that was under the previous director.
narciso (ee1f88) — 10/1/2014 @ 4:54 pmPresident Obama might have improved his standing in some eyes if he had shown actual legitimate outrage and demonstrated executive decision making by a show of firing her ass. She did not deserve the courtesy of being allowed to resign. He had plenty of cover as people on both sides of the aisle (and I’m betting Michelle and the girls too) were appalled. What a disgusting wishy washy political naif he is.
elissa (68eca7) — 10/1/2014 @ 4:59 pmI’ve updated the post with Pierson’s resignation.
Two things: I had forgotten that the Secret Service found out that the first WH state dinner had been breached by the Salahis via Facebook.
Also, I heard today on the news that the new interim director Joseph Clancy was in charge of the detail at the same infamous Salahi state dinner where the couple was were admitted in spite of not being on the invite list. (I can’t find it in print, however…)
Dana (4dbf62) — 10/1/2014 @ 5:50 pmI truly am surprised that Bammy didn’t get mad in public over this. It directly effected his safety.
JD (285732) — 10/1/2014 @ 5:55 pmThere isn’t a macho culture in the Secret Service – there’s a culture of never letting anyone appear to have done anything wrong and cover-up, of which the prostituion cover-up was only an example.
Several things we learned this week show it.
1) In the incident in 2011, several Secret Service agents heard the gunfire, but their boss told them not to investigate and that it was just a car backfiring.
2) The alarm(s) was shut off because it made too much noise, but no note was made of that and no one was told neither that there was a problem, nor that the alarms had been muted.
3) They didn’t tell the truth initially about how far into the White House Omar Gonzalez had gotten.
4) They didn’t reveal that the Secret Service agent who tackled Gonzalez had just come off duty – that detail came out so late, that it wasn’t in Julia Pierson’s testimony.
There seem t be two different versionsof the elevatr incident. In one the secret service took his gun, and in the other, his employer did when he was fired. I read the wall Street Journal today that the Secret Service is looking into whether its procedures were followed. Chaffetz says he was not badged nor given a background check (until after he didn’t stop using his cellphone camera) But they are looking into whether he fell into the category of a law-enforcement officer. Maybe he was taken for that, but he wasn’t.
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 10/1/2014 @ 6:02 pm58. JD (285732) — 10/1/2014 @ 5:55 pm
I truly am surprised that Bammy didn’t get mad in public over this. It directly effected his safety.
What? Look like a coward? Or self centered?
The New York Times had an editorial today about this which said he and his wife did get angry in private a few years ago (although he didn’t do anything about it)
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/opinion/Julia-Piersons-Secret-Service-and-the-White-House-Breach.html?_r=0
More detail:
http://theweek.com/article/index/269070/did-the-secret-service-drop-the-ball-in-2011
a cover-up and the cover-up continues with this leak to The Week.
Anyway, someone did identify it as gunfire. It was chalked off as a “gang-related shooting”
<blockq
Sammy Finkelman (ca4c0f) — 10/1/2014 @ 6:21 pmI’ve kind of lost touch with them but the husband of a former co-worker of mine was on the secret service detail for vice-president Bush. He took his job verrrry seriously.
And I believe that the secret service guy who took a bullet for Reagan, Timothy McCarthy, is currently the police chief in Orland Park, Il. I’d love to know what some of the former ss members who are familiar with presidential and White House security protocol think about all this.
elissa (68eca7) — 10/1/2014 @ 6:22 pm#61
I’m with you on this one Elissa, although I suspect I already have a pretty good idea of what they’d have to say. I think we all do.
Bill M (906260) — 10/2/2014 @ 12:07 amOr, gee, maybe if the Secret Service wasn’t kept quiiite so busy with ValJar…..
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/what%E2%80%99s-secret-valerie-jarrett%E2%80%99s-security-detail/wed-10012014-811pm
elissa (e6416c) — 10/2/2014 @ 5:32 amPresident Bieber
That’s an insult worth stealing.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 10/2/2014 @ 5:58 am