Free Republic

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson House should be ousted from her job, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday, agreeing with the recommendation of the top Democrat on the oversight committee. Mrs. Pelosi, the highest-ranking woman in American politics, said problems go beyond Ms. Pierson, who was put in charge of the Secret Service after a scandal involving agents who hired prostitutes in Cartagena in 2012. But Mrs. Pelosi said she accepts the analysis of Rep Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, who said he was displeased with Ms. Pierson’s leadership.

The United States Secret Service (USSS) is in a slump. The Secret Service used to be part of the Treasury Department. That was because, when the Service was established in 1865, "one-third to one-half" of all currency in circulation in the United States was counterfeit. What with this being just three months after the end of the Civil War, and all, the Secret Service's job was to put a stop to that. Presidential protection began as an "informal" part of the Service's duties in 1894 in President Grover Cleveland's second (and, as you remember, non-consecutive) term. The Secret Service...

CHICAGO — Just over a month until Election Day, President Obama is returning to a theme he hoped to make a centerpiece of the midterm campaign: the economy. Multiple crises overseas, the resignation of the Secret Service’s director after eye-popping threats to presidential safety, and the first case of Ebola in the United States have all kept Mr. Obama in a reactive mode. But in a speech Thursday at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., the president will go on the offensive and highlight the strides the economy has made since the near-economic collapse he inherited in 2009. He will also...

Yesterday Secret Service Director Julia Pierson fielded questions from furious and skeptical lawmakers after a number of serious failures by the agency to properly protect the President. Pierson started her testimony by saying she "takes full responsibility" for the failures, especially the most recent incident of fence jumper Omar Gonzales making it all the way inside the White House, but failed to answer a number of questions. Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy questioned Pierson on a shooting incident that occurred at the White House in 2011. Pierson failed to provide adequate answers as to why that incident was first classified as simply...

Julia Pierson, the director of the United States Secret Service, resigned on Wednesday amid a rush of criticism over recent White House security breaches. "Today Julia Pierson, the Director of the United States Secret Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it," said Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson. "I salute her 30 years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the Nation." Joseph Clancy, the former special agent in charge of the presidential protective division of the Secret Service, will take over as interim director, Johnson said. Johnson also announced the formation of an independent panel to investigate...

Behind the shocking revelations of incompetence and unprofessionalism that rocked the Secret Service this week is a longtime reporter who has been diligently uncovering the agency's secrets for years. Carol Leonnig, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who has worked at The Washington Post for nearly 15 years, has broken almost every single story on the agency, a series of shocking reports that on Wednesday resulted in the abrupt resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson. (Pierson called the resignation “painful.”) In less than a week, Leonnig uncovered three scandals that pushed the agency’s first female leader out the door. First,...

WASHINGTON — Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was at the grocery store the other day when he ran into an elderly black woman who expressed growing concern about President Obama’s safety. Why, she asked, wasn’t he being better protected by his Secret Service agents? The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate. “It is something that is widespread in...

Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland was at the grocery store the other day when he ran into an elderly black woman who expressed growing concern about President Obama’s safety. Why, she asked, wasn’t he being better protected by his Secret Service agents? The furor that led to this week’s resignation of the director of the Secret Service resonated deeply among blacks, outraged that those supposed to be guarding the first black president were somehow falling down on the job — and suspicious even without evidence that it may be deliberate. “It is something that is widespread in black circles,”...

The White House sprayed by bullets. A hospital guard with a criminal record and a gun the Secret Service didn't know about riding on an elevator with the president in Atlanta. The fence-jumper who made it all the way into the East Room of the White House. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson had no choice but to resign on Wednesday afternoon. She did it a week or two late, but she did the right thing. The vaunted federal agency -- whose core duty is to protect the president of the United States, his family and his home - has become...