yes the committee on homeland security will come to order the committee is meeting today to receive testimony on the united states secret service and presidential protection and examination of a systems failure good morning i want to thank the witnesses for agreeing to testify here today some people have x me why we're having this hearing let me be clear this hearing is not about crashing a party at the white house neither is it about want to be celebrities or reality television on the contrary this hearing is about real world threats to the nation we cannot forget roll the most important and indisputable fact is that a couple gained on authorized access to the white house grounds because no one from the secret service prevented them from entering they remain at the white house because no one from the secret service required them to lead we are not concerned about agency embarrassment discomfort or shame cannot serve as a substitute for performance the security gaps at issue cannot be explained away as missteps by  front line employees they all were undeniable planning and execution failures of the entire secret service apparatus with security failings that seemed to hang over that evening like a fall we are all fortunate that this diplomatic celebration did not become a night of horror there is no doubt that this incident can be an enlightening case study but it is not enough  to merely analyze this we must dissect every fact we must learn the lesson and fix the problem and after we do these things we need to give thanks that no lives were lost today we are hurt we will take a hard look at secret service actions and omissions that have been revealed and confirmed by this incident this nation's response to the terrorism threat at home and abroad demands that we maintain vigilance the fact that unauthorized persons gain access to the white house complex during an appeals state downa mixed  and were photographed with the president vice president and a prime minister of india is about as far from vigilant as one can get it is simply unacceptable the american people deserve a full accounting and full accountability and we must be a shoo in that this will never happen again i look forward to the testimony presented today and i look forward to the actions that should follow that chair now recognizes the ranking member of the full committee the gentleman from new york lista keen on opening statement that he was chairman and let me at the outset thank you when you say after the level of cooperation you've shown throughout this matter as far as scheduling the hearing as far as keeping us apprised of what's been happening and also as far as agreeing with my request that does very rogers be called as a witness before this committee and i agree with you  completely was chairman that we cannot have discomfort or shame the reason for someone not to testify i want to responsibility is also important as you said we dissect every fact let me just say the secret service i believe does an outstanding job obviously mistakes were made here i commend director sullivan for immediately acknowledging that and for also conducting an internal investigation and for the level of cooperation he's given to me and i realized he was well over the last several days of putting everything on the table and holding nothing back so i commend him for that and whatever decisions he has to make within the secret service i'm sure he will do the right thing but mr chairman the reality is that such an event at the white house security is a shared responsibility between the secret service and the office of the social secretary we've gone back through two administrations and we cannot find any instance of any significant event in the white house where the social secretary's office was not there standing with the secret service is reasons for this one is in the event that someone is supposed to be on the list and is not the social secretary's office can resolve that they can work to resolve it while the secret service continues to process other people on line in this instance for whatever reason decision was made not to have one person in the social secretary's office testify because we want to get a complete picture we have to learn the secret service what they do what they didn't do what the social secretary's office did and what they didn't do and why they were not there that night that somebody is a real issue now we had during the week we had initially the what he's not saying is that this is the policy that was in effect of at least two previous administrations and to me the issue is why who made the decision why was a decision made not to have anyone in the social secretary's office there that night i will say and i have no doubt of this at all if someone from this from the social secretary's office had been there doing what's been done for at least the previous sixteen or seventeen years that couple would not have been allowed into the white house they wouldn't stop because they were not on the initial s secret service officer would have then handed them off to the social secretary's office and they would have resolved it and i don't previous administrations they had a whole team of social secretary's people that they had people from the diplomatic office people from legislative affairs people from the president's own staff to the white house we certainly didn't listen what mr gibbs saying said when he said that white house staffers don't testify before congress that is untrue i was on the banking committee in one thousand nine hundred four during the whitewater hearings when president clinton sent up george stephanopoulos subpoena deseret rogers this is not a separation of powers issue this is an issue where there are people in the white house advising the president health care or cap and trade or afghanistan we're talking about an administrative decision to have people are not have people standing with the secret service and to change a policy of at least twenty years standing and to me chairman this is an incomplete hearing it's after hearing we're going to have to picture from the secret service which is acknowledge its responsibility of being stonewalled by the white house which refuses your back not security personnel and i think one of the reasons we brought directed sullivan here is to explain the role of the secret service from a security standpoint and he can answer a number of these forney and as a twenty second director of the united states secret service on may thirty first two thousand and six most of sullivan has been the recipient of numerous awards for us a period performance throughout his twenty six tenure with the secret service including a distinguished presidential rank award in two thousand and five welcome the solvent thank you for being here today without objection the witnesses for statement will be  record now ex director sullivan to summarize his statement for five minutes thank you chairman good morning chairman thompson ranking member king and other distinguished members of the committee the u s secret service is an organization that maintains deep pride in the work it does on behalf of our nation based on the high standards to which the men and women of this agency hol themselves in the standards the nation expects i regret on tuesday november twenty fourth established protocols and procedures were not followed allowing two individuals entry into the white house the moment this was brought to my attention on wednesday november twenty fifth i immediately directed our office of professional responsibility to begin an investigation the review into the events surrounding the previous evening further i directed the office of professional responsibility to contact the department of homeland security office of the inspector general in order to advise them of our investigation while the investigation remains ongoing pulmonary findings have determined that established procedures related to entering the white house were not followed that initial checkpoint an error in judgment a mistake was made in our line of work we cannot afford even one mistake in this particular circumstance two individuals who should have been prohibited from passing through a checkpoint and entering the grounds were allowed to proceed to the magnetometers and other levels of screening before they were then allowed to enter the white house although these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of screening their entry into the white house is unacceptable and indefensible the u s secret service relies heavily on the professionalism and training of our men and women to make informed decisions based upon sound judgment in this case i fully acknowledge the proper procedures were not followed and human error occurred in the execution of our duties this flaw has not changed our agency standard which is to be right one hundred percent of the time this event does not represent the quality of protection that the dedicated men and women of this agency provides every day this past year we processed more than one point two million visitors into the white house without incident in our profession however there is no margin for error i realize many people share our disappointment in this incident as an agency we will continue to remain our harshest critic and take the necessary actions remedy this issue and continually to successfully carry out our critical mission i am extremely confident in and proud of the work of our men and women in the security measures we put in place on a daily basis at the white house the vice presidential residence in the thousands of venues located throughout the world which are visited by those we protect the men and women of the u s secret service work twenty four hours a day seven days a week every day of the year their sacrifice and commitment make us the agency that the american people can be proud of and depend on as a career special agent i am confident in our men and women and in our ability to successfully execute our missions german thompson ranking member king and members of the committee i am willing to answer questions at this time however any questions regarding our security procedures will need to be discussed in a closed setting additionally i would like to respectfully advise this committee that due to the fact that this is an ongoing investigation any question regarding the potential criminal aspect of this incident here or in a closed setting thank you thank you very much director sullivan for your clear that all of us support the men and women of the secret service there's no question about it our oversight responsibility though is when situations like this occur we have to look at and we have to do our job  in that pursuit of doing our job this hearing is being held today in addition to that couple of questions i'd like to just get on the  record who is responsible for security at the white house the u s secret service is responsible for that security mr chairman the u s secret service who's a sponsible for access control house at any point at the state dinner for this particular event we had three vehicle checkpoints and we had to put yestreen checkpoints ok at what they owe any of those lists they were not and it's your testimony before us today that they should not have been allowed entrance to this event because they were not on the list that is correct just photo record of an individual is not on the list what is the procedure the procedure would be that they should not be allowed entry at that point for this particular event the protocol would be that that officer should contact their immediate supervisor the supervisor would get together with with an individual from the white house staff they would determine if in fact that individual was cleared to command additionally we would call over to our control center to see if these names had been provided for clearance did any of this occur on the evening in question it did not have you identified all of the personnel who would have been was sponsible for this not occur sir right now that is ongoing we have we have identified three individuals right now we continue to investigate we have done since this occurred we have done numerous interviews we continue in do we continue to go back and reinterview people but they were not on the list have you determined how an individual not on the list could gain entrance to this event i have sir is that something you comfortable in sharing in this setting oh you would like to do it in another state i'd be more than happy to share that we had established protocols they weren't followed what we find is that if the protocols are followed we won't run into this type of a situation clearly this protocol was not followed a mistake was made in error in judgment and that allowed these two individuals who should not have been allowed entry into the the white house can you tell us whether or  not you know other individuals may have to gain entry to the white house in a similar manner this evening sir are that was that was a concern on my part as well and i can tell you that our investigation indicates that no other individuals were allowed entry that evening that should not have been allowed to come in and that one question because these individuals were not on the list they did not get anything like that  do you think this not occurring provide it in a risk to those individuals who attended the state dinner sir like everyone i'm extremely disappointed that these people were able to enter the white house however i would say that these people went through every layer of security that every other individual went through going into that building and i would be more than happy to talk about what those levels of security are in a closed briefing but i would say from a from a risk perspective i feel confident based on what i've heard based on what i've seen based on what i've been briefed on that they did not provide a risk to the president saudis when they went to the first checkpoint and their name was not on the less i'm sorry chairman i don't know if i'm sticking my to standing is that when so i came to the first checkpoint the name was not on the west and they told the secret service agent that they should be on the west and they had been invited and they talked themselves throws at the fair analysis part of the investigation you know it's part of the investigation but i will tell you is you know these two individuals did show up at the list proceed to the next checkpoint to have their names checked up there saying is this personally myself often off from a certain certainly at times people who should be on the list or not and when they say they are on the list should be on the list and then not somebody from the social secretary's office is the secret service agent over to the social secretary and goes back to processing those who are next on line is that the way it's been done in the past sir for every event that we have at the white house we have a planning meeting with the white house and we did have a planning meeting for for this particular visit during that planning meeting we all agree about what our pre determined responsibility will be for that particular event office with the secret service sir i've asked our people to go back and look at that and we have seen other events where that has occurred and it does not happen often but we have seen other events mr king where that doesn't fact occur do you know if it's happened in any previous state i do not know that but i can get back to you on that if this hypothetical if when they come up to the security checkpoint and they said we are on the list the secret service agent says you're not if they have been somebody from the social secretary's office that the agent had referred them to the social secretary's office and continued to process those on line i believe what they would have done is they would have worked the issue together i don't think the officer would have totally just dismissed it to that particular person i would think that that would only dismissive but wait to see what the social secretary's office could find then come back to the secret service agent rather than the secret service agent stop processing everyone on line ahead of them and just deal with this individual or these individuals mr king i think that is one of the things we talked about in our after action review as we talked with the with the white house staff i believe we both recognized that there is a need to have somebody there from the from the white house and that's why as we saw yesterday new guidelines were put out for all of these events in the future without exception there will be somebody there from the from the white house staff and won't those guidelines be similar to everything that's been done before other than last week you know again mr mr king many of the events we have done over the past nine or ten months there have been people from the white house staff at this checkpoint for this particular event prior to this event we agreed that we would control that there would be somebody from the white house staff time so in iran you said it was agreed who initiated that to us the social i thank you for accepting responsibility but the only way we can find out as to who initiated this change and what the real procedures are going to be in the future and why it was done that this way last tuesday to me we can't do it let's we have some of the white house having the guts to come down here  testify instead of hiding behind a phony claim of separation of powers about the only thing i would say mr king is that during that meeting i mean it was agreed upon that there would be people from the from the white house staff available in a roving capacity and again i take responsibility for the fact that we did have that available to us that is what should have been you know that those people just should have been stopped there and we should have called for someone to come out and help to to expedite those but if it had been someone next to the secret service agents would not have happened they would they would have gotten  again no one would have been allowed in that event if they had not been vetted am i correct that's correct mr chairman whether they talked to the social secretary or  but i'm sorry chairman i was going to say you know there have been occasions where people have shown up that have not been vetted where we will have conversation with the white house staff and those people have been allowed to enter that that's very rare but on occasion people have come if both the white house staff and sigrid and this is in every not just this administration other administrations where if we feel that there's a need for those individuals to be let through that haven't been vetted and we and the staff are both in agreement with that those people will be allowed in but again the but that's to answer your question not what happened here thank you generated from california for five minutes from the center thank you mr chairman  and thank you mr sullivan for being forced to first let me begin by saying that i think the secret service does a great job and it saddens me to see that there was such a lapse this time at the white house in the past i know that there's always been close communication between the social secretary for the white house legislative legislative affairs for example if we're going to have the can the congress people are going to come for the christmas party  and every single time that i have entered the white house there has always been somebody from the presidents from the white house there at the very first point to before you ever even get to the checkpoint where they check your purses except for every time even if it's just been a meeting with the president over a particular policy there's always been somebody out there so my question to the first question i have for us in this pre planning meeting did you all decide that no one would be specifically assigned from the social secretary's office or legislative affairs or what have you at the first checkpoint was that a decision made because i heard you say there were going to be roving people but was there a definite decision that nobody would be standing next to the secret service as people first made entry or attempt to come into the event you know my understanding congresswoman is that there was an agreement that at that initial checkpoint we would we would man we would have that list on our own  if any discrepancy did come up that we would then call for somebody you know that person was to call for their for their supervisor and they infect would get in contact with somebody from the from the staff who was down around the main entrance point at the east wing and they would be available to come out and help out with the issue so your feeling is that your first secret service agent who was standing there with the list and realized that the couple in question was not on there that in fact their purpose was then to call over somebody from the white house and come for us what to do with that person corr ma'am every day we have people show up to various gates at the white house who you know just a lot of to be there they they they want to come in and every day you know our people will make the appropriate phone calls appropriate contact to see if maybe we have missed something on our list and if in fact these people are expected to arrive and i look at this no different for me this began and ended at that checkpoint it was a simple protocol simple procedure that we had in place that if somebody came up was nonetheless to make contact with somebody who could come and help us but i'd that individual in order to term and if in fact they should be turned away and that's why it surprises me because every time that i've been to the white house and i've had a g who has been vetted ahead of time with social security number and everything else we need to supply and showing i d s there are still times when we are set aside and said wait we don't have your guest on the list let's talk about this but it has always come not in conjunction with somebody from the white house so why in this particular instance because i've never seen this instance before and it's been under three presidents that i've been going to the white house democrats and republicans that i that they are i have never just seen a secret service agent in particular with such an important process with so many important people waiting in line to get through why do you why would you all agree that no person from the white house would be standing there first of all to greet guests which is one of the most important things that the social seen this happen before why would you all agree to that i would acknowledge that i believe that is very rare i haven't seen that happen myself all that often and i do believe that the the statement or  memorandum that was put out by the white house yesterday i believe that they recognized that as well and they stated in that memorandum that you know where they are to work as partners to make sure that we get everybody in who should get in and prevent people from getting into shouldn't come in and i do believe that because of this particular issue last week i think there's a recognition by all of us that that is the way things should be done and i think going forward i know going forward that is the way things are going to be done i thank you for taking responsibility but i think there's a lot of responsibility that should be spread out on this thank you mr sullivan thank you thank you thank you very much gentlemen for many and the five was checkpoint that that failed and the list that you're referring to was the list provided to you by the social secretary or is this a list that's been so security numbers have been vetted there's been background checks on the individuals that might have turned up some of the questionable things in this couple's background and who they were associated with the list of social secretary a list of who we invited or was it a vetted list and i i believe i have this right and if i don't we'll correct it but what happens before the event the the white house staff will give us a list of all the people that have been invited we will then take that list and they will also provide us with you know name and date of birth and social security number we will then run all those we would do the appropriate director checks for all those individuals if anything does come up that would lead us to believe that somebody should not be let into the white house we would get back to the white house staff on that once that once all that vetting is done we'll get back to the white house staff on that and then they will give us back a complete list of who was going to be attending that event so for the social secretary's office or anyone from the white house or any influential individual to walk up and say this individual should be allowed in he said you think that's been done in the past without vetting would they also have to say that this individual has been vetted before i would say that that would be very very rare occasion i would say if perhaps it was a member from the hill or if it was some on the other individual who is a family friend i mean this would have to be somebody who was known to them we would talk through it and you know we would we would allow them into the into the white house but again that would be would with all of us are comfortable and we were we know who we're dealing with this allow us i guess that's a very rare occurrence or disallows have been flashing all over the national media e mails that suggest that there could have been the potential of a mistake in that they had had exchanges asked to be on the list that there was less to be called back then they claimed that they were gone and hadn't heard it did they show those e mails that the whole country knows exists now you know sir that gets into the elements of our criminal investigation and again i cannot based upon information and conversation with what the u s attorney's office i just would prefer not to talk about that one of one of my concerns because as this feels like as they say days they've all over again when i was first elected to congress and we came in and i got elected in ninety four we came in on the government form an oversight committee we started a whole round of investigations in ninety five and ninety six about white house clearances and the question was dick morris and the thompsons were not on a clearance list yet they were coming into the white house regularly that that led to a whole question of having clearance lists with dead people on it with people who shouldn't have been on the list who were holding those lists that lead to questions of what the coding on the list was that's how we found l b met lincoln bedroom we've been through this before with the secret service we've we've asked this to be clarified and fixed and the question was is and looking at a casual visit of some individuals and a slip up on the list it led to a fundamental question about how and when these lists are changed because you said well they went through all the checks they went through all the checks and there was no danger to the president or the prime minister of india if there is no danger why do you do background checks  that's a fundamental question because casual visitors from indiana to see the white house christmas tree are subjected to background checks you just said here that it didn't matter really that you didn't do the background checks because they had been vetted at so many points and there was no danger  the president was there dana to the president not to injure the president and if there isn't danger of the present because you have all these different points to see that they don't have a gun that you don't have these things why do you vet every visitor to see the white house you know doing background checks or one level of our security and just because we do a background check on somebody who comes back they have no record to me that does not mean that there's no danger you know my question is is that you said that there was no danger to the president because they went through all these things to show that they basically didn't pose a threat that correct was there a threat to the president not a threat of us or we have countermeasures in place and i'm confident in telling you that there was no threat to the president you know last week sir we took him to a basketball game with five thousand people and he was surrounded by those five thousand people so lost but i understand that you can't that but why do you then run a background check on every individual that's coming in when they aren't even going to see the president but i can get their picture taken with the president i can get the picture taken with the vice president they're not going to see all these other people they're in a one on one type of thing why do you run less of a background check on individuals there then you would on a casual visitor because you said sometimes it's waived you said there was no danger the presumption is you doing a background check because as a potential danger you know sir would i have liked to have stopped those people at that checkpoint i would have to i think those people should have a name checked i do but the but does that mean that there was a danger to the president because two people came in who were named checked i don't believe it does i believe that our levels of security i believe that you know we keep agents in close proximity to those people that we protect our agents are you know if we if we thought that doing a name was going to secure his safety then we wouldn't have any more security in the white house would tell all of our people to that that they could stand down we don't shoot we're looking at those people as they approach we're looking at their body language we're looking at their gestures we're looking at any type of furtive action there you know we don't rely on just any one level of security here we look at multiple layers of security and again i'd be more than happy to for this incident it's not an easy thing to do but you haven't flinched and you write that as you said quote in our line of work we can't afford even one mistake unquote as you can see everyone on this committee on a bipartisan basis views this as a security issue hopefully none of us cares whether us weekly is covering it we care whether the life of our president and high level official officials from our country and from india and others were protected at last week's a band and we care very much going forward whether there are lessons learned i think that ought to be clear certainly that's what i care about i focused in a terms of congress on security issues that's my passion that's what i do i chair the intelligence subcommittee of this committee and on numerous occasions i've been briefed by you on threats to the president the united states and what the secret service is doing about them and i've been to your headquarters to see firsthand what you do and i want to thank you and the people who work for you for your service and again i want to thank you for taking responsibility full responsibility for this incident my questions are about what will we do going forward what will we do differently  of us remember the so called purple tunnel of doom at the inauguration that was i thought a demonstration for crowd control by your agency and other agencies at a large outdoor event that's not the same as this event but it causes me to ask some questions i think that entering the white house should not be like shopping at a big box retailer the day after thanksgiving i'm sure you agree  going forward cans of thousands of people are going to be at the white house in december looking at the christmas decorations and attending a number of receptions we're all going monday night with guests and we have submitted the social security numbers and the date of birth of of those guests and we know that they're being vetted and think they should be so my question is should we have a better business model here for large crowds and smaller crowds i attended recently the bruce springsteen concert in washington it was quite wonderful i just want you all to know some of you may have gone but it was also a very smooth security experience tickets were received well in advance they were printed on high tech tamper proof paper that came with bar codes that were quickly scanned for authenticity there were no lines there was no confusion and there was no security problem i am not suggesting that christmas at the white house is a bruce springsteen concert but i am suggesting that there may be more modern techniques for screening people who are trying to enter the white house building and let me finally suggest to that as this committee knows layered security always works better ms sanchez and i have a collaborated for years on port security and that's what we have put in place and so in that regard i very much applaud her comments about the social secretary's office social secretary participation in screening people adds to layered security and i sure hope those lessons have been learned so my question to you as do we have the right security model here are there things that you can improve immediately with respect to screening people who will come to the white house next month and are there things that this committee either legislatively or informally should be working on to make your job more effective thank you i agree with you you know one of the things we do is we're continually looking at our methods and our procedures not just because of this event we do that continually we continue looking at how technology can help us out you know x ray machines other types of technology methodology to expedite people through and to make sure that we do it in a way that is going to be non intrusive and make sure that's very efficient i would say that in this particular case again i don't think any level of technology i don't think any level of funding is the reason for why this happened i mean pure and simple this is human error we could have had the best technology we could of had all the one point two million people through the white house over this past year and all those people were put through without an incident because we did follow procedure so i do agree with you that we need to continually look at technology and whatever method issue of the sunsetting of three major provisions of the patriot act that will occur at the end of this month unless we act on it including the lone wolf provision which the judiciary committee deem should be dropped on the very day that we had a lone wolf tack a domestic lone wolf attack in fort hood i hope we don't have to have a royal screw up with respect to security in a larger sense for us to get the attention of the media on something like that let me just ask you mr director first of all from your testimony you do not make up the list of the invitees correct that is correct the white house does you vet the names given to you on that list correct that's correct so that you your office your officers are not responsible for the list and would not know why someone is on the list or not on the list from a invitation less revenue vetting situation correct that would be correct so it seems to me it would be logical would be helpful to have someone from the white house with your personnel at the time the decision is made when someone presents themselves to the white house who's not on the list i believe there's an acknowledged knowledge so let me ask you you said there was a decision made beforehand that that would not be the case here was that your recommendation that was a recommendation that we made together as well so it was your recommendation it was a joint recommendation why would you make that kind of a recommendation you know sir we we look through the issue of last week we sat down we talked about this and  say my recommendation we had our people get together with the white house staff they looked at the events surrounding last week so i don't i don't need to know the process i want to know why that's the question why would you or members of your staff decide that it would make sense not to have somebody from the white house at both of those however many points there were with your personnel i mean why do we make the decision that there was nobody i'm sorry sir why would you make the recommendation why did you make the recommendation you said it was a shared recommendation why did someone from the secret service decide that made sense i believe in looking at what happened last week we again sir we have done this with not only this ministration but with previous administrations where we have taken the responsibility for that list this is the first time that we had a breakdown based on our people accepting that responsibility ok so you know it has been done in the past has it been done when you have a  dinner as i mentioned earlier i don't know that but i'd be more than happy to get that in from the you don't know whether it has ever been done when you've had a head of state of a nation that's been the subject of a recent terrorist attack i do not know that i  just say for the record if your folks made that recommendation if you made that recommendation it is inconceivable to me why you would do that all you need to do is to have someone from the white house standing there that's too much to ask that's what they're supposed to do right i don't understand a misunderstanding then are you saying did we make the recommendation two weeks ago during the planning period that would be there by ourselves yes that's the question i just asked you sir and i apologize as i said they had a a planning meeting prior to that event i understand i'm just asking whether you or your folks made the recommendation that that ought not to be that you ought not to have someone from the white house there so i don't know who made the recommendation all i know is in the in the planning an agreement was made that we would take that list in that they'd be other individuals available from the white house staff understand would respond to that checkpoint to help with any discrepancy ok i'm just trying to ask did that come from your side of the house i don't know that will your investigation reveal that it will ok you talked about layered security i'm absolutely very layered security but the fact that matters here one of the layers was not the correct i would say sir that the protocol was not adhered to ok well i'd say one of the layers was not there i would say that there was a breakdown in that layer that's what i would say human error repeatedly you said procedures were not follow unacceptable and he said it was indefensible normally when you have an organization where you have a screw up like that there are consequences that flow from that and what i mean by that is this the only way you're going to assure that you don't have screw ups in the future and you've said it yourself we can't afford to have a screw up that matter how many millions of people go through you can't afford to have a screw up or as has been said many times terrorists only need to be successful once we have to be successful all the time the consequences after the review takes place are there going to be consequences for people who made the human error we just going to shrug our shoulders and say well it was human error  right now the individuals have been identified have been put on administrative leave and beyond that i would prefer not to go further but i will tell you that we are going to look at this we're going to find out what the culpability was what we expect from a great police force and that's what the secret service is and that's more than this a lot he's have done to continue dedicated they were invited even in the face of the evidence and are no show at this hearing where they could have explained themselves fully as you were doing today you indicated earlier in your testimony i think i'm quoting you know others entered but how did you discover that the the entered you discovered for that in their facebook or was it your own discovery that some antelope ruse had entered we did not discover that on our own we were advised of it the following day and advised by publicity exposed and revealed themselves you see the danger i'm speaking of sir you know that was a concern of mine as well that is something we have focused on i cannot talk about in the setting but i believe that i can satisfy you  could say to this committee you were sure that no others got in this specially since we have a precedent for someone who did get in so i'm i think really has to know how they can assure us that there were no other interlopers for twittering about the social secretary and and the serial con artist what i see is that this couple has pioneered a new way to breach security known in the press over and over again that this president has received far more death threats than any president in the history of the united states the alarm a number of has their friends i'm not going to ask you for the details on that but here we had the first state dinner not of just any old president but of the first african american president was there any attempt increase security given all you know which is much more than we know about threats to this president of the united states  no matter who the president is i'm asking about this president and my my question is very specific given death threats to this president was there any attempt to increase the security at this event yes or no no i can't talk about that i'd be more number one i will address the threats i've heard a number out there that the threat is up by four hundred percent i'm not sure where that is it up at all we don't asking for the well i think i can answer it is it is not four hundred percent  i'm not sure where that number came from but i can say from the we can hear gentlemen please don't assign to me a number in my question i just asked you if the threats were up all the threats up or not was the solid or not the threats right now in the interest that we're seeing is the same level as it has been for the previous two presidents at this point this is very comforting news let me ask you there reportedly there were as many as three of four times as many extra forces extra people on the ground to assist you with this state dinner yes ma'am we will always adjust our security plan depending upon the were there extra people given the fact that there were three or four times as many people at this stage there is there where would you have gotten them from i ask you that because i recent internal report of the congressional research says if there were an evaluation of the services missions it might be determined that it is  effect to conduct its protection mid mission and investigate financial crimes where do you see police there to help you i do not believe so well are you you need more people do you have enough people when you who are secret service people when you have to cover three times as many people or perhaps more a no ma'am the number one priority of our organization is to protect the president we are always going to have enough resources enough people to protect him we had we had the appropriate level of staffing at that event last tuesday the when you where they under oath then i can't get into that because of her and you can't tell us whether they were under oath or not men who have submitted you have submitted a transcript as i'm simply asking you where they under oath or not you talk about where they under oath when they came to the checkpoint know when when you interview them when your office is interviewing them ma'am i've been informed by the u s attorney's office that i cannot talk about any aspect of the investigation we have a lot more we play at the end of the hearings to go into a more structured setting so we can get some of these questions answered thank you mr chairman thank you very much and i apologize for that but i just can't go into those elements of the investigation gentleman staff at the checkpoint who suggested that at that meeting i don't know that sir do you know who was in that meeting i do not can you give us the information of who was in that meeting sir for the preplanning also i'd like to ask norton questions about when this came to your attention it's my understanding from a washington post story that the knot of the event during the state dinner roxanne roberts who was at the event went over to a white house staffer and told them that they didn't believe when the salahi is were announced that they were not supposed to be there were you aware that i am aware of that but you read that story just can you tell us he's did or did not go to a secret service agent and communicate that information you know sir i cannot comment on that ok you talked earlier about not being on the list that in the past there have been events where i staffer would come over and say you know we want to go ahead and let them and they don't and again that's not as much about an event but just somebody might come to the white house again a congressperson or a friend of the family may come to the white house sometime during the day wanting to get in our offices will always call to the appropriate people to find out if in fact this person has been invited they may not be on the list but clearly because of their friendship because of their position because that they are known to the family or that they do have a legitimate reason to be there we're not going to turn those people away we're going to work with the staff and make sure that we get those people and i mean i think we have to have some level of common sense here that if there are people that have a legitimate reason to be the staff wants them in there they have a meeting and they just somehow didn't get on a list we're going to ensure that we get those people through well i understand it in the daytime setting but in a large venue whether it's and you would think at the white house it would be the easiest to adhere to those protocols that you talked about earlier but as you mentioned there are many being used away from the white house where you know the thought of somebody being laid down by a staffer is frightening because we don't know who that staffer is and what their background is and what their connections may be but again this would be sir i mean this would be again this is more the exception it's for those people that we both agree yes in fact that they should commend both both parties have both confident that that person should be and i have and if i gave the impression that we did this for parties or state dinner i apologize because that wasn't my intent my intent is that there are people who show up at the white house on occasion mainly during the day mainly for business reasons that if they need to get in we're going to work with the staff and we're going to ensure that they're allowed to get in well i think mr norton raised a good point a little while ago and she emphasized that this is probably happened many times is that not of what has happened many to what happened at the state dinners probably happened many times we just didn't know about it because they didn't post it on their facebook and go out and brag about it we probably had i would say absolutely not i would say that this is an aberration again you know we  our protect duties very very seriously protecting the white house is our number one priority and i do not believe i know that this has not happened many times before any times well i hope not is this is a pretty scary scenario when you think about the present united states being exposed to somebody who just walked in off the street and you know you made a statement earlier that you felt like the president was not in danger maybe in this case but the fact is these people could have been bad guys who could have been carrying biological or chemical agents only on the president could have been in danger just because they didn't have a gun was revealed from magnetometer does not mean he or the vice president or the prime minister went in danger i would like to think going forward in the future that no person who was not on the list could get into the white house no matter what staffer tried to wait and see because you do have these three of the protocols that are followed for a reason but i'd love to hear your response to the danger they may or may not be exposed to without the party crasher having to go in or not have the chem bio which you brought up would be more than happy to address that in a classified briefing you know but those are countermeasures that we do take into account again i would not want to talk about those in here make make no doubt about it i am not trying to minimize the fact regarding the danger here i don't like what happened i didn't want to none of us want to see that happen here but i am confident in our levels of security in our men and women that are protecting the president in close proximity to him in all the situations we put him in sir we travel all over the country we you know it is very difficult protecting a president in a democracy and you know it's our job to make sure that that person is able to get out their agenda get out their message and have access to people and we deal with these type of situations every day as it's been said you know if we had our way would put him in a bubble we know we can't do that and we want to make sure that we were able to get that person out there are no matter who it is and allow them to get out their message allow them to get off their agenda and i will tell you that we do it every day we have to let people have access to them but we do have people that are prepared to sullivan you are right you have the responsibility of protecting our president and you know in a letter that i wrote to the secretary of homeland security which i believe should be more intimately involved in this issue as we go forward i indicated my appreciation for the brave men and women that serve in the secret service and i will never step back from that representation i also acknowledge the fact that you said there's no margin for error i want to applaud you for the one point two million people that have come in securely and i want to join you in recognizing that you staff up man up and woman up when you need to but i want to join my colleagues and say this is a time to understand what happened and what kind of resources going forward so let me say to you that my perspective is that this is a law enforcement issue a criminal activity that could have generated into a horrific incident at a state dinner in washington d c in the white house and what has been classified as the most powerful nation in the world in the backdrop of the move by incident that occurred a year almost to the day of the visit of the prime minister of the of the great country of india so i'd like to just show you how severe i think the circumstances are we've seen these over and over again severe absolutely severe because the person standing there was not vetted to the report that you submitted to us was not on any list severe when we see a picture that we have seen over and over again on the severe violation and potential threat to the president and vice president of the united states again nother location all together in an uninvited circumstance standing with the united states military i'm sure that they could take care of themselves but severe the same time the prime minister of the nation that suffered this terrorist act was there so let me focus on why i believe this is a law enforcement issue you may not be able to discuss a lot of it but let me quickly go through my point at fifteenth and alexander hamilton place was there a secret service personnel there there was and did that secure service personnel inquire of the salafis who i believe came according to report to that checkpoint were they invited guests there are those people who presented themselves as being invited was there a discussion there was as far as i know and in your report it says they insisted they were invited were allowed to proceed to the second pedestrian checkpoint do you assume that if they assisted that they were invited that they spoke to a secret service officer at the first checkpoint that if talk to one of our people there was dialogue and conversation direct and did they in that dialogue in conversation again speak to a federal officer they did and in a federal officer is the actions of the individual speaking to a federal officer covered by federal law they are so let me proceed on the idea that in eighteen us one zero one ten zero one it says that anyone who proceeds to falsify a conceal a coverup by any trick scheme a device is violating a federal law we can talk about the secret service who you have mentioned that you had more than a folk song the lives of these individuals were threatened but we cannot get away from the fact that the salafis of playing with the attitudes and the trends and the dangers of what we live in and so i'd like to offer into the record and ask you a question in particular there is a email that has the salafis reporting that senator harry reid and his wife whom a goup her and her husband bob stevens and his wife will not be at the dinner can you tell me how they would have access to this kind of classified information is the white house live where people are not coming is there a list printed saying these people will not show up congresswoman i don't know where they got that information right there is also an additional statute that suggest in eighteen u s c ten thirty six that says entry by false pretenses to any real property whoever by any fraud or false pretense enters or attempts to enter were they on the list to your knowledge they were not on the list do you believe they entered onto the premises discussing this with the secret service who made a mistake more than what we would like did they enter on false pretenses ma'am as i said before we're in the middle of a criminal investigation here u s attorney's office and i understand you may not be able to answer did they enter with approval in terms of being on a list to your knowledge again ma'am they were not on the list but it's our mistake because they were on the list we let them through and they were not on the list and therefore not vetted is that your understanding that is a white house considered a federal building it is mr chairman i just simply want to submit into the record  spoke about a half hour before i came up here for this testimony so i would not want to leave you know any indication or have you under the impression that she has not been intimately involved with this we have been talking daily about this issue thank you mr chairman i look forward do a very thorough and diligent job in this case mr sullivan you brief us on a monthly basis an intelligence briefing for a briefing i don't need to emphasize to you the threat here it's the first state dinner that's been pointed out the prime minister of india who has also been a target was at the state dinner india which has been threatened by pakistan on the eve of the president giving his speech on afghanistan his policy dealing with afghanistan and pakistan this is that you have two major targets at the white house and the idea that a couple could get in there without any without their names being on the list without any sort of vetting if you will without their social security numbers being submitted in advance is really astounding now you were very candid in saying that the stablished procedures were followed and i think that's very clear in this case but how in the world could this couple get past the secret service without having their names on the list without having their socials in advance get right up to the  sir i've asked myself that question a thousand times over the last week what we keep coming back to here is that procedures weren't followed and again what we have found is when we follow the procedures when  we when we go by the protocols we have these type of situations don't occur i'd like to think that all these layers and that's one thing we do we realize we put a plan together that things might not always go according to plan and that they might be imperfect in this particular case that that is what happened but i still do believe because of all the countermeasures we have which i'd be more than happy to speak to you about in a closed session i do believe that their safety was never in jeopardy but again do i like to see this do any of our people like to see this believe me we're beating ourselves up over it we do not like to see this when we have the prime minister of india come in we give him the highest level of security we put our best people on his detail  r i can tell you that i understand your concern and i have the same concerns but i do think this is an aberration is or a protocol where white house officials can waive a guest and even if they're not on the list and the social security numbers and background checks have not been done and again sir i'd prefer not to get into our procedures on every event is going to be is going to be different but again i'd prefer not to get into that procedure well one of you said human error happened and certainly it looks like the secret service or human error what i want to know is whether this individual whether it's anybody from the white house intervene to allow access to these individuals congressman this is our fault in our fault alone  no other people to blame here you know look at me and blame me this is our fault you know you're certainly doing the job the secret service is known to be doing and taking full responsibility that i think that's an issue we need to look into your mission this planning meeting that took place prior to this event were you at that meeting i was not good but the decision that came out of that meeting was that the social secretary was not it would not be necessary for  list but in this case where they've been or the white house staff was available you know it was just a matter of you know our people either getting on the radio or picking up the phone and contacting them and asking them to come out  to help resolve the issue when you say when this is secret service airlines does that mean that secret service let these people in without any sort of vetting process and that the white house had no role in waiving them and you're telling us white house deputy chief of chief of staff where he stated that in the future that somebody from the white house absolutely needs to be there present with the secret service is that correct so looking forward in protecting the pr and heads of states across the world the white house employees officials will be present with secret service as individuals come into the white house that's correct and get back thank you very much gentlemen from texas m responsibility should be shared but but again you've been a good soldier and i appreciate your the work that you and the men and women that are working for the secret service let me ask you this we've talked about the white house member that came out that they now will go and have somebody at a checkpoint is that correct let's assume that that particular checkpoint that's been in question if somebody from the white house would have been there and i understand somebody could have got on the phone somebody dropped the ball b not getting the phone call and let's assume that somebody from the white house would have been there at that time what would have been the procedure the bottled to be followed by the procedure would have been the same of as if our person had called that person  army person's right next to that particular service they would have both work this through this issue together who would have the ultimate call on this one you know again that's a very difficult thing to answer you know it's a joint decision ultimately when it comes to security  we have the ultimate call have you ever tried anybody down from the white house asked somebody to come in sir i can categorically can you remember of one particular line i cannot recall that no ok  do you have the necessary resources some funds to effectively investigate issues like this you have the personnel resources available to do all this work  sir i believe we do when it comes to doing our protection that's our number one priority you know we work with the department we work with capitol hill to ensure that we have the necessary funding i don't think you're going to talk to any agency head in washington d who's not going to tell you they need more money you know but again we do our best we prioritize and working through the department working with capitol hill we do everything we can to ensure that we have an assert funding prioritize with whatever resources we get is that correct that's correct what impotent what obstacles currently exist that would have hindered the secret service from accomplishing their protective services was there anything in particular that night that you know sir i'll go back to my question again if the white house would have had their persons standing there what would you done at that time we both would have looked at the list we both would have determined that they were on the list and i believe we would have worked through it together to determine if in fact that person should have been invited again i with all due respect i think you're being a good soldier i still feel that the work that your men and women do under the circumstances i think you all have done a good job and you're being a good soldier by taking full responsibility but i still think that if somebody would have been there at that time with you right next not picking up the phone i think we would have had a different result at that time but again i want to thank you and your men and women to do a great job thank you congressman taking this journey thank you very much a gentleman from pennsylvania for five  your willingness to take responsibility for this incident but you know i i never ever expected to see you know we always expect the secret service to take a bullet for the president we don't expect to see service take a bullet for the president's staff and from the social office on this but my my main question director sullivan is this there has been much discussion about the about the planning meeting and who recommended that no representative from the social office be at the initial check points and given your twenty six years of experience would you have made such a recommendation know sir i really don't want to debate whether that was the right decision of the wrong decision i think the fact is is that regardless of what was right or wrong we agreed to it and when we agreed to it we took the responsibility for that list and we took responsibility for allowing that person in to be event my opinion is to look back and to say you know what we should have done a could have done does not take away from the fact that we allowed somebody into the white house who should have come in and we had a protocol for that particular night based upon our decision that if anybody came who was on the list that we should have that that person should have called for help and we didn't do it so i guess we could debate for hours whether or not i should have you know i would have made that decision or made the right decision but the bottom line is we made a decision and we have to live with it you know i appreciate candor of your answer and also i understand too that since you would not have made that recommendation i certainly hope that when the white house social office receives recommendation from you about the security of the present states they would take those this was in fact the case i don't know anything about that sir and if the secret service had a question as to whether or not a very important person was in fact authorized to attend the event would ms rogers be a logical person to contact contacts in a case like that again sir i would not know i think that she would have i would think that there are several people working within our office and i do know for this particular event we had contacts from within her office that we were dealing with i'm not sure in fact if it was her directly or other people who worked for her and again throughout your time as a director of the secret service were representatives from the white house staff station to check points for these types of events in the past and w breach of security on page fifteen of that report it states quote because the secret service relies on physical screening and monitoring not invitations to provide security there there were no security lapses at the biden breakfast can you explain why the secret service considers a ticket a crowd control mechanism and not a security mechanism i think it all depends on how those tickets are and again i'm not sure the conditions and how those tickets were were  guess i'm not familiar with with that and you've already stated that essentially a layer of white house security was breached but there was an agent near the president when he was in the receiving line and  one might expect when the president is shaking hands along a rope lines that i wouldn't say as close as they are with a rope line but again as if you watch you know our men and women on these type of photo lines people have to pass by an agent on one end there's other agents on the other end and we are monitoring these people we're watching these people you never see our people watching those we protect but we're watching the people that are approaching the people we protect you thank you for your service and i yield back thank you gentlemen this time of the and i commend you for your courage to stand in the breach here today i am just at a loss to understand why the white house didn't send somebody to discuss this as well to give us a better sense  certainly not a profile in courage certainly for a white house that touts transparency we would expect somebody to be here you know and in a very bizarre way we owe some sort of a  the these issues what what is going on what has happened with the guards who let this happen at the checkpoints and initial checkpoints are they on administrative leave are they can you tell me what's going on there or they're on administrative leave with pay how often does the secret service exercise practice go through their routines for these sorts of things  training center builds full maryland we look at these type of issues we put scenarios together for these type of scenarios we're not where we need to be but i see it's improving every day as far as getting more people o training you know uniformed division you know there's a we've been authorized at four hundred nineteen for uniform division are going back to two thousand and three we've never been able to get to that number right now we're at about  thirteen hundred fifty where we are creeping in on that number i'm hoping with more people that we will achieve the forty nine thousand which will allow us to do more training right now we are working with congress to get a bill passed which i believe will help with retention and help with recruitment it's the uniform division is a should act it's already been passed through the senate and it's going through the house right now but i believe that will be a big but we do put training procedures together for these type of issues but i'm not going to tell you that we're getting it done as much as i'd like to but i do think as we grow the uniformed division that we are going to see more training but i would also tell you for this one thing that we learn event you know managerial oversight is very important i believe that we had the appropriate level of managerial oversight on this night however for these type of events we're going to have even more managerial oversight there we have also come up with a resolution helpdesk which will be staffed by somebody from a commanding officer from our uniformed division as well as a senior level person from the white house staff we have had something comparable to that before but it was more of a mobile type thing where this will be stationary everybody's going to know where it is but again i go back to the fact that i'm not sure that the level of training and the level of funding any number of all of our agents we give them a lot of discretion you know we a lot goes into a hiring and you know our people go through when they initially come on they go through about seven months of training and i'm very confident in our people and we do give them discretion you know there are a lot of things that happen out there that they have to make in on the spot decision you know things don't you know they don't have the luxury of being able to pick up the phone and ask somebody for advice and we do give them a lot of discretion in this particular case we did have time to to make the right decision and we we just didn't do it i am very concerned by the revelation that mr jackson lee presented with the e mail of knowing who was and was not going to be at this event i think the revelation of that e mail requires us to do a very thorough investigation into who know who knew what when and why and how they got that information i mean that was extremely frightening to me that apparently mr salahi sent this e mail and how he was able to come up with the guest list and not who was going to be there but who is not going to be there and apparently  that is exceptionally troubling and that is that is a clear security breach that really needs to be understood and it may not be secret services in this case and it's probably not secret services fault i don't think it is but there is a security breach that people need to understand the protocol of security here when we air when we air in this country we have to err on the side of national security thank you mr chairman thank you gentlemen as time has expired that information has been entered into the record and it's our expectation that director sullivan will get back with us once he's had an opportunity to investigate the e mail and the source and what have you  we have four votes on the floor the expectations is to recess and reconvene around twelve fifteen committe test one two three would like to reconvene at recess hearing the next person who's in attendance is miss miller from michigan for five minutes thank you very much mr chairman  director sullivan we certainly appreciate your attendance today and your service to the nation as well and many of the questions have already been asked and i know that you've answered many of them that an investigation is under review and that you can answer some of those and i'm appreciative and  cognisant of why that is the case but i would say just a general observation in some ways i think perhaps in a very strange way this incident may have a silver lining because it does point out systems failures and i am also of the mind that there is shared responsibility here not only with the selective service but certainly in the case of the white house social secretary another administrative officials that perhaps should have been assisting that evening and i know this has already been brought up but to attend the state dinner and then they mentioned senator harry reid and his wife and they mentioned two other couples but not only did they mention the individuals not coming that they are aware they are not going to be coming to the state dinner they also say why they're not coming  in the case of senator harry reid the senate majority leader they have gone home early for thanksgiving this other couple kumo and husband unable to travel to d c tomorrow this other individual bob stevens top brass from lockheed martin i cannot believe that the secret service would be releasing that kind of information it would seem to me that only an inside source would have access to that kind of information and i find it extremely troubling and i would ask you to respond to that mr sullivan if you could about that information or how it got out there because you don't have to comment on this is my personal observation that it would have had to come from an inside source somebody within the wiring diagram of the white house i would imagine and social secretary's office that would have had that kind of information that's why i think it is even more troubling that no one from the white house particularly the social secretary was not able to testify the white house went on record here saying specifically staff here don't go to testify in front of congress which i thought was an interesting comment particularly when speaker pelosi in the case of congress trying to get information from the bush white house said the white house no matter who it is cannot violate the constitution of not being accountable to the congress and talked about transparency and how they would be above and more transparent than any other administration and right off the bat when we asked to have those social secretary come to testify to a committee a congressional committee in that case they say that it's separation powers which i think is a far far stretch i would also mention the social set you mentioned director sullivan that some of your staff that is your investigation is proceeding i won't go into the details of whom but that you have put on administrative leave with pay several members of your of the selective service and i'm wondering whether or not you are aware of the white house social secretary has been put on administrative leave with pay or if any other members from the white house wiring diagram any administrative staff there have been put on administrative leave with pay i know nothing about the congresswoman all i would tell you is the reason we have taken the action we have taken that i have t appreciate that and then my time is running out let me just ask you that just to be clear the secret service does not perform any political work on the part of those that they protect is a correct nonpolitical organization it would seem to me that in the case of a state dinner when you have perhaps political people that have some political affiliation with the president except that it would be helpful to have the white house social secretary other appointees of the administration excedrin to be  available at the various check points otherwise it would seem to me that there is outsourcing of the political part of the job to the secret service and i think that that is a i think that's a mistake and i would also ask you do you  appreciate the time mr chairman thank you very  from california ms richardson for five minutes thank you mr chairman and mr sullivan let me first start off by saying that i appreciate you coming here are you facing the music is as i would say  you could have easily hid behind you know we're currently doing an investigation and we can talk about it but you came to answer the questions here and i i respect that and i want to say thank you i also want to say to all those who serve with you and under you  i think it's important that we remember that you not only do a job but you also make a commitment that if you have to you may have to choose to lose your life to protect any of us who happen to be there so i think it's important we keep it in perspective i agree that this is severe i agree that i'm concerned but what i don't want to do is to send a message to those who are serving that the appreciation is not there and that i think the suspect symbol and that's what i hope that we will do my questions are it's my understanding and it's basically from press reports that i've seen that it was quite busy that night there may not have been enough equipment system set up how many do you normally set up for  was a back up of people i'm not exactly sure what the line was but i there was a line there and then the white house support staff that was available to you to contact by phone or grab or whatever how close were they to this particular checkpoint were they  where these machines were in the lines and everything else was going on i'm not sure if they were behind magnetometers or if they were in front of them i know they were right in the in the area and they were all they were available ok i've got less than two minutes so we got to go fast  you said that you feel that no one else breached the system how if if officer allowed someone to pass what makes you think that they just didn't allow some other people about that is one issue that i wanted us to put a  significant amount of review into and so far a review was indicated that no other people were able to get in i would be more than happy to speak to that with you in a classified setting ok according to one of the reports that i read not only were their names on the list but the only identification that they had was a passport would that normally have been something to raise a red flag of your name not on the list and you're using a passport for identification given the nature of who all was present as i understand it they showed a passport for identification i'm not sure if any other identification was but my question is by showing a passport with that of them something normally that maybe the officer would have thought ok your name's not on the list and you're showing a passport would we would accept the passport ok my last question kind of builds upon congresswoman sheila jackson lee this question if a person misrepresents and says the their name is on the list and they come to you and they want to see you can be charged for lying to a federal agent ok and are we pursuing any criminal charges in this  case and we do have an ongoing investigation ok and as i mentioned in my statement we do have an ongoing criminal well i would like to see some sort of clarification i think for the public it's important that we set what is appropriate standards and even with the ongoing investigation mr chairman thompson maybe you can work with him that i think we need some sort of communication that people aren't just going to be able to go off scot free because i wish i would have a serious issue with that young please just so i'm clear you know share with you that i received numerous calls this weekend that was nothing short of outrage from my constituents and certainly i am outraged as well that these breaches occur but we're getting beyond that so my question really has to do now with some of the protocols and i know we're going to go into it in a secure environment but are you familiar with president viktor yushchenko of the ukraine possible loop of harm or danger to our president i'm sure an agent like that is not something that is is the detected through a magnetometer and i'm sure there are other types of agents  similar that can't be detected through normal physical means so i look forward to that conversation that we will have about how we would address something like that and i also want to ask you because you mentioned that you felt that this particular instance was an aberration it probably was for the white house but were you aware that the salafi he attend did without invitation in september the congressional black caucus dinner that they entered that premises through the kitchen and we knew and it was widely publicized that the president and first lady was going to be there this seems to be a pattern with these people and i'm very our read reports of that and we're looking into that very issue as well i understand there are a whole lot of photographs of the same couple and it's again my understanding and we'll probably have to get the facts of it but them entering through a kitchen facility there raises again the flag of contamination the types of harmful elements that can be disbursed in an environment where our president and his guests are present i want to thank you again for being what's right in your presentation to us today but i really believe that the level of consciousness that our agents have that the white house has about safety and security to really get things right there be a lot of folks who need to question themselves around this particular incident and i hope that we are questioning ourselves and that we're closing the loopholes so says something like this can never happen again and i would just close by saying mr chairman bad i find it ironic that the salafi were able to to get in to the white house with such ease when i was basically detained by secret service just trying to get into invesco stadium to nominate my president so there seems to be some standards about who is credible in their in their description of whom they are and where they appreciate that from my standpoint the most important question of that evening is was there at any point on the evening of november twenty fourth that the president was in danger as i stated earlier congresswoman in my opinion  there was not thank you now i also appreciate your willingness to look beyond that it's in that and really see if there are other vulnerabilities within the department and you know i was a little concerned with the statement to mrs  richardson regarding the entry at fifteenth and alexander hamilton were only ideas checked and then weapons are really not checked at the magnetometer until we're there at the east  wing and i just wonder if that's something that you consider of all ability maybe weapons should be checked before that they get that close to the white house so it's my understanding of that procedure correct first day dinner that that is our procedure for other types of event s will happen further upside but again it's inexcusable that these people were let through they never should have been let through with their name being on the checklist you know depending on what the type of event will  drive where we're going to do our screening thank you and i just want to mention one of the things i i'm a former prosecutor and you know over the years i've observed that we expect superior enforcement from our law enforcement and yet we don't give always given the resources they need i'm not going to put you on the spot today to ask you if you feel like you have adequate resources but i want you to know that i'm sensitive to that mr chairman i think that it's also our committee's responsibility and oversight to make sure that the secret service has the resources they need to do the superior job that we expect of them so i thank you again and mr chairman i just want to make one remark in that i am disappointed that the silly salas did not appear today and i affirm the fact that in every instance from a committee perspective we always ask whether or not he has the resources to do his job and when the budget comes it's a budget from whatever administrations in charge and his answer in most instances is i can get the job done with the money not to put words in your mouth direct  chairman my words are that i work with the secretary i work with the hill to ensure that we get the appropriate funding i've also said that i don't know of one agency head who doesn't say they need more money there's a process that i do my best to to follow you know i work for the secretary of homeland security and i do my best to want to work through that process thank you mr sullivan thank you note chairman i do appreciate your support sir yes think that it has you agency now along with others more engaged in looking at ways in which we can prevent things from from occurring in so sometimes something negative can actually be a positive i think this is one of those instances i only have one question but it may lead to some others i've become a little concerned over the fact that the secret service is engaged in searching for missing and explo and exploited children and while i think that falls outside of what i've always believed the secret service was doing the secret service is now expected to expand its role to include mortgage fraud occurred i'm sure you're not but i but i but i do agree with you that i think there will be some good that does come from this you know as as you know we're doing mission organization one hundred forty four years old we were first founded we were founded to combat kind of a currency  we did not pick up proper texans responsibility till about fifty years after our creation i believe the dual mission of our organization is very important we have about thirty five hundred agents about twenty two hundred of those agents are out in the field and they're assigned to investigative responsibility but they do support our protective mission it's my belief that what our agents learn as investigators make them that much better in their protection assignment evaluating people dealing with people going with various types of situations the dual mission of the investigative mission of our job revolves around financial crimes the majority of those financial crimes are access device or credit card fraud identity theft and you know as it relates to financial crimes and cyber cyber related issues we do work we do do some work for missing and exploited children and a lot of that is because of the capabilities we have we don't you know that's not full time for every agent we have a small number of agents who are assigned to that you know we believe that our job is to to make an impact on the community and we believe that this is a good thing for us to do and it does not take away from our other mission again i want to be clear i've said this in writing i have said this in numerous meetings i've had with our employees make no doubt our number one priority is to protect the president every employee in our organization realizes that it would be a disaster for this country for the world if anything were to happen to the president so nothing will take priority over our protection of the president in the other people we protect but i do believe we still have enough resources to work on these other investigative issues that we do and i don't know makes us a better organization or not agree with everything you said i  guess but there's a proposal now to give twenty million dollars more to work and mortgage fraud and i guess i'm looking for some consistency want to give the twenty million dollars to the f b i which also investigate small mortgage fraud it seems to me that we're duplicating services in different agencies i mean if the f b i is doing mortgage fraud investigation then you're like protective service and why do we go into all these other areas it seems to me that we're diluting and effectiveness that we have four or five different agencies doing the same thing you know sir we have jurisdiction for a bank fraud one of the things we're seeing is that this mortgage fraud is dovetailing into some of the other financial crimes that were that were working but what i would say sir that you know i'm not trying to compete with the f b i when it comes to doing mortgage fraud investigations  they have more assets and more people dedicated to that than we do but i still believe that we are making a contribution there i do to i'm just perhaps inarticulate in trying to get a proposal is responded to by congress which it probably will be then then your agency is doing mortgage fraud i don't say what we can't have an agency doing the mortgage fraud i mean how know what i would say to that would be that i do believe there is plenty work out there for everybody i as i said protections our number one priority if i believed that this initiative and i was working mortgage fraud was taking away from our ability to to take care of our number one priority i wouldn't do it and sir i would be more than happy to bring up our assistant director of investigations who is in charge of this  give you a briefing on that because i do want to make you make sure that you are comfortable with why we're working it and how that is not having an impact on our other duties gentleman's time has expired the gentleman from new adjournment mr sullivan the highest compliment i can pay the secret service is that every member of your agencies that i've met has been the highest quality and professional as you have been i'm very proud of the agency but like think like the congress we make mistakes you make mistakes wouldn't you say that what we're talking about today is an institutional problem and i don't believe it is an institutional problem i believe that it is a as i said before i think that it's a an isolated incident and it's due to i don't believe that it's d any systemic problem i believe it's due just to support judgment you know that in the beginning of this year after the inauguration a newspaper reported that several security vulnerabilities were observed by singing guests at the inauguration of president elect obama they reported that guests screened at an off site location stated that their secure buses could have been infiltrated because there was no mechanism to prevent onscreen persons etc etc now report was given to the agency after that can i assume can everybody on this panel  those were addressed and solutions implemented first of all sir i believe that that i g report did not substantiate those claims as i read the report that  was reported as i read it that we did have appropriate security procedures and that some in sir i will tell you that working with the inspector general we flew out to california to interview some of the people who  made that report to the paper we we we confronted that and we spoke to all the people who made that claim and one thing we had found was that many of the people that were out there working on our behalf were not recognizable to these people we had agents out there in uniform there and an overcoat they had on the had they had on a scarf and a lot of these people who thought we had no presence out there were mistaken in fact we did have people out there now one of the things we did learn is that for a future situation like that it would be better to change the location of the of the magnetometers however and we have instituted that however i will tell you that at no time was there any threat to anybody being able to get on a bus because we did fact have our people there and i believe that was proven by that report i'm interested in not only threats to the president and is a high priority but i'm interested in the threats to your folks you can't separate t v reality t v from reality you know americans have a little problem right now we're trying to distinguish between truth and fiction and myth bothers me is that many people are looking at th hearing and thinking it's about some sensational incident when what is really about it's really about is i think a failure that's plagued many institutions a larger department has yet to really integrate all of its desperate disparate security components i mean this is a big homeland security department the committee has talked time and time again about the documented problems at the secret service including low morale among some of the uniformed officers and it's full on deaf ears i think it's because i'm sad to say we still have a pre nine eleven mindset we think we're invincible right up until the point where something happens the real ugly truth is we don't even think about the secret service because we figure they have it all covered that is until something happens and then we start asking questions so i want to be supportive you of you tomorrow as well as today it just bothers me much that it's now been almost exactly seven years to the date that we created the department and we are still reactionary in our approach to threats since that are being proactive in this incident is a perfect example director sullivan you've been the director of the secret service for more than three and a half years i believe  started out as a special agent in nineteen eighty three eighty two something like that i want to ask you do you agree that we need real institutional change at secret service right now by that how do you define that sir well do we need changes because we talk when i only talk about you know this one incident with talking have you had full cooperation in the three and a half years to bring about the changes that you see are important to make your agency more effective and more efficient to have you receive that aid and we don't know much about secret service it so we go there we see all the great work that you do and i'm wondering now that you're here is there something else we should be doing to help you become a more effective agency i believe that we can always do better and are always looking to do better to the real answer and i will tell you that you know we're working with the department i would say that when we went into the department of homeland security i think people were asking you know why are you going into department of homeland security about transportation immigration borders i believe that we are in the right department and we're getting the right support from this  department our people have a really challenging job we made a mistake here and it's a unforgivable and indefensible mistake that we've made but i don't believe that has anything to do with any of the institutional procedures or for any of those other issues i believe this is just a breakdown in in judgment you know we do some great things every day and if we had hearings for every great thing we did there wouldn't be enough hours in the day to hear about what our people are  doing you know our people are not looking for a pat on the back they're not looking for anyone to praise them we're not looking to bring a lot of attention to ourselves our men and women are out there working every single day twenty four hours a day away from home traveling i think our people do a great job and i could not be more proud of them i believe this is just a mistake i do not believe that it's indicative of any institutional problem with jim and i just make one work clarifying point i'm glad  that mr sullivan is before us because i think it helps us to distinguish when someone goes on to the can this at the white house it's different than going into the white house i mean there are two questions that we were you were being asked before is just somebody was you know we have a different it's the same thing you got to get on to the campus first in order to get onto the campus you've got to go through security in order to go through to get into the white house you go through another thank you mr chairman for this this hearing i think it's very timely and i compliment you for holding it as expeditiously as possible and i thank you mr director for appearing mr director as you know and i'm confident that you agree we are a country of laws not people in the sense that we don't allow people to on a case by case basis change the law we consistently follow the law and i'd like to compliment you for the job that you've done the secret service has done i'd also like to compliment you on the job that you've done today because you have indicated that there are certain things that you cannot talk about while an investigation is pending and i think that you should be complimented for this i don't think that people should be prejudged i think that a thorough investigation should take place before you come to your conclusions and my assumption is that this is what you're doing you want a thorough investigation before you come to your conclusions is a fair assumption all right thank you now let me tell you what i think the american people want the american people want what they perceive to be as interlopers the they want them treated the same way they would be treated if they showed up without an invitation and somehow managed to get into an affair of this magnitude that's what they want but they want you to be fair they want you to investigate but if you find that they have breached the law they want them prosecuted that's what the american people want now there is some consternation in the minds of people that emanates from the notion that this is a real significant embarrassment for the secret service and the fear does exist in the minds of some that because of the level and magnitude of the embarrassment there may not be the level of prosecution lawful prosecution after has been a breach of the law that that there has been in some way some deceit that was unlawful will there be a vigorous prosecution of the you stated it is an embarrassment however i'm not going to let that embarrassment get in the way of doing the right thing from the very beginning i have confronted this issue tried not to done my best not to duck this issue and stand up  for what we did wrong here if laws were broken it doesn't matter who broke them you know we are going to pursue you know whatever option we have  mentioned before we currently have an investigation ongoing and we're not going to to leave out and any option here the next thing that i think the american people want is this they want not he's properly punished but if there are other persons who conspired or who worked in some way in  fashion that was antithetical to the law and protocol they want those persons to be properly punished to to the extent that your investigation reveals that there were others involved in this who may have breached the law will you assure us that all persons of associated with this who may have breached the law in your opinion after a thorough investigation that they will all be properly prosecuted absolutely one by final comment is this or i don't think that you should have your head bowed i think you should maintain the posture of having a top notch organization that does its job with a great degree of dignity and pride because things happen and it's unfortunate but out of adversity there is opportunity and i think you should see this as an opportunity to modify clarify and continue to do the outstanding job that the secret service is known to do and i compliment you for what you have done and i believe that you and also believe the chairman has he's also these are the e mails were made available to me by the salon his attorneys i'd like them to be made part of the record having said that i don't want any implication from anyone that i'm accepting their version of events i think is for gentleman from new york to question do you accept the fact that this is a law enforcement issue i accept the fact this is a joint shared responsibility historically and to get the full picture of what went on we have to but are used a representing that the social secretary office is engage in law enforcement activities i am strongly stating that historically and continually the social secretary's office has worked with the secret service at these type of event if they had been there at this event this one overcard i wonder if you would continue to you know i would suggest to you that any social secretary responsibility is ministerial or administrative that the jurisdiction of this committee addresses the question of law enforcement the secret service is the force in the perpetrators are not i don't know that the chairman is good might be calling those names at this point but in any event the perpetrators are not here and so the two parties that are directly involved with access vetting and perpetration are the ones that need to be for need to be before a homeland security committee i strive respect the gentleman in korean request because obviously he has that privilege to do so but i would argue vigorously that muddying the waters with a ministerial administrative act or if you will is not going to get the facts that our colleagues have asked for us to get and i mr chairman for one am interested in finding out where the perpetrators are at this point in time  those who i believe intentionally intrude into the white house falsely and then of course if we have to hear back from mr sullivan in a class five man i think the questions of our dear friend from new york will be answered and i raise a question white house employees have responsibility for the security present i'd say to starkly it's been a shared responsibility and for some reason it's just in a unique among all others in the last twenty years they were not there and i believe very strongly that especially in view of the fact the white house staff the white house deputy chief of staff has issued official memorandum saying that the white house operated improperly that we should inquire as to why they made that decision and what the procedures are going to be in the future gets in trouble part of the security well and we differ on that and we don't go forward and the director has already indicated that security at the white house is a responsibility of secret service there's no question about that an ancillary individual does not remove the primary responsibility from the secret service and that's where we are trying to keep the hearing focused but i like my director sullivan for his valuable public testimony and the members for their questions given that some of the information that we are seeking from director sullivan is protected or classified it's my expectation that the committee will move into a closed executive session at the conclusion of the second panel before being dismissed from the public session of this hearing out of mine director sullivan that the members of the committee may have additional questions for you and we will actually you to respond expeditiously in writing to those questions and for that members are committed to very short order we will move into executive session and clear the an invitation to secure their firsthand accounts of the secret services protocol on the evening of november twenty fourth we need this testimony to ascertain the extent of the security breakdowns from the perspective of individuals who were active participants in those breakdowns half of that picture was just provided by director sullivan we still need other half of the picture from those private citizens that committee needs to understand all the facts but the racket we did engage their attorneys to facilitate this testimony and communicate their rule eleven of the house rules grant this committee their tarted to subpoena testimony should leahy's chose to forgo participation in today's proceedings with the four knowledge that th was the machinery of the congressional subpoena authority is activated if the show leahy's continue to rebuff this committee's oversight request they could be subject to contempt of congress my door remains open and hopefully that they will be as willing to talk to congress as they have been to talk to the  the focus of this hearing today in response to ranking member king is security for this reason the committee invited the director of the secret service and mr mrs shaw leahy the individuals that breach the security this hearing mr king identified deseret rogers the first lady's social secretary and amber taishan was then issued at mr king's requests ms rogers who row on the executive staff does not in compas security declined to testify today on the question of subpoena i believe there is a clear distinction here between miss rogers and the show lady ms rogers is not a central figure in this security matter and so large as her role on the executive staff does not encompass security that she leahy's in contrast have critical first hand knowledge of the security breakdowns at the november twenty fourth state down moreover they oughtn't this inquiry necessitates swift action especially in light of a series of upcoming white house holiday season events it simply would not be prudent to expand committed resources in tan or engaging in a protracted fight with the white house on this matter when the testimony is so is not central to the question at testimony also the fact that the deputy chief of staff which messina has sent a memo an official memo to all the white house staff saying that the social secretary's office will have to be part of security in the future so if the white house itself believes it does very rogers is part of the a testimony that they testify on that issue well it's clear that the ranking member is correct out of personal courtesy i generally will allow you to call whatever witness you'd like to and i have supported you in the past and so it's not precedent setting and in any way but in this house and this is the issue of security and security of the sponsibility of the secret service and with that