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93–668 PDF 2015

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: IDENTIFYING STEPS TO 

RESTORE THE PROTECTIVE AGENCY 

HEARING 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 12, 2015 

Serial No. 114–1 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Massachusetts 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DeSAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Staff Director 

RACHEL WEAVER, Deputy Staff Director 

TRISTAN LEAVITT, Counsel 

MICHAEL HOWELL, Counsel 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

MELISSA BEAUMONT Clerk 
(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. Thomas J. Perrelli, The Hon. Mark Filip, The Hon. Danielle C. 

Gray, The Hon. Joseph W. Hagin, U.S. Secret Service Protective Mission 

Panel 

Joint Oral Statements ...................................................................................... 5 

APPENDIX 

Executive Summary to Report from the U.S. Secret Service Protective Mission 

Panel to the Secretary of Homeland Security .................................................... 50 

Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill, 2014 .............................. 59 

Statement of Bennie G. Thompson, Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security ........................................................................................................ 63 

(1) 

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: IDENTIFYING STEPS 

TO RESTORE THE PROTECTIVE AGENCY 

Thursday, February 12, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Mica, Duncan, Jordan, 

Walberg, Amash, Gosar, DesJarlais, Gowdy, Farenthold, Massie, 

Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney, Buck, Walker, Hice, Russell, 

Carter, Grothman, Hurd, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, 

Connolly, Kelly, Lawrence, Lieu, DeSaulnier, and Welch. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Good morning. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. And without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

I am pleased to be holding this hearing today with Ranking 

Member Cummings. Reforming and restoring the United States Secret Service is not a partisan issue. I firmly believe that a united 

front with Mr. Cummings and I have presented have driven change 

within the agency. Together, we have sent letters to 10 closed-door 

meetings and briefings with the Secret Service and asked for 

change. 

Just this morning, in a bipartisan way, we went and visited the 

Secret Service headquarters. And we appreciate their accommodations and the tour of the facility, the management facility there. 

Today, the senior leadership of the Secret Service looks much different than it did when we began examining the agency. In fact, 

we originally planned to have both the Acting Director and the 

Deputy Director appear before us today on a second panel. But 

with the recent announcement of the Deputy Director’s departure 

from the agency, we agreed to postpone the agency’s appearance 

before the committee for another day. 

We want to thank Acting Director Clancy and Secretary Jeh 

Johnson for being consistently available to us. They have been very 

accessible, and we are very appreciative of that. We also applaud 

Secretary Jeh Johnson for assembling a panel, which we will hear 

from today, to examine the Secret Service. The panel’s report did 

not mince words, did not skirt the issues, and provided serious recommendations. 

According to the panel’s findings, the Secret Service ‘‘is starved 

for leadership’’ and lacks a ‘‘culture of accountability.’’ The panel 

recommended the next Secret Service Director appointed by the 
2 

President come from outside the agency. The panel’s report 

states—and I happen to agree—that ‘‘at this time in the agency’s 

history, the need for Secret Service experience is outweighed by 

what the Service needs today, dynamic leadership that can move 

the Service forward in the new era and drive change in the organization.’’ The report goes on to say, ‘‘Only a director from outside the 

Service, removed from organizational traditions and personal relationships, will be able to do the honest top-to-bottom reassessment,’’ dealing with what is necessary inside the agency. 

Alarmingly, the panel found that no one inside the Secret Service 

has ever taken time to sit down and figure out exactly what it costs 

to protect the President. In fact, the panel found, ‘‘No one has really looked how much the mission done right actually costs.’’ This is 

simply unacceptable. Combined with other limitations, like insufficient training, antiquated technology, and insular attitude, these 

factors have all contributed to the recent security breaches. The 

fact that the panel made these findings is not surprising. But I will 

tell you personally it is very refreshing to have a panel take such 

a deep, serious look into the agency and provide some very candid 

results and perspective. And he did it in a very swift manner. And 

for that, we are very, very thankful. 

Over the past several years, a series of security breaches have 

raised a number of questions about the effectiveness of the agency. 

In 2011, a man fired a high-powered rifle at the White House while 

President Obama’s daughter was inside the residence. The Secret 

Service was unable to confirm that shots had been fired at the 

White House until a housekeeper found broken glass 4 days later. 

This shooter eluded capture for 5 days, traveling all the way to 

Pennsylvania, where he was eventually apprehended by State police. 

On September 19 of last year, with a partially amputated foot 

and a limp, wearing Crocs, a man was able to jump the White 

House fence. Contrary to initial reports from the Secret Service, 

this man made it all the way into the green room, armed with a 

3–1/2 inch knife that was serrated. 

The same month, an armed security contractor was allowed on 

an elevator with the President, unbeknownst to the Secret Service 

and in violation of protocol. We still don’t know where the breakdown was that enabled this to happen. 

Last month, a gunman fired shots near the Vice President’s residence in Delaware. Security cameras were unable to capture video 

of the gunman. To this day, we still don’t know who fired those 

shots. This was very close to active Secret Service agents at the 

residence. 

Just 2 weeks ago, a drone crashed into a tree on the White 

House lawn, highlighting a security vulnerability that we must 

shore up immediately. By examining these security breaches, we 

can find out what went wrong and we can work together to fix it. 

Together with Ranking Member Cummings, this committee has 

and will continue examining issues surrounding leadership, culture, budget, training, technology, and protocol. Congress needs to 

know why the Secret Service has one of the lowest levels of employee morale in all of Federal Government. We have some of the 

finest men and women serving in the Secret Service. These are 
3 

wonderful, caring, patriotic, hardworking, talented people. We love 

these people. We thank them for their service. But the system, the 

bureaucracy, the leadership has been failing them, and it has to 

change. We have to get this right, and we have to get it right now. 

The panel made a number of recommendations, but the main priority was clear. The first step to success within the Secret Service 

is new leadership from outside the agency. I look forward to discussing the panel’s good work today and hearing how recommendations were developed. And now I would like to recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for his Statement. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank 

you for agreeing to hold today’s hearing and for working with us 

in a bipartisan way. And I also thank you for doing something else, 

that is, I notice that you have consistently given our Federal employees credit for what they do. Every time I speak before a group 

of Federal employees, they say that so often they hear just negative 

things about them. And I know that you have said it in private, 

and now you are saying it in public about the Secret Service, that 

we have a phenomenal number of great dedicated Secret Service 

agents. And I really appreciate that and I know they do, too. 

You have sought the input from our side and our participation, 

and I believe our efforts will be more effective as a result of that. 

But more significantly, you have shown respect for us. We are holding today’s hearings because the independent panel has done a 

thorough review of the Secret Service, and we want to hear directly 

from them before taking our next steps. 

To the panel, I want to thank you for what you have done. You 

have done an outstanding job in a short period of time. They met 

with more than 170 people from inside and outside the Secret Service. They made numerous recommendations. And now the upper 

managers of the agency have been removed. The chairman and I 

both strongly agree that the independent panel’s work was excellent. 

We have also discussed the panel’s classified report. We believe 

it was tough, it was thorough, and crucial to bringing about real 

change at the agency. Again, we thank all the members of the 

panel. But I want to make two key points today. First, I completely 

agree with the panel that the question of leadership is most important. Although the previous Director has left and top managers 

have been removed, the job is only half done. As the panel concluded, a strong group of new leaders must now be identified. And 

that responsibility rests with the executive branch. 

Second, I also agree with the panel that these changes ‘‘require 

strong leadership, but they will also require resources.’’ And that 

is our job. That is the job of the Congress. Their report makes clear 

that the Secret Service is stretched too thin; the status quo in long 

shifts, forced overtime, inadequate training, and too little rest. I 

would like to read briefly from the report describing this problem. 

It says this: ‘‘The strains are manifest throughout the agency. The 

Service has been forced to pull firearms instructors from its training academy and uniformed officers guarding foreign missions to 

work protective details. The attrition has caused alarm. ’It is all 

smoke and mirrors,’ says a plain clothes agent. ’We are like a giant 

ship teetering on toothpicks, waiting to collapse,’ says another. Our 
4 

protective mission is in crisis.’’ That was from a press report in 

2002, more than a decade ago. 

Let me read another quote: ‘‘While the threat of terrorism looms 

large over the White House complex, one of the most insidious 

threats of our national security actually comes from within. With 

the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the fallout from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the Secret Service, overall, has suffered much in terms of budget, or perhaps more appropriately, the lack thereof. ‘‘We were informed last year that our 

budget had been cut and that the Secret Service was going to have 

to make some changes to cut costs and save money.’’ That quote 

was from 2007. It was from a letter sent internally to the Secret 

Service leadership by a former uniformed division officer, and we 

have obtained a copy. 

Last week, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association 

wrote the committee saying this, ‘‘A lack of resources and funding 

is the core reason the agency has suffered its newsworthy deficits. 

Its moments of honesty, even media reports, have reStated what is 

well-known in the Service and was highlighted by the protective 

mission review panel that the Secret Service has been outstretched 

and underfunded since the 9/11 attacks and continues to be.’’ 

Let me make one last thing clear. I am not saying we should 

throw money at the problem, that more money is a silver bullet, 

that inadequate funding is an excuse for failure or any other similar straw-man argument. 

I agree with the independent panel that the Secret Service has 

atrophied. It needs more funding, and it is our job in Congress to 

get it to them. The panel recommended as a first step adding 200 

officers and 85 agents. And it said many more may be necessary 

once the new management team assesses the agency needs. We 

have heard from others inside and outside the Secret Service that 

they are down by at least 500 positions. The DHS funding bill 

would start to restore some of this funding. But unfortunately, it 

is being held up by our Republican friends who oppose the President’s actions on immigration. 

We have only 2 weeks left before the Department shuts down. If 

it happens, the Secret Service employees will be required to continue working without pay. This is no way to treat the Secret Service agents, officers. They should not be collateral damage in this 

political fight. The fact is that Federal workers across the board 

have been hammered over the past 4 years. They have sacrificed 

nearly $140 billion as a result of a 3-year pay freeze and pay cuts 

in the form of increased retirement contributions for newly hired 

employees. They have endured sequestration cuts and furloughs 

and the elimination of jobs for the last 3 years. It is time to recognize that these actions take a toll. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to take a moment to address 

our work here on the committee. I completely agree that we must 

reform this agency. Its mission is just too critical. I have the greatest admiration for the President, and the last thing I want is for 

something to happen to him or the other people that the Secret 

Service is responsible for protecting. 

So I commit to working with you to the best of my ability and 

in good faith. In return, I ask that we focus aggressively on the re-
5 

forms that are needed, that we avoid spending valuable time reinvestigating issues that others have already investigated, and that 

we continue working closely together, as we have been, to conduct 

our investigation in a responsible way that does no harm to the 

agency or the mission. 

And with that I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. I will hold the 

record open for 5 legislative days for any members who would like 

to submit a written Statement. 

We will now recognize our panel of witnesses. And, first, let me 

say thank you so much for your time and dedication and making 

the effort and carving out time in your schedules to be here. We 

do appreciate that. 

The Honorable—today, we have the Honorable Mark Filip, the 

Honorable Danielle Gray, the Honorable Joseph W. Hagin, and the 

Honorable Thomas Perrelli. We do appreciate you being here. Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn before they 

testify. So if you please rise and raise your right hands. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 

the truth? 

Thank you. Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in 

the affirmative. And you may be seated. 

My understanding is you are going to give one joint Statement 

as opposed to four individual Statements. I am not sure which— 

you are going to give—Mr. Perrelli. OK. Thank you. You are now 

recognized. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENTS OF HON. THOMAS J. PERRELLI, HON. MARK 

FILIP, HON. DANIELLE C. GRAY, AND THE HONORABLE JOSEPH W. HAGIN 

Mr. PERRELLI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and members of the committee. I am Tom Perrelli, one 

of the members of the Secret Service Protective Mission Panel. And 

the panel asked me to make brief opening remarks today. 

At the outset, we want to express, echoing both the chairman 

and the ranking member, our appreciation for the extraordinary 

work and dedication of the men and women of the Secret Service. 

They work long hours in a mission that has no tolerance for error, 

and they do so without desire for fame or fortune. They deserve all 

of our thanks and support. 

The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security asked 

the panel to do a review of the Secret Service’s protection of the 

White House following the events of September 19th, 2014. We did 

not focus solely on that event, but looked more broadly at concerns 

about the Service that had been raised by this committee and others. 

From October, when we were commissioned, to the issuance of 

our report on December 15th, the panel talked to dozens of members of the Service from all levels, as well as more than a hundred 

experts from the Federal Protective Services, local law enforcement, the national laboratories, and the defense and intelligence 
6 

communities. We thought it was important to hear perspectives 

about the Service, about the protective function, about technology 

from both insides and outside the Service. We also reviewed thousands of pages of documents. 

Our report and recommendations were completed on December 

15th. The report contains substantial sensitive information, as well 

as classified information and recommendations. We have had the 

opportunity to brief the chairman and the ranking member and 

many staff of this and other committees in a classified setting, and 

we will tread carefully on subjects related to operations, tactics, 

and particular threats in this setting. It is in the interest of the 

United States that much of the Service’s work be secret because 

they are tasked with the singularly important job of protecting the 

Commander in Chief, other protectees in the White House. 

But we did release an unclassified summary that lays out our 

conclusions and recommendations in a number of areas, including 

training, staffing, technology, and leadership. That summary is incorporated in our written testimony to this committee. As we described in that executive summary, the panel concluded that training had fallen below acceptable levels in no small part because personnel at the Service were stretched too far. We provide recommendations about increased training as well as increased staffing. We describe our recommendation for 200 additional uniformed 

division officers and 85 additional special agents as a downpayment that we make now so that the Service can train and perform 

at the level that all of us believe is necessary. 

Many of our technology recommendations are classified, but I 

note our concern that the Service needs to be more engaged with 

Federal partners who are using or developing technologies that 

would assist the Service in protecting the White House. 

Finally, we focused a great deal of attention, as the chairman 

said, on leadership. Concluding that the Service needs dynamic 

leadership that is unafraid to make change, that clearly articulates 

the Service’s mission, pursues resources needed to fulfill that mission, and demonstrates to the work force that rules will be applied 

evenhandedly, and that the best of the best will be promoted to 

lead the organization into the future. More detail in our conclusions and recommendations are in our testimony, and we will be 

happy to answer questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. And I again appreciate all four 

of you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize myself for 5 minutes. The 

report says, ‘‘More resources would help but what we really need 

is leadership.’’ In fact, you went on to say, ‘‘Only a Director from 

outside, removed from the organizational traditions and personal 

relationships will be able to do the honest, top-to-bottom reassessment this will require.’’ Maybe—I don’t know who to address this 

to. But, yes, Mr. Filip. 

Mr. FILIP. Yes. Thank you. We gave a lot of attention to leadership and in that we believe that will be a critical issue going forward. We fully respect that the choice of the Secret Service Director is that of the President, and there is a unique relationship 

there in that maybe uniquely amongst appointments in the Federal 

system, that individual is responsible for the personal safety of the 
7 

President and the First Family. So we respect our role in that regard. But we did and do think that, all things equal, it would be 

useful to have outside perspectives. The reasons for that, I think, 

are even more important than the conclusion, because they animate a lot of our views on a number of things. 

We think it is essential for reform that there be a full look at 

the activities of the Secret Service through the lens of the core priority of protecting the President and the White House, and that the 

activities and budgeting align with those core activities. We think 

that the innovation associated with the Secret Service’s activities 

also be aligned with those core priorities. And that the new Director, whoever that is, is prepared to make tough choices about personnel, independent of any sort of old-boy’s network or friendships 

or alignments. And that was part of the reason we thought, all 

things equal, it was easier for an outsider to make those assessments as opposed to someone who is presently with the Service. 

And we also think it is important that there be engagement with 

the broader intelligence community and a consistent set of disciplinary rules, independent of prior friendships or allegiances or experiences. And finally, also, an infusion of outside expertise in budgetary areas, for example, human resources, congressional affairs, 

things of that sort. So we thought it was more likely that that person would be an outsider, but obviously we respect that it is the 

President’s choice. And to the extent we can be a resource, whoever 

the next Director is, we would proudly be available to try to help 

them. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. One of the questions that tends 

to float around here is whether or not we should separate out the 

investigation side. Did you look at that and what sort of assessment did you give that? 

Mr. FILIP. We did. And our views on that are that there is certainly some benefits to be gained from the investigative mission to 

some extent. Now, there is a continuum in those investigative activities. To the extent, for example, that cyber investigations involve the safety of the First Family, of the President, that is probably going to be part of the core mission of the Secret Service. To 

the extent that cyber involves looking at whether a movie studio 

has been hacked, or a health insurance company, or a multinational leak, you know, retail-type entity, that might be further 

afield, and other parts of the Federal Government that are involved 

in cyber activities might be better positioned to handle the lead on 

that, again, all through the core prism of what the main mission 

of the Secret Service is. 

So, you know, we had a couple months to look at this. We don’t 

purport to have the final answers. But we think the guideposts on 

this will be what is the core mission of the Secret Service, and does 

this particular activity, whatever it is, further that mission or distract from it? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Ok. One last thing I want to—and I know 

other members want to ask about this. If you put up the slide, 

please, on the training. You know, one of the things that we are 

deeply concerned about, these are the training numbers that we 

see here. And if you look at from 2008 through 2013, we were doing 

roughly special agent basic classes, eight per year, eight—eight, 
8 

eight, eight. Then we go down to five. Then we go down to zero. 

Then we go to one. Why—why did that happen? How do we prevent 

that from happening? What is your assessment of that? 

Ms. GRAY. Sure. I am happy—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is great. Move that microphone. There 

we go. 

Ms. GRAY. Sure. You know, training was—our analysis really 

began with training. You know, as Mr. Perrelli indicated, we 

viewed this as sort of key in animating many of the other decisions 

that the Secret Service has to think about, from staffing to management of overtime and the like. And as your chart is consistent 

with what we found in our findings, that training has fallen below 

acceptable levels. 

There have been a number of reasons that were against us in the 

course of our review to explain why that is so, from the increased 

activities of the Secret Service and missions, the number of protective visits that Secret Service members are staffing and the like, 

reductions in staffing and the forced overtime issues. Regardless of 

those different causes, I think we all are in agreement that the levels are unacceptably low. The number in our report that we emphasized, looking at Fiscal Year 1913 data, the average agent trained 

about 46 hours in Fiscal Year 1913. The average uniformed division officer trained about 25 minutes on average. And by any—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. For the year? 

Ms. GRAY. For the year. And so, by any account, those numbers 

are unacceptably low and we need to do better. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did you compare that against large police 

forces or other—— 

Ms. GRAY. Yes. You know, we spoke to a number of large metropolitan police forces, and we also spoke to other Federal agencies 

that conduct protective missions that are akin to what the Secret 

Service is doing. Nothing is an exact apples-to-apples comparison. 

But the training levels that we heard for those agencies ranged 

anywhere from 5 percent a year to 25 percent a year of time spent 

doing training. And that type of training is managed in different 

ways. You know, some police forces or protective security agencies 

conduct sort of focused training at set times of years. Others integrate it more naturally month to month. But however it is done, 

the sort of levels that we heard from others range between 5 percent to 25 percent, which are obviously significantly higher. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, thank you. 

Now I recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Perrelli, I want to go back to something that you said. And 

you said that the Secret Service needs an additional 85 agents and 

200 officers. And then you said something that I want you to explain. You said as a downpayment. What does that mean? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We looked at the data provided by the Secret 

Service and tried to assess, with the current work force, based on 

what we can discern, what would it take to—how many additional 

personnel would they need to get to the training levels that we 

think are the bare necessity, which, as we indicated in the report, 

is a true fourth shift or 20 to 25 percent of training for the Presi-
9 

dent’s protective detail, and at least 10 percent of their time training for the uniform division. 

Based on our—the information that we were able to obtain from 

the Service, that led to our recommendation for immediately the 

need for 200 additional uniformed division officers and 85 additional special agents. But I think there are a couple of things that 

cause the panel to believe that, once a full analysis is done by a 

new Director, more resources are going to be needed. One is, I 

think as the chairman said, there really hasn’t been a true analysis 

of how much it takes to protect the President and other protectees 

in the White House. The Service’s internal systems are not welldesigned to do this. 

Mr. Hagin and I sat with a Secret Service agent and watched 

them put in their time in a DOS-based system with a green blinking cursor. And those systems don’t reflect the actual hours that 

people worked. So that once you factor in the excessive amounts of 

overtime that we think the agents both anecdotally told us and 

that we saw ourselves, once you bring—try to bring some of those 

overtime numbers down, we think that you will discover that more 

resources are needed. 

As we said in our report, we think that a new Director—a critical 

function of a new Director is to have a zero-based budget, start 

from the beginning and define the mission and explain to Congress 

and the executive branch how much it takes to do this. We think 

it is going to be more money. We think it is going to be more 

agents and more uniform divisions, but we also think that a new 

Director might decide to shed or trim certain missions so that it is 

not all new money. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, if we are able to pass the DHS budget, we 

will be able to hire the 85 agents and the 200 officers. 

But let me ask you with regard to going back to training. There 

is a lot of talk about the fourth shift. And, you know, I want to go 

back to what the chairman was asking about. You are saying they 

are getting 25 minutes—I hope the committee hears this—25 minutes a year. Is that what you said? 

Ms. GRAY. That is for the uniformed division. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Twenty-five minutes of training? 

Ms. GRAY. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what would be acceptable? 

Ms. GRAY. Sir, we sort of thought about this in two ways. So for 

the PPD, the Presidential Protective Division, that is where the 

fourth shift concept originated. And so historically, particularly in 

the 1980’s and 1990’s, and it is our understanding from speaking 

to past Directors and past special agents, that the fourth shift concept was a very real concept in the Service. And the idea was 

agents would spend, you know, 2 weeks on a daytime shift, 2 weeks 

on a nighttime shift, 2 weeks on a midnight shift, and then 2 

weeks in training. Now, that is not to say sort of all 14 of those 

days in that 2 weeks were spent training, obviously. The agent’s 

time was managed in a way to provide surge capacity if they needed to support unexpected trips or missions. But that this concept 

of striving for roughly spending about 25 percent of the year in 

training for the agents in the PPD was very different. 
10 

That fourth shift has never really been applicable to the uniform 

division, and it has been difficult to get sort of reliable historical 

data on this. So we don’t actually have a very good benchmark for 

the uniform division. But I think what we do know is that this sort 

of average that you saw in Fiscal Year 1913 that we refer to the 

25 minutes is unacceptably low. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. One of the things that has concerned I am sure 

the chairman, and definitely it has concerned me—and I am wondering how you got into this and what your conclusions may have 

been. We have agents who felt more comfortable coming to the 

Congress and telling us about their concerns than telling the higher ups at the Secret Service. And I have said it many times. I think 

for this kind of organization, that is not good. And so, I mean, what 

do you all see as the—did you find that to be the case? I mean, 

well, what conclusions did you come to? And how do you remedy 

that? 

Mr. FILIP. I think that goes, sir, to the culture and leadership attitudes of the organization going forward. Any robust organization 

has to be honest with itself and open to the fact that if we are 

going to be a continually improving organization, we have to accept 

and objectively evaluate criticisms about how things are operating. 

And so I think you have put your finger on something critically important. I think we all do. And that is something that the agency 

and its new leadership is going to have to get much better at, because no organization is perfect. It is not a weakness to accept the 

idea that there is problems. Face them honestly and objectively and 

work forward to improve. So you are right, that is something important for the new era of the Service and for the new Director. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Now I recognize the gentleman 

from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And you are sure 

getting off to a great start chairing this committee and calling all 

these hearings. 

Let me, first of all, say that I appreciate this panel and how they 

have come in from the outside to take a look at this. But I do have 

to tell you that—sort of no criticism of each of you—but I am very 

skeptical about some of this, and I will tell you why. I have been 

here 26 years. I have served on four different committees. I have 

read reports from all the committees. Every time some Federal 

agency messes up, the first thing they say, they say they are underfunded; and the second thing they say is their technology is out 

of date. And they have got more money than any company in the 

private sector and more expensive technology than any company in 

the private sector. Yet they always come up with those same excuses. 

In that time that I have been in Congress, when I first came 

here, the national debt was less than $3 trillion. Now, it is $18 trillion. The Federal budget was not anywhere close to what it is now. 

All of the Federal agencies—all of the Federal departments and 

agencies, if you looked at the last 2 or 3 or 4 years, we have been 

doing a better job holding funding reasonably at a level rate. But 

if you looked over the last 20 or 25 years, Federal spending has 

gone way up, and all the Federal law enforcement agencies have 
11 

greatly expanded over that time, and their budgets have gone way 

up. I don’t have the figures here. I came here a little unprepared 

for this hearing because I didn’t know until late yesterday that we 

were going to have this hearing. And that is my fault. But I had 

the figures a few years ago that the F—5 or 6 years ago, the FBI 

had tripled in size over the years that I have been here in numbers 

of personnel and in their budgets. And I just am very skeptical that 

the Secret Service doesn’t have enough funding. 

And then, second, I remember when I first came here that I had 

a hearing on the Aviation Subcommittee, and one of the main 

things was they talked about the low morale of air traffic controllers. And that is another thing I have heard a lot of times from 

Federal employees about their low morale. Well, I can tell you it 

seems to me the less people have to do on their job, the more they 

complain. I almost have never gotten a complaint from a shortorder cook at a Waffle House. 

I can tell you that if these Secret Service people who have low 

morale, if they don’t realize how lucky they are to have these 

jobs—and I have got nothing against anybody in the Secret Service. 

I am sure they are all nice people and all fine people. But they 

need to realize they are very lucky to have their jobs. 

When I first ran for Congress, I had a—they had an ad signed 

by every member—there was 300 or 400 members of the Knoxville 

Police Department. Every one except seven signed an ad endorsing 

me. I was a criminal court judge. I was considered very pro law enforcement. But I will tell you that our Federal law enforcement 

people are our highest paid law enforcement people in this country. 

Next are State. And our lowest paid people are the local law enforcement people who are out there fighting the real crime, the 

daily—the day-to-day that everybody wants to fight. But I will tell 

you that when I hear about low morale in the Secret Service, I 

think they ought to be ashamed, anybody who feels that way, because they are very lucky to have their job and the high pay that 

they get. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentlemen yields back. 

I now recognize the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, 

Ms. Norton. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we are very fortunate to have the Secret Service take the risks they take. And 

when it comes to their pay, these are the people who have suffered 

sequester and have not received increases in pay. So we value them 

very highly, and we value your report, which is very thoughtful. I 

have been concerned, by the way, with the really quite shocking 

underfunding of the Secret Service, something I think that would 

shock the American people, because they always assumed that the 

protection for the American people was a first priority because it 

is a symbol of the United States itself. 

I was concerned about the physical barriers because that is the 

most obvious and commonsense way to approach this problem. And 

I have distributed to the members and to you a copy of a picture 

that was taken outside right after—right after the most notorious 

of the fence jumping incidents. And I am asking this question because you indicate that there are some physical barriers that have 
12 

been added. Are you talking about these barriers that are normally 

used simply for crowd control, or are we talking about actual structural physical barriers? 

Mr. HAGIN. That we recommend adding? 

Ms. NORTON. You say that the—we understand that there have 

been some physical barriers that have been added. I am asking you 

if there have been any physical barriers added since the incident, 

since our hearing in September and since the fence jumping that 

was the basis for that hearing? 

Mr. HAGIN. The bike rack that is shown in the photo you distributed is new since the fence jumping incident. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, you know, if that is—— 

Mr. HAGIN. The Gonzalez incident. 

Ms. NORTON. I mean, you know—by the way, I consider this 

quite outrageous. If that is—what this says to the public is—and 

this is a First Amendment space. Lafayette Park is right there 

across from the White House because the Framers intended the 

White House to be a place where people could go. This is hardly 

a barrier. And, in fact, it is very ugly. And there are two pictures 

here that show what are really quite temporary—they are not really barriers. They are not used as barriers. They are not meant as 

barriers. They are meant to be movable because they are crowd 

control. And is that all that has happened since the fence jumping? 

Mr. HAGIN. We have not investigated just recently what, if anything, the—— 

Ms. NORTON. So as far as you know, that is all that has happened. 

Mr. HAGIN. We are—no. We have clearly recommended that a 

permanent solution be designed and adopted as quickly as possible. 

Ms. NORTON. And yet I appreciate that you have recommended 

that. The fence—that the fence itself, consistent with its historic 

basis, be raised. Have you put any timeframe on it? Of all the 

things that it seems to me could have happened by this time, it 

does seem to me, at least the plans for that, could have been— 

could have been made. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Will the gentlewoman yield? I will tell you 

that you can receive a classified briefing about that. Mr. Cummings 

and I participated in a meeting where the details, the timing was 

laid out. And I would—if any member would like to have that briefing, I would be happy to arrange another one. But that was not 

something this panel looked at, other than making a general recommendation. But to get a Secret Service briefing on what they are 

doing, A, was pretty impressive and, B, is certainly in the works. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. Although I 

must say, I don’t consider it very highly classified for the terrorists 

and other fence jumpers to know that there is going to be a fence 

that is going to be raised. I don’t consider that very classified information. 

I want to say that I am—given your report, which I think was 

timely, I am disappointed that we have no information. And I will 

seek that information in the way the chairman suggests. 

The only disappointment I really had in your report was that 

there was no mention that I recall of the public space and of the 

tradition that this has been a public space and the barriers and the 
13 

security for the President can be improved without, for example, a 

magnetometer in the street. That would mean that even though 

you are outdoors, you have to go through this magnetometer before 

you can get to where the public still can get, by the way. And I 

wonder why you did not consider the access of this space to the 

public, considering that it is one of the great First Amendment 

spaces in the Nation’s Capital. It is not just a tourist site. There 

are people there every day on every issue trying to express their 

point of view. 

Mr. PERRELLI. Thank you for the question. And I do—I do think 

it was of serious consideration to the panel about the historic nature of both the White House as well as the spaces around the 

White House. I think perhaps what is most telling is the absence 

of recommendations from this panel to do things like close off the 

park or those kinds of things that one could consider as appropriate security measures, but they would be inconsistent with the 

history of those spaces. So perhaps I think we answer your question by not having recommendations that would have gone the 

other way. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, I so thank you for that, Mr. Perrelli, because 

that is what I am going to cite. I am going to say that the panel 

said that by not recommending that the public be excluded, it 

meant to say that the public should have access to that space as 

it has always had. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentlewoman. I now recognize 

the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Gosar, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, panel, for 

the report. 

I want to quote a couple of snippets here—four snippets and kind 

of make a summary and then ask some questions for that, if that 

is OK. 

The first one: ‘‘The Secret Service is stretched too, and in many 

cases, beyond its limits. Special agents and uniform division personnel protecting the White House work an unsustainable number 

of hours.’’ 

Second snippet: ‘‘Rather than invest in systems to manage the 

organization more effectively and accurately predict its need, the 

Service simply adds more overtime for existing personnel.’’ 

Third snippet: It goes on to say that, ‘‘The Secret Service needs 

more agents and officers, even beyond the levels required to allow 

for in-service training. The President and other protectees cannot 

receive the best possible protection when agents and officers are 

deployed for longer and longer hours or fewer and fewer days off.’’ 

Number 4: ‘‘The Service has to increase the number of agents 

and, to an even greater extent, increase the size of the uniform division to ensure protection of the White House.’’ 

Now, I understand uniform division officers told the panel that 

they do not know whether they are working 1 day to the next or 

if they are even required to work overtime. The staffing failures 

within the uniform division are so bad that the special agents are 

flown in from field offices around the country to detail them for 

week-long shifts to the White House, supplementing the uniform 

division due to the dramatic losses in staffing it has seen. These 
14 

are agents—result in special agents who are unfamiliar with the 

White House complex being in charge or defending it. 

So my question is: Given this report found that the special 

agents and uniform division officers work an unsustainable and unpredictable number of hours, what must the Service do better to 

manage that workload? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think there are a couple of things, Congressman. 

One is, as we talked about, the Service really hasn’t had the kind 

of work force planning model to make sensible personnel decisions 

about how many people are needed and control the number of 

hours that people are working. As I think the chart that the chairman put up earlier showed, you have—you know, rather than continuing to hire people and having more officers and more agents, 

what ended up happening was you just had the existing work force 

working longer and longer hours. 

So I think we have recommended, one, a more robust work force 

planning model so that they can, I think, make good judgments 

about what is needed and how to deploy those resources. As we indicated, we do think they need more personnel, if nothing else, to 

ensure that the personnel that they have get adequate training. So 

I think those are, I think, core aspects of this. But as—you know, 

one of our larger recommendations is that I think the new leadership needs to take a step back and really define and then come to 

the executive branch and Congress with a clear plan that articulates this is what it takes to protect the White House and this is 

why we need the personnel that we think we need. 

Mr. GOSAR. And I know you can’t go into certain technology. 

Being a business man, I mean, technology, I mean we can track patients going through a system, knowing exactly where they are 

every time, every point of the day. Is that something being entertained in regards to a work force for the Secret Service? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think on the technology question, as I think the 

events of the September 19th indicated, there are real shortcomings, both on training and communications technology with respect to the Service’s current equipment as well as their training 

on that equipment. That is something I think we think needs to be 

addressed. And all those things needs to be integrated together. 

Because I think you are right, Congressman, that you need to know 

where your personnel are if you are going to be able to respond to 

an incident. 

Mr. GOSAR. And when you look at overall, you know, your evaluation, when you don’t have systems to even evaluate, how hard 

was it even to come up with some of those recommendations? I 

mean you have to look back and look at your past to be able to go 

forward. 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think we wanted to be able to provide more specific recommendations in certain areas. But as I think we laid out 

in the report, because the data we were working from on the special agent side, it is clear that they do not record all the hours that 

they work. They are working many more hours than show up in 

their personnel system. And on the uniform division side, the data 

really doesn’t come from the Service’s own systems, but comes from 

Federal pay records about overtime, which isn’t necessarily—may 
15 

not be the most precise way to do the kind of planning that is needed. 

Mr. GOSAR. I am going to end it with one last question. So we 

have a Commander in Chief, the head of all our military and stuff. 

It should be the highest honor to serve in that capacity to protect 

the President. So why wouldn’t the requirements be the same for 

that detail for Secret Service as like, say, the Navy SEALs or the 

Rangers? I mean, it should be that protective an aspect, does it 

not? And the chart that went up there is disgraceful when we see 

that type of application not being the same type of application. Do 

you agree? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think the panel agrees that we need the best of 

the best in this role. And that has been historically the culture and 

the belief of the Service. And I think we hope our recommendations 

will help them return to that point. 

Mr. GOSAR. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from New Jersey, Mrs. 

Watson Coleman. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to you. And thank you so very much for the work that you have 

done. I did take the opportunity to read the briefing that I had last 

night, and it was quite extensive and a little bit scary. 

For the record, I just want to ask a question. Is this a part of 

the fence that was compromised? For the life of me, I can’t see how 

you scale a fence that is skinny like this and this long. Will 

you—— 

Mr. HAGIN. It is the fence in the background of the photo. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. OK. 

Mr. HAGIN. It is not the fence in the foreground. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I know it is not—I know it is not this. 

They actually were able to scale this? 

Mr. HAGIN. They were able to scale the fence that is in the background of the photo. The bike rack—what they call bike rack—— 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Yes. 

Mr. HAGIN [continuing]. In the foreground was not there at that 

time. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. It just seems to me—it is interesting 

that they could even scale that. Are any of your recommendations 

proposing additional surveillance over these areas that could possibly be points of access to the White House? 

Mr. HAGIN. We feel that they should continue to modernize technology. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Interoperability of communications? 

Mr. HAGIN. Interoperability. Across the board, the systems need 

to be continually improved. I am being careful here because—without going into sensitive areas. But we believe that technology plays 

an integral part in this multilayer defense of the facility, and that 

it must be continually upgraded and receive a lot of additional 

focus. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. This is something that I heard in the 5 

weeks that I have been here in some briefings, that the personnel 

that were on staff at the time of the fence jumping incident were— 
16 

and I don’t know what time of the night that was. Can you tell me 

the time of night—— 

Mr. PERRELLI. Early evening. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN [continuing]. Or day? Early evening? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Yes. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Was that—was the staff that was predominantly low seniority? Is there something to a staffing pattern 

that your seniority gives you a better staff shift? And is there an 

assurance that then or now that there are people who have more 

seniority and experience are there all the time? 

Mr. PERRELLI. As I think many on the committee know, there 

was a prior report that focused on September 19th done by the 

Deputy Secretary of DHS, which focused on the very specific issues 

of that night and did find that the personnel on staff tended to be 

junior that evening. And I think this goes back again to this staffing and planning issues as well as the forced overtime issues 

that—you know, ensuring that the personnel, you have the right 

chain of command, you have the right mix of seniority and junior 

personnel, as well as the right training so that people understand 

and know the compound is something that, if the Service implements some new—some reforms and some new systems, they will 

be able to ensure in the future and not have that problem on any 

given night. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. If you looked at their organizational 

staffing requests right now, would they be where they say they 

need to be? Because you are asking for 85 and 200. So is that— 

does that recognize that their staffing is not complete right now? 

Or is that in addition—did they have it and that is in addition to 

what they have? 

Mr. PERRELLI. So, yes, we were heartened to see that there were 

additional sums sought in the President’s budget, and we are very 

supportive of getting the Service to the 85 and 200. I think others 

may be able to do the calculation as to whether the precise 

amounts sought are—match up with that. But it is our understanding that, you know, that some of the additional request is intended to try to reach those levels. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. On the incident on the elevator, was 

there an explanation how someone of that nature got on the elevator with the President? 

Mr. PERRELLI. So our panel did not look at the elevator incident. 

It wasn’t part of our mandate. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. OK. I am very supportive and very respectful of the Secret Service. And really, when I think of the Secret Service, I think of it being, you know, without parallel, the 

protection for the President and other people that is 

uncompromised and incomparable. So these number of incidences 

that have come up have been tremendously disappointing to me. 

And I just want to go on record as saying I don’t think that we are 

talking about wasteful spending, and I don’t think we are talking 

about asking for something that we don’t need. And if we are going 

to look to where we are going to save money, we need to make sure 

that we are applying that to areas that don’t have the kind of sensitivity. 
17 

Protecting the President of the United States and those like him, 

that is the most important thing that we need to be doing as it relates to our Secret Service. And I, for one, support the Homeland 

Security and its need for a clean funding bill and for the Secret 

Service to have new leadership and all the things that you have 

identified that it needs. And I thank you for your report and your 

work. 

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to speak. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I do appreciate it. 

Will now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 

DesJarlais, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a followup on a question that Mr. Walberg had asked. And 

whoever wants to take this question, feel free. How many new hire 

training classes do the Secret Service have funding for each year? 

Mr. PERRELLI. In general, they have tried to do eight classes per 

year. Funding has been different over different years, but eight 

classes per year has been more consistently the norm. And I think 

that showed in the early years of the chairman’s chart. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. OK. And is that what you did in the previous 

year? You did eight? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I have to go back and look. I think that in 1909, 

1910, 1911, I think they were—here is the chart. So you see special 

agent classes and then uniformed division classes. Eight was the 

norm for the special agents. And then for the uniformed division, 

you know, the numbers range a bit, although something between 

10 and 11 would be more the norm. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. OK. Thank you. 

Your review found that in 2013, the Service changed its hiring 

process, and this resulted in more applicants but a less effective 

process at identifying strong candidates. In fact, more than half the 

applicants failed the routine polygraph that occurs during screening. Do you know who was responsible for this decision? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We didn’t identify a specific individual. I think our 

focus was—our concern was on that, that that process took a very 

long amount of time, only to have many of the candidates drop out. 

So it took a lot of resources and did not yield enough qualified candidates at the end. It has—that experience, as well as a number 

of other things that we found, are one reason why we think the 

Service needs to really professionalize its human resources function 

and develop hiring and retention strategies led by experts in that 

field. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. OK. Any other downfalls at all that you didn’t 

identify? OK. What does the Secret Service plan to do to fix the hiring process to better identify potential candidates? 

Mr. PERRELLI. So the Service has—is changing—has already 

changed its hiring process, and is using more, it is our understanding, accepted service authority, and has reordered aspects of 

its process so that it is less likely to spend a lot of time on candidates that are going to fall out of the process. But, again, we 

think that over the long haul, having human resources professionals in charge of that process is going to be more likely to get 

good outcomes. 
18 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. OK. You note that many of the recommendations in your report are not new. These recommendations go back 

to the 1964 Warren Commission, some are identified to the 1995 

White House security review, and others track internal recommendations. What were those recommendations? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Well, I think there have been many recommendations, certainly, over the years. But there are a number of things 

that we found in our report that, I think, have been seen over time. 

Certainly, questions about investment in the uniform division and 

the importance of giving focus to the uniform division and deciding 

its role. Those issues have been there. Certainly, issues related to 

excess overtime have been—and insufficient personnel have been 

identified over time. There are a number of issues that we raise in 

the classified aspect of our report that are ones that have been 

noted in the past by the Service. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Why do you think that a lot of those recommendations were ignored? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think that the Service itself has noted that it 

has not always done what it needed to do in terms of followthrough of its own recommendations. And I think—our hope is 

that, coming out of this report, that there will be a real opportunity 

to focus on these specific recommendations and real follow-through 

in tracking to make sure that they actually get implemented. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. So how will future Secret Service leaders be 

held accountable for implementing your recommendations? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Well, I certainly think that if there is a real process to—you know, and I am sure this committee will have a role 

in it and other committees will have a role in it, too, to ask the 

Service what has it done to implement the recommendations and 

where is that going? And I also assume that this and future Presidents will hold them accountable as well. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. OK. And then the last question. Then how do 

you define that success or how should success be defined if you 

have implemented these recommendations properly? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think from our perspective, if we see the kind 

of cultural change and leadership change that we have talked 

about that really defines the mission, we talked a little bit in the 

report saying that if in 5 years the budget that the Service submits 

to Congress looks kind of more of the same or about the same with 

a little bit of extra money on it, that we will not have moved the 

ball forward. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you so much for your answers. I yield 

back. 

Mr. FILIP. One thing to add to your last question, there never 

will be a point in time where the Secret Service can declare success. Every day they have to get better. It has to be a continual 

improvement organization. And people have to have that in their 

DNA. So those benchmarks are signals that people can look to to 

say that improvement has been real. But there will never be a 

point in time, given the nature of the mission and I don’t think 

that good leadership would ever think that there is, where people 

can say we have won, let’s take a break, we can 2 weeks off. It is 

going to have to be a continual improvement organization, just like 
19 

any successful football team or engineering team or military organization. That is what is going to take. 

Mr. DESJARLAIS. Thank you. I appreciate it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentlewoman from 

Michigan, Ms. Lawrence, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you. After today’s hearing, my desire is 

that there will no longer be any legitimate doubt that the Secret 

Service needs more resources critical to the mission that you perform. And I join with the ranking chair and the chairman of recognizing how important you are and the service that you give. But 

we clearly know that there is areas of concern. And I feel strongly 

that the option of continuing the way we have in the past does not 

exist. And it will not be something that will be tolerated. 

I wanted to give you a quote that I would like to be addressed. 

The ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, 

Congressman Thompson, he Stated: ‘‘Within the next 5 years, the 

Secret Service will provide protection through two Presidential 

election cycles, two Democratic national conventions, two Republican national conventions, the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, and other National Security special events.’’ To his point, on 

top of your current responsibilities of protecting the President and 

protecting your area of responsibility, and we know that there is 

some problems with leadership resources, we are also entering a 

period where there is going to be additional demand. My background is in HR. And I know that when you start hiring and training, there is a gap in your resources. So we have to be realistic 

about that. For us to get where we need to be, we are going to have 

to pull resources that we already have. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think that is right. One of the concerns that the 

panel had—and again, pointing to the charts that the chairman put 

up—when you don’t bring on new classes, that is going to show up. 

Because the average Secret Service Agent takes 4 to 5 to 6 years 

in the field getting trained before they show up on the President’s 

detail. That gap in hiring is going to be show up and be most acute 

in that 4 to 5 years down the road. So you are right that an issue 

with hiring that shows up today may not have an immediate effect—— 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Exactly. 

Mr. PERRELLI [continuing]. But will show up in the future. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. In our planning in discussing what the expectations are of improvement, getting additional resources, I see with 

the additional responsibilities coming up that training gap, there is 

a concern, an additional concern; do you agree with that concern? 

What is the plan to address that concern if you agree? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We do agree with that concern. And I think that 

is why our proposal of, again, 200 additional Uniformed Division 

Officers and 85 additional special agents, we thought that that 

would allow the current work force to reach training levels that we 

thought were acceptable. It doesn’t answer the question of what is 

the long-term right size of the organization. And, of course, there 

are, as occurs regularly on 4-year cycles, the Service both draws 

from its investigative force for Presidential campaigns, but also 

usually receives, seeks and receives additional appropriations every 
20 

4 years in order to plan for those campaigns because the amount 

of travel which is very unpredictable increases. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. So I want to be clear that our ask that we saw 

in the report will enable us to have an expectation that you will 

have the resources to address all of these concerns. Because if this 

report or your ask for resources only takes you up to a point to 

cover the existing concerns, then my concern is that we are going 

to see additional gaps. And that is my concern right now. And I 

wanted to be clear that in the proposal, that we don’t come back 

later and say we still don’t have the resources to do the job, knowing that all these additional things and the gap is going to be 

added. 

Mr. PERRELLI. As an answer to that question, the proposal we 

made in terms of specific numbers was what we thought would address an immediate need. It was not intended to estimate how 

much the 2016 political campaign would cost or the 2020 political 

campaign would cost. Nor was it an attempt to set the sort of longterm size of the Service. As we said in the report, we think that 

a new Director needs to do a zero-based budget, needs to start from 

the beginning and define that, and then come again to the executive branch and to Congress and justify that. But we do think that 

immediate infusion of resources is needed today, recognizing, as we 

said before, that it is going to take some period of time for those 

people to be able to be deployed at the White House. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentlewoman. Now recognize 

the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Meadows, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank each of you for 

your work, for your recommendations. Ms. Gray, I want to come to 

you first. I have received a number of phone calls from agents, 

male, female, all over the country. They have actually gotten ahold 

of a Member of Congress, talked to me. Any time I get a blocked 

number, I know it is them. My concern is is that it sounds like 

there is a culture of fear within the rank and file. Would you agree 

with that assessment having talked to so many people? 

Ms. GRAY. I think one of the things that we heard from a number 

of agents was a sense of disappointment in some of their leadership. And I think this goes back to the question that was asked 

earlier by Congressman Cummings about people finding different 

outlets, finding a Member of Congress or going to the media and 

other things. And so that is something that, you know, we hope the 

recommendations that we made in our report that get to a leadership that respects input from the rank and file, that provides opportunities for agents and officers to suggest changes within the organization, that gets to why we think that is very important. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me followup on that. So if we have a culture 

of fear within the Service, and I am quoting from your report, it 

says they do not have the confidence that discipline is imposed in 

a fair and consistent manner, that they feel like that some people 

get off easier or some people get punished. Would you agree with 

that assessment, Ms. Gray? 

Ms. GRAY. We heard a number of agents and officers express disappointment in the transparency around the disciplinary process. 

And I think over time, the Service has experimented with different 

models, from having more direct supervisors imposing discipline, to 
21 

having discipline imposed more from central command of the Secret Service. And I think there has been, and we heard a lot of it, 

a sense of disappointment in the transparency around these processes which leads to some concluding that discipline is not taking 

seriously. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if we have those two issues—and there is essentially another quote from your report, a good-old-boy network in 

terms of the management. Would you agree with that assessment, 

that that is the feeling within the Service? 

Ms. GRAY. We heard a lot of comments. I don’t want to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Would that be accurate—I am taking it from your 

report. 

Ms. GRAY. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So if there is a good-old-boy spirit of fear within 

management, and we are talking about resources, I think both 

Democrats and Republicans are committed to providing the resources to make sure that this agency has what it needs. But my 

concern is is the budget last time, under the Director that is no 

longer with the Service, actually asked for less money, asked to reduce the level of experience by an average of 5 years, actually went 

even further to say that they were going to reduce full-time equivalent people. And part of the people that made up that budget request got a promotion in January of this year. Do you find that 

that would create a real problem from a morale standpoint? 

Ms. GRAY. Absolutely from a morale standpoint. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So there were seven people who got a promotion 

in January. What did the rank and file say about that, senior-level 

executives? 

Ms. GRAY. So we didn’t get into discussions about particular individuals or particular members of the management team. But we 

did hear, overall, a sense of disappointment with the leadership in 

the agency. And our focus, rather than on individual performance 

of individual members of the management team, our focus was 

much more thinking, you know, from the sort of bottom up, what 

are the qualities that this agency needs to have in its management 

team as—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me tell you what I have heard. I have heard 

from agents that said that the 8th floor, they need to clean house 

of a lot of those folks. Have you guys heard similar Statements like 

that? 

Mr. PERRELLI. One of the most telling things that I think we 

heard from, it was remarkable how consistent this was, was with 

the rank and file saying to us if what comes of this report is just 

more money, we need more resources, that is true, but what we 

really need is leadership. We need a different, dynamic leadership, 

not specified to one particular floor, but a clear sense from the rank 

and file that their confidence in the organization would really improve only if they saw substantial change at the top. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I am going to close with this because I made a 

promise to a couple of agents, there is this forcing of transferring 

of people across the country where they will be working for 12 

years, 10 years, and then they are forced to move somewhere else. 

And they are encouraged in such a way that if they don’t do it, 
22 

they may lose their clearance. Is that something that the panel 

looked into? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We heard concerns about the transfer policies, 

concerns, frankly, at the management level, as well as from the 

line level. I think it didn’t become a big part of our report. But I 

do think that from a budget and management standpoint, that is 

one of the issues that we think a new Director has got to look at 

seriously in sort of charting the future course of the organization. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from California, Mr. Lieu, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Ms. Gray, if you could move your microphone just a little more central, that would be helpful. Thank you. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the panel for 

your excellent report. I think many of us agree with you that you 

need better leadership. But it is awfully hard to lead without the 

appropriate resources. And I wanted to sort of give you the opportunity to respond to what a member very early in the panel had 

Stated about—because other law enforcement agencies like the FBI 

had an increase in funding, therefore, the Secret Service must also 

have had adequate funding. But, in fact, that’s not true, right? 

Hasn’t the budgets remained largely flat while your missions have 

actually increased in complexity? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think there has been an increase in missions. 

And I think what we looked at and talked about in our report and 

something that gave us confidence that the 285 recommendations 

that we made for immediate needs was adding 85 agents to the 

President’s protective detail would really only bring it up to where 

it was in 2004. Now, that is not the budget of the entire organization. And there are folks doing the investigative mission. And so 

the organization’s budget has increased over time. But for the Uniform Division, adding 200 positions would not even bring it to its 

high-water mark. We thought that was important to do today. But 

as we said, we think, longer term, a new Director has got to take 

a serious look at what is the right size, what are the right missions 

to keep and maybe to shed. We think it is going to take more 

money once that plan is put together. But it is not to say that all 

of it is new money. 

Mr. LIEU. I have a question for you, the immediately prior member asked a question and sort of stated that folks last year requested a smaller budget. Was that because they were ordered to 

do so because of sequestration? They just had to come up with 

numbers to meet a certain threshold? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I don’t think we can speak really about what happened precisely in another budget process. There is no question 

that—and again, I think we talk about this in our report—I think 

we found that the Service did what perhaps other agencies do, 

which is they look at what they have, they think about what they 

might be able to get through the agency, the OMB, and through 

Congress. And they ask for a little bit more. And they maybe ask 

for a little bit more in an area that they think might be one that 

Congress is interested in funding. 

Our concern is that over time, what happened with the Service 

is that they weren’t continuing to increase their staffing, they 
23 

weren’t asking, necessarily modeling and making decisions about 

how much they really needed. And at some point, over a number 

of years, what they had and what they needed really diverged in 

no small part because their missions continued to increase, both 

the protective mission and, frankly, the investigative mission. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. Representative Lawrence had read from 

Bennie Thompson’s letter to us. I am going to read another part 

of the letter. He says ‘‘years of making budget requests, combined 

with the reduction of appropriations have left the agency struggling 

to meet its multi-faceted mission and failing to meet our expectations.’’ I assume you agree with that? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Yes. 

Mr. LIEU. So, Mr. Chairman, with unanimous consent, I ask that 

Ranking Member Thompson’s full Statement be entered into the official hearing record. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. LIEU. So I am very pleased that you are here, that you 

issued the report. And I hope we can begin the process of restoring 

both the Secret Service, as well as protection for our homeland. 

And we can do that by, first of all, passing a clean DHS bill, so 

I yield back. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Will my friend yield? My friend here, would you 

yield? 

Mr. LIEU. I will yield. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend. Mr. Perrelli, in response to 

Mr. Lieu about the fact that 85 more uniform personnel would only 

bring us back to the level of 2004—I, for one, am stunned by that. 

But isn’t it also about turnover? I mean, part of the problem with 

the agency is not just how many uniform people we got, but how 

long they are there. They are being raided by other agencies. I am 

going to get into inadequate training in my questioning time. But 

it is also unbelievable—I mean,the average tenure of a uniform 

person is what? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I don’t have that figure at my fingertips. But turnover is high, you know, in no small part because Uniform Divisions 

have a TS/SCI clearance and a full polygraph, making them very 

attractive candidates for other law enforcement jobs as well. So 

there is no question that I think that turnover is high. And that 

is something that, as we talked about in our report, there is a need 

to make a decision, make a set of choices about what the Uniform 

Division needs to be. And that will drive how you think about investment in the Uniform Division or how you might change its mission. We proposed two different paths in the report, but left it to 

a new Director to make that call. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. And I thank my colleague. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. If the gentleman will yield, I am sure our 

chairman will give them more time. I would also like to enter into 

the record and ask unanimous consent to enter the Department of 

Homeland Security appropriations bill, this was May 29, 2013. I 

want to read from this. It says the committee—this is the Appropriation Committee—‘‘is concerned that the President’s budget request creates a pay shortfall and results in the reduction of at least 

376 FTEs from the Secret Service in Fiscal Year 2014, and fundamentally alters the dual-mission requirements of the Secret 
24 

Service. At the current rate of attrition,’’ to the gentleman’s point, 

‘‘by Fiscal Year 2018, the Secret Service work force would have 

been decimated by the loss of more than 1500 FTEs.’’ 

If we could put up the slide here on the funding levels, you will 

find that Congress actually appropriated more than what the President asked for. It does get to the core of what this panel found 

which is they don’t have a zero-based budgeting approach. They 

don’t necessarily have the talent in place to do it. When you are 

entering into a DOS Operating System, your time codes, they have 

no idea what these people are actually working. And the feedback 

that we both got is that they are terribly frustrated, they don’t get 

adequately compensated, nobody understands what they are really 

trying to go through. And then they end up with 25 minutes of 

training time in an entire year. And so we share a responsibility 

in making sure—that is why I am glad we are providing this oversight. 

The panel has illuminated lots of these things. And I hope we do 

work in a bipartisan basis to provide the adequate funding, to 

make sure those agents and officers, we understand what they are 

going through and that we get those staffing levels up, because you 

combine the lack of staffing, the drop in that, the drop and reduction in training, and you have got a vortex of vulnerability that is 

totally unacceptable. With that, my time is more than expired. I 

will recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank for leading 

the mission over the Secret Service this morning. It was good to see 

that. I will just comment on the State of the DHS bill in the Senate. What you have is a minority of Senators taking a position that 

they will not even allow that bill to be debated, no debate at all, 

unless the President is allowed to issue 5 million work permits and 

Social Security numbers to people who are in the country illegally, 

which is, of course, contrary to statute and something he said he 

could not do previously. 

So to me, I think that is absolutely irresponsible that you won’t 

even have this debate. This is a critical constitutional issue. And 

I think the country deserves better. And so a ‘‘clean bill’’ would not 

include any funding for this radical policy change. A clean bill 

would just focus on funding the core functions of DHS that they 

had traditionally done, without this new policy that the President 

unilaterally implemented. Let me ask you this: This is probably 

outside of what you guys were tasked with doing, but Mr. Filip, I 

will just ask you to start, how has, becausesome of the problems 

I think that you identified are great, need more leadership, better 

administrative capacities, too much insularity, people have commented about the low morale. So how has the transition of the Secret Service from Treasury to DHS, I know it has been 12 years, 

13 years now, having it be in a bigger bureaucracy with more red 

tape, to me that would exacerbate these problems. Can you comment on whether the Secret Service is better served having been 

in DHS? 

Mr. FILIP. Thank, you, Congressman. We did not focus on that 

question, given that we just had a couple months’ time and we 

thought we had an awfully big agenda just on the core safety 
25 

issues. I suspect the agency could be improved within DHS or within Treasury. I am sure there is strong arguments on each side. And 

we have heard arguments exactly like you just shared to the pro 

Treasury side. And we have heard arguments to the pro DHS side. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But where were those arguments? Were these 

line agents? The people who said that they like Treasury better, 

were they more administrators? 

Mr. FILIP. Generally they were, people who brought up the subject were people who had been with the Secret Service for a long 

period of time and, thus, had been in both places. And there were 

a variety of views as you might expect. But for folks who just, you 

know, naturally folks who only know one thing, that tends to be 

what they think about. For folks who have seen different options, 

they have strengths and weaknesses as to each. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Mr. Hagin, were you working in the White House 

when this change was made, if I read your bio correctly? 

Mr. HAGIN. I was. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. So can you comment on looking back or either in the course of your investigation or just using your experience, because it just seems to me that when you have more bureaucracy and you put these folks in an even bigger maze, we talk 

about personnel, well, the funding is much different when you have 

all these agencies in DHS than it would have been at Treasury. So 

can you provide any insight into how you see that issue? 

Mr. HAGIN. There was a decision that all enforcement was leaving Treasury. So the question really was, at least in my involvement, was Justice Department, Homeland Security, where is the 

natural fit? When you look at the Department of Homeland Security, you have Coast Guard, who regularly, on a routine basis, supports the Secret Service quite a bit with aerial support and motorcades, other things like that. You have TSA, who has been supporting the Secret Service with magnetometers, especially during 

political campaigns when they are stretched very, very thin. There 

is a lot of support from sister agencies within DHS and that was 

looked at. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But the Secret Service does get support from the 

FBI and from other agencies who are outside of Homeland Security, correct? 

Mr. HAGIN. Not to the extent that I think you see with Coast 

Guard and TSA. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So do you think that the change, to move the Secret Service into DHS, put the TSA as a new creation of that,but 

there was obviously a Coast Guard before then, so the Secret Service’s interactions with the Coast Guard and the support that the 

Coast Guard has provided has actually been enhanced by having 

a Department of Homeland Security? 

Mr. HAGIN. Again, the panel didn’t look into that question. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And you don’t have a personal opinion? 

Mr. HAGIN. My sense is that the Service has, the cooperation has 

been enhanced by being within the same agency. 

Mr. PERRELLI. I guess I would just like to add that I think the 

panel’s conclusion was, we identified a substantial number of 

issues that needed reform at the Service. For those issues, we 

didn’t think moving them from one agency to another would ad-
26 

dress really any of the issues that we identified. And so while we 

understand that that was a serious debate, we thought that the 

focus really needed to be on solving the problems that we found. 

Mr. HAGIN. If I could say one more thing, I think one interesting 

piece on Treasury was that—being an older guy, I remember well 

a lot of the discussion back in those days from within the Service 

about, gosh, Treasury officials, Wall Street guys, finance guys, they 

really don’t understand the enforcement mission well. 

So over time, you have had complaints about, you know, wherever they are, people are going to think it is better somewhere else. 

And I believe it is correct to say that at that point, the Director 

of the Secret Service reported to either an Assistant Secretary or 

an Undersecretary of Treasury. And when the change was made, 

there was an, it was clear that the Director of the Secret Service 

would report directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security. So I 

think we addressed it properly in the report. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to pick 

up on that very last point, Mr. Hagin. One of the reasons obviously 

it was originally at Treasury is because of the dual mission of the 

Secret Service. And I want to get into that. Your report says the 

paramount mission is protecting the President and other highranking national officials and allows no tolerance for error. We 

agree. But if you look at Secret Service’s own documents, their 

presentation to the Congress for their budget, it says they carry out 

a unique dual mission of protection and investigation, meaning currency investigation. 

In their mission Statement, their own mission Statement, they 

say the mission is to ensure the security of the President, Vice 

President and families, et cetera, and protects the integrity of our 

currency, and investigates crimes against national financial systems committed by criminals around the world and cyberspace. I 

want to ask—we are all focused on the protection of our senior officials in government and dignitaries who may visit the United 

States, but they have got a dual mission. And the question is, is 

that now, frankly, a problem for the Secret Service? They are having trouble with the paramount mission you have identified. Maybe 

it is time to re-examine whether this dual mission thing makes 

sense any longer, especially since we moved them out of Treasury. 

Mr. FILIP. Congressman, we looked at that issue. And we think 

that is a very serious question. We think that the investigative 

mission in some form is consistent with the protective mission. 

Some of those skills, some of those technologies dovetail in very 

nicely. That said, protecting the financial system of the United 

States is a massive endeavor if there aren’t bounds and limits put 

on it. And it is likely the case—and we think this is important because it also flows through the budgeting and personnel issues— 

that there has to be a very hard, good-faith look at whether or not 

investigative functions enhance the ability to protect or distract. 

And so the issue you have identified is very real. We shared that 

concern. That is one of the most important things we think a new 

Director and a new leadership team is going to have to look at. 
27 

Mr. PERRELLI. And let me add on the question, one of the reasons 

why you find that the investigative mission supports the protective 

mission is because of the need for surge capacity or additional capacity when the President or other protectees travel, particularly 

foreign travel, as well as certainly during political campaigns, the 

arrival of the Pope in the United States, and those kinds of things 

where you need to be able to draw on a significant force. You also 

need a period of time, those 4 or 5 years in the field, to train and 

then ultimately come to Washington to be part of the protective detail. If you didn’t have the investigative mission, you would have 

a very different looking organization, really focused solely on protection. And that, I think, is, would be a very substantial change 

with a variety of pros and cons. Ultimately, as a panel, we decided 

that we think, as Mr. Filip said, that the investigative mission does 

support that protective mission. But that because we believe that 

the protective mission is paramount, a new Director has to make 

some serious choices. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. My time is going to run out. But I think what 

also—and I really appreciate Mr. Filip’s candor—the currency side 

is a massive enterprise. And I don’t know that it makes sense any 

longer to marry the two. It may have once. I agree there is spillover and externalities, positive externalities about the investigative 

part. But, frankly, the protective mission need not preclude investigations. In fact, quite the opposite. I, myself, have called the Secret Service on occasion to ask them to investigate a potential 

threat against a public official, including the President of the 

United States. So they already have that capacity, not tied necessarily to the currency part. And I would say the chairman, who 

has invited bipartisan cooperation here, this may be something, 

Mr. Chairman, we really need to look into, whether this continues 

to make any sense. I would yield if my time could be frozen. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. Your time could certainly be frozen. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I think it was frozen at 55. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Our staff has been working together. I do 

agree with you that I think we should seriously look at separating 

out the currency, the protection of the currency, the investigation 

of that. I do think that Secret Service does need an investigative 

arm. It does go hand in glove with their mission. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Their mission. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. But separating out the currency and 

giving that responsibility to the Treasury is something we should 

revisit. And we will continue to work with you and your staff. And 

we may very well jointly introduce something later. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. I welcome that. And I absolutely welcome working with you and the ranking member on that. This is 

something that has bothered me for a long time. Final question— 

because I am going to run out of time and I thank the chair—training, your report is very troubling and you actually say training has 

diminished to the point of being far below acceptable levels. That 

just sent a chill down my spine when I read it. What could go 

wrong with that? And I wonder if you could just elaborate a little 

bit on what can we do efficaciously to turn that around and get it 

to far above acceptable levels? 
28 

Ms. GRAY. Thank you for the question. And I think it is, you 

know, I want to be clear—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have got to straighten out that mic 

and put it right there. There you go. All right. 

Ms. GRAY. I think it is important to be very clear about what we 

are talking about. Both agents and the PPD and officers in Uniform Division, when they first go to the protective detail, there is 

hundreds of hours of training, you know, when they are first 

brought on. So really what we are talking about is in-service training, the kind of training to keep you sharp, to hone instincts, to 

train together in an integrated way, to train around new threat 

scenarios. And for that, I think in terms of the what we can do 

about it, I think one of the things that we strive to do in our report 

was to set a benchmark, to have a standard that leaders could be 

measured against in terms of whether or not they were seeking to 

fulfill that standard and have a staffing model to support actually 

implementation of that. 

So we set two benchmarks. We set a return to the 4th shift concept for the PPD. And we took a look at large metropolitan police 

forces, similar Federal agencies with a protective mission, their 

training levels are between 5 and 25 percent. And we thought, as 

a panel, you know, at least 10 percent for the Uniform Division, 

which, if you think about it, is about 2 days a month, is something 

that we should want to aspire to. So we think setting benchmarks 

will go a long way. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the 

panel. Your report noted that there was a common critique that 

you heard, that the service was too insular. What are the areas of 

greatest concern in which the agency needs to improve? 

Mr. FILIP. I think these go to the leadership question, Congressman. The insularity goes, I think, at least in substantial part, to 

the idea of kind of an old boy’s network for want of a better term, 

that discipline is not always transparent, or perhaps even uniform, 

based on whether or not people have served together in the past 

or have familiarity with each other. The insularity also goes to the 

point of reaching out to a broader intelligence community and law 

enforcement community to gain insights about new technologies 

and new techniques that are available, perhaps even going so far 

as to reach out to sister agencies at friendly allied nations, you 

know, whether it be the Israelis or the British Secret Service 

equivalents, to find out what techniques they have found helpful in 

real-threat environments. In the past, that had been done. And it 

seemed as though that sort of coordination with other folks who 

might have good insights and experts had diminished. 

So those were the main sort of insularities I think that we were 

looking at. Part of it also was infusing in outside expertise in areas 

like human resources, budgeting, technology, congressional relations, that leadership might come in those areas that is more effective than folks trained in a protective or law enforcement background. 
29 

Mr. WALBERG. Who are the main individuals or groups that are 

bringing these concerns to you? Were these coming from agents on 

the line? 

Mr. FILIP. Yes, sir. But we also would hear admissions to that 

effect, Statements to that effect from senior people. It was a uniform, there were a lot of voices to that effect. 

Mr. WALBERG. You noted hearing that Secret Service would send 

low-level representatives with little authority to interagency meetings and that they were, in your words, hamstrung from deriving 

benefits from their participation. Who at the Service was responsible for this practice? And I guess the other question is why? 

Mr. FILIP. I think it would be sort of deputy-level folks within 

their subject matter areas would select the people who would go to 

those meetings. Why? I think it was just a lack of priority being 

placed on or maybe a failure to appreciate the benefits that could 

come from being in dialogs with other parts of law enforcement and 

intelligence community in the U.S. 

Mr. WALBERG. And that is a problem with insularity then? 

Mr. FILIP. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WALBERG. Didn’t want to branch out and find anything different than what was normal? 

Mr. FILIP. I think, sir, in its most benign form, it was that folks 

are proud of their own organization. But pride can be a virtue. And 

pride can be a failing too. There needs to be humility and an appreciation that you can gain a lot from other folks too. 

Mr. WALBERG. How far down the chain of command does this extend, that attitude extend? 

Mr. FILIP. I think it is probably not uniform with each and every 

person. It certainly is something that is organization, the organization has had for some time. I think there is some people at senior 

levels who are more open to outside perspectives, some people less, 

some people at junior levels with the same dynamic. It certainly is 

something that is prevalent enough that a new Director and a new 

leadership team has to, we think, respectfully, pay serious attention to. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentlewoman from New York, Ms. Maloney, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ranking member 

for holding this hearing on really a critical issue, the security of the 

leaders of our country. It is incredibly important. And I thank all 

the panelists for being here today and all your hard work. You 

would not have to be a security or a law enforcement professional 

to recognize that there are some very serious problems with your 

department, with the United States Secret Service. You would just 

have to read a newspaper or have some common sense to see that 

you are an agency in deep trouble. The repeated headlines about 

tawdry scandals with prostitutes, and Secret Service professionals, 

the horrendous lapses of judgment and high-profile breaches of security, including breaking into the President of the United States’ 

home. 

All these examples make it clear that something is seriously 

wrong in the culture and in the management of the Secret Service. 

In any organization, it is not fair to assume that the bad behavior 
30 

of a few is representative of the many. But we also understand that 

this is not just any organization, this is the United States Secret 

Service. It used to be one of the most respected agencies in our government. And you are tasked with some of the most critical law enforcement missions in our country. Among them, and first and foremost, is protecting the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, and the leader of the free world. There is no margin for error in your job. There is no slack to be granted. And there 

is absolutely no possibilities for do-overs. 

So far more important today than just fixing the blame and talking about all of these reports is fixing the problem. Now, the question that I hear from my constituents is how in the world did someone jump over the fence, break into the White House, roam around 

the home where our President sleeps and roam around rooms 

where his children play, how in the world did that happen? I don’t 

want to know specifics. I just want to know in an overall Statement, can we go to bed tonight and feel that the Secret Service is 

going to protect the President of the United States? I am going to 

ask Ms. Gray. 

Ms. GRAY. Thank you for the question. I think our panel believes 

that the Secret Service is doing a job protecting the President, and 

the President ultimately is safe. There is a lot of multiple layers 

around the President and around his personal protection. But I 

think to your question about sort of how could something like that 

happen that you hear from your constituents and the like, I think 

the report by Deputy Secretary Mayorkas detailed that a series of 

lapses and also failures in training and communications led to that 

event. And that is something that, you know, we hope our recommendations going forward can try to address. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, how can we make sure that there is no 

longer failures in communication and there are no longer lapses in 

protecting—I find that the people are concerned about it. Because 

the No. 1 goal of government is to protect our citizens and to protect our population. And we created the Homeland Security, we 

took many strong steps in a bipartisan way after 9/11 to better protect our citizens. So when our citizens see the President’s home 

broken into, it is very terrifying to them because they put themselves in the same situation of being afraid of someone breaking 

into their home. And I just find it startling that this ever happened 

in the first place. And I also find your recommendation calling for 

a new Director from outside of the Secret Service, I have never 

heard of an agency basically say we can’t handle it ourselves, we 

have got to have someone from the outside come in and tell us how 

to handle it. 

Can you explain why you made this recommendation and why do 

you think it is going to work and why do you think that someone 

with the ability—it is very difficult to get in the Secret Service and 

the training and everything else that you have, that someone from 

the Service cannot run the Service. And do you now have a separate agency that is looking at protecting the President and the Vice 

President As they move around in their homes? Mrs. Gray again, 

and then anyone else who wants to come in. 

Ms. GRAY. Sure. I mean, I think our assessment of the need for 

an outside Director was that we thought that many of the chal-
31 

lenges that will actually lead to addressing some of these issues in 

the future uniquely, at this moment in time, could benefit from outside leadership. One of the things we say in our report obviously 

is that that may not have always been true throughout the time 

during the Secret Service. But right now, given the need to have 

in place a staffing model so that they can make decisions that reflect actually the mission, given some of the prioritization issues 

that we have been talking about, how do you make sure that protection of the White House compound and the President are a priority every year and that, you know, the mission creep with other 

areas is not infecting the organization. All of those challenges we 

thought could benefit from outside leadership at this time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentlewoman. Now recognize 

the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Walker, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panel, for 

being here today. I want to talk about what appears to be the No. 

1 glaring concern with the fence jumper. But I also want to talk 

about that from a budget perspective. So let me make sure that I 

am clear on this. In your opinion, the fence breach was caused because of insufficient training, is that correct? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think we think that—and this, I think, is detailed in Deputy Secretary Mayorkas’ report—that training and 

communications issues were a substantial component of that, of allowing that individual to get as far as he did. We make a number 

of recommendations, both in our unclassified and classified portions 

of our report, that I think would address some of those issues. And 

we also think that increasing—changing and increasing the height 

of the fence would decrease the ability of somebody to get over the 

fence at all, much less get as far as that individual did. 

Mr. WALKER. Sure. But a couple times this morning I have heard 

it try to be tied into some kind of budgetary issue. My question 

would be if one of you guys saw someone jump the fence, would you 

know what to do? 

Mr. PERRELLI. There is no question that, and I think the Service 

has, if you talk to people, rank and file, across the Service, they 

would have said, I think many individuals would say yes, I know 

what I would have done. What we did find, though, is there was 

disagreement about that. In other words, there were certainly individuals in the Service who thought lethal force, they would have 

immediately deployed lethal force, others who said lethal force was 

not appropriate, many who said putting hands on and actually 

tackling the person was the right approach. And what the concern 

that that led to for us was that there was a lack of training, so that 

you would know in the instant that you needed to react what you 

were supposed to do. 

Mr. WALKER. Sure. But we cannot correlate that to being a budgetary issue, is that fair to say? I mean, we just recently passed a 

human trafficking bill that would train tens of thousands of agents 

to spot out some of the perpetrators or the victims. There is no additional funding for it. So sometimes training, to me, has no boundary from the sense it is connected with funding, is that a fair Statement in your report? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think where budget and training go together is 

the concern that because of—training has really disappeared be-
32 

cause of, or at least in no small part because of, but not solely because of, the excess overtime that individuals are working. They 

have canceled in-service trainings, particularly for the Uniform Division, now that training is to an unacceptable level. And those 

folks are working very, very long hours. So there is an aspect of 

this I think that relates to resources. As I think we tried to make 

clear in the report, we do think that, long term, a new Director is 

going to have to define the priorities and the mission in a way that 

the Service hasn’t to date. 

I think the chairman put up a slide about funding. It has not 

been a question of Congress not appropriating funds, but the Service not coming to Congress and saying what it needed, as well as 

making some of the hard choices about other aspects of the mission. 

Mr. WALKER. Granted. But, Ms. Gray, I believe you even used 

the term part of the responsibility was to keep sharp and to hone 

instincts. I don’t see where that necessarily ties into more funding. 

I believe that training can be done without additional resources. Is 

that part of your report? Do you think that is fair? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think our view is that, that the reason why 

training has reduced so significantly is because the work force is 

so overstretched. So we do think that you need more personnel at 

the White House, both in the Uniform Division and special agent 

population. And I do think that means more resources in the near 

term. 

Mr. WALKER. Fair enough. Let me use the last bit of my time to 

talk about budget transparency. Were you surprised that no one in 

the Secret Service could answer some of the budgetary questions 

that you proposed? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We were concerned about that. And, as we indicated, the Service needs to professionalize those aspects of the 

Service so that they can justify, within the administration as well 

as here, the needs that they have. Because we did the best that we 

could to identify what we thought was a reasonable number of an 

increase that they needed in the immediate term. So we were, and 

I think our word was we were hamstrung in making a more definitive—— 

Mr. WALKER. Maybe could we say that was one of your larger, 

if not largest, surprises, that there was no go-to person when you 

had budgetary questions? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We were certainly disappointed that we could not 

get a number of questions answered. 

Mr. WALKER. And is that part of the reason you are recommending a Director from the outside, someone who would bring a 

completely different perspective, including not just the Secret Service side, the protection side, but also the budgetary side? 

Mr. PERRELLI. We do think they need real experts in that area 

and that promoting from the agent population is not probably the 

way to go there. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Recognize Mr. Hice 

from Georgia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the panel 

for showing up. One question that I had that I am still, frankly, 
33 

trying to wrap my mind around in relation to what you were just 

referring to, the panel found that the Secret Service does not have 

in place a system budgetarily in order to even make the most prudent budget decisions. And yet, at the same time, we are saying we 

need to provide more resources. So I am trying to wrap my mind 

around this whole understanding of how can we say conclusively 

that more resources are needed when we are, likewise, admitting 

that they don’t have a system of tracking the budget that they 

have, they don’t even know how to manage and spend the money 

that they are already receiving. So can you just clarify that? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Certainly. So it is not so much about tracking the 

money that they receive is the issue, but it is a work force and 

staffing model to make decisions about how do deploy the resources 

that they have. Again, it is more in the planning side where we 

found and the retention, the capturing of data side that we found 

deficiencies. I think on this question of more resources, for us, 

training really drove resources. If we wanted to, you know, we were 

unable, I think, to do the analysis to say, if we want to bring everyone down to a 55-hour week, how would do you it? What we were 

able to look at was if we wanted to bring everyone up to an appropriate level of training, pursuant to the benchmarks that Ms. Gray 

talked about earlier, how much would it take? That analysis we 

were able to do. And that is the basis for the 200 additional Uniform Division and 85 additional special agents. 

Mr. HICE. OK. Thank you. And just going on on the training 

issue, I think all of us are stunned and appalled by the fact that 

something as simple as an incident, someone jumping over the 

fence, that so many people didn’t know what to do. That seems like 

it is 101-type information that everyone agent ought to know. But 

also the panel looked into training conditions that replicate the environment in which these agents are actually operating. And there 

was evidently during that fence-jumping incident, there was one 

team that actually reported that they were not even aware of the 

layout inside the White House. This is amazing. So just respond to 

that as well. What plan is there in the training aspect, if any, to 

not only provide more training, but specific training as to where 

these agencies are operating? 

Ms. GRAY. Thank you for the question. Our report attempted to 

address what I would call the sort of quality of training issues that 

you are raising in sort of two different ways. One is more integrated training. So one of the things that Deputy Secretary 

Mayorkas’ report found is that some of the Uniform Division officers were not fully aware of the roles that others officers were playing. And so those standing at post at the door, those on the ERT 

team, those in the K–9 unit, the different roles and responsibilities 

in terms of intercepting that person. And so that, in part, reflects 

a lack of sufficient integrated training, training together as teams. 

So that is one recommendation that goes to that. 

On the familiarization with the White House, as you noted, there 

was indication in Deputy Secretary Mayorkas’ report that members 

of the Secret Service that were responding to the incident on the 

19th were not familiar with the inside layout of the White House. 

So one of our recommendations, we don’t think this should be very 

hard to do, but one of our recommendations is that the Service in-
34 

vest in a replica so that you can actually have training in a realtime environment. 

Mr. HICE. OK. Thank you. I want to go to Mr. Filip. You had 

mentioned a while ago about the human resources issue and the 

fact that you believe that there needs to be a human resource director from the outside coming in. I am assuming from that that 

the method up to this point has been agents from within who have 

been overseeing human resources, is that true? 

Mr. FILIP. Yes, sir. Historically, the agents have always occupied 

senior leadership positions in a number of areas that perhaps their 

background and experience doesn’t best prepare them to perform. 

In the FBI, for example, under Director Mueller, benefited substantially—we think there is a broad consensus on that—by bringing 

in folks from the outside, who have spent their careers in those 

areas, perhaps outside in the private industry or other areas, in 

coming to lead those. And we think that is something that would 

be beneficial here. 

Mr. HICE. OK. And one final question, I understand that there 

has been changes over the last several years in the hiring process, 

among other things, online hiring, that type of thing. Who has been 

pushing these changes? Where has this been coming from? 

Mr. FILIP. Sir, I don’t think we got a keen sense in the time we 

were looking at where those changes were coming from. It seems 

as though people sincerely were trying to find methods that would 

be better. And they did not work. And there needs to be—that is 

part of the reason why we think bringing in somebody from the 

outside who does this for a living is going to be able to improve 

things. And, if I could, sir, just please answer one question that a 

number of folks have asked because I don’t want to have us fighting people on this. 

The events of the fence jumper were a failure. OK. We are not 

part of the Secret Service. But the Secret Service does not dispute 

that those events were a failure. And at some level, you can train 

for 100 years, maybe things would have been different. Under any 

scenario, they were a failure. And so we are not trying to say that 

events with the fence jumper, there should never be a situation, period, where anybody gets in the front door of the White House with 

a knife or otherwise. And I just don’t want to leave the impression 

that we have any ambiguity about that or, frankly, that people, I 

think the Secret Service has acknowledged that too. And it obviously can never happen again. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Recognize the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Russell, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSSELL. I appreciate all the hard work that the panel has 

done. And I think it is a tough task that you have dug into in a 

great bipartisan fashion. My questions will focus specifically on the 

training aspects, because I think that is what is crucial ultimately 

in getting the job done. If the personnel currently are too deployed 

to train, how will the additional uniformed and other agents be 

trained? 

Ms. GRAY. I think this is where our staffing recommendations 

and our training recommendations interlink. I think part of what 

we were attempting to do is to sort of start with asking the ques-
35 

tion what would be the ideal training benchmarks that we would 

want to achieve and try to back out of that staffing numbers so you 

could achieve that without having people do, without having to 

navigate around the forced overtime and other staffing issues. So 

I think that is the answer to that. 

Mr. RUSSELL. So with the increase in the additional agents, obviously you are going to have to absorb those to be able to train 

them? 

Ms. GRAY. Right. 

Mr. RUSSELL. It is almost counterproductive because they are already too deployed, you are going to put a bunch of new agents, 

make the recommendation that that happens and then—and that 

is the focus of the question is how would that be absorbed? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think probably the way this is likely to happen, 

obviously we would like the new leadership team to make very specific choices about this, but you would bring in an additional special agent population. Those individuals would come on board. They 

would go out to the field and begin their sort of 4-to 5-year training 

period that they get before they would come to the President’s detail. And then you would bring individuals in from the field to increase the levels at the White House for the special agents. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you. I think all of us are just taken aback 

by the 25 minutes of average training. As a former combat infantryman, that is just astounding when you are entrusted with so 

many things, where you may have to protect somebody’s life. That 

just seems totally inadequate. Did any of that 25 minutes of training include sustaining the accurate employment of firearms? 

Ms. GRAY. So the data that we were given from the Secret Service did not include the time spent on firearms or qualifications and 

the like. So the numbers that we provided in our report, 42 hours 

of training in Fiscal Year 1913 for PPD and 25 minutes on average 

for the Uniform Division, that was apart from firearms or qualifications. 

Mr. RUSSELL. So what specifically then was the training focused 

on? I mean, if you had other aspects of training, here we are 

quoting 25 minutes but, you know, obviously firearms training or 

maybe drills training or protecting people that have been injured 

or whatever it might be, what aspects of training were you looking 

at? 

Ms. GRAY. So the data that we received gave us the aggregate 

training data. And I think we can talk about where, you know, I 

think we briefed on some of the different training protocols in the 

classified setting. And we want to be careful about that here. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Sure. 

Ms. GRAY. But, I think, for example, just to give an example, one 

of the things in the Mayorkas report talked about lack of training 

around communications equipment and how to properly use communications equipment. And that is like an appropriate subject of 

training. And I think there is indication that there has not been 

a lot of that in recent years. 

Mr. RUSSELL. And then were there any training recommendations that you made focused on proper reduction of threats and uniform rules of engagement? 
36 

Mr. PERRELLI. We looked at this question of the use of force policy, for example, which had been discussed quite a bit in the 

Mayorkas report. I think what we found was very different views, 

notwithstanding the same words on the page and the same, very 

different views about what force was appropriate in various circumstances. And I think we felt that both that additional training 

on that was needed, but also that they needed integrated training 

so that each individual knew what their role was, who is the person who is the last line of defense at the door, who is the person 

who is doing the tackling, all of those, you know, how do you work 

in an environment where a K–9 has been released, those kinds of 

things we felt, and again, I think the events of September 19th indicated, needed to be addressed. 

Mr. FILIP. Mr. Congressman, there are parts of the classified report that speak to threat reduction as well. 

Mr. RUSSELL. I appreciate that. And I do appreciate the sensitivity on that. And I guess I was, my question was focused, did you 

recommend a standard uniform rules of engagement? 

Mr. FILIP. The rule that the Secret Service uses comes from Supreme Court law about dealing with appropriate use of force that 

is pretty uniform whether we were looking at the metropolitan police in a big city or the Secret Service or the FBI or whatnot. It 

is not so much there is ambiguity about the policy, it is the execution of it, sir. 

Mr. RUSSELL. I see. That answers it. Thank you. I yield back my 

time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlemen. And I think this is 

a big area that needs to continue to be looked at. Because the use 

of force, lethal if necessary, has got to be well understood by every 

single person. And you can never, ever make a mistake. In this day 

and age of ISIL and other terrorists, you don’t know what is underneath them. I think it is terribly unfair to assume somebody 

doesn’t have anything underneath their clothing. In this day and 

age, we have to assume that that person might have an improvised 

explosive device or some sort of chemical agent or whatnot. And we 

should deal with it appropriately. That brings up a good point. 

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank all of you for 

being here. And thank you for what you do. And this is helping us 

out tremendously. So we appreciate your efforts in this. I want to 

concentrate just for a couple minutes on staffing because I am concerned here. Can you tell me how we are doing as far as new recruits go and are we getting new recruits in? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Again, I refer back to the chairman’s chart at the 

outset, that there was certainly a period of time where the Service’s hiring process was not functioning as intended, whether for 

budgetary or other reasons. Because problems with the hiring process, they were not getting classes through. Our sense is that that 

has improved. They are using different hiring practices again. And 

we think that is improving. But as Mr. Filip indicated, we continue 

to believe that having—some of the mistakes that have been made 

in the past related to not having a professionalized human re-
37 

sources function, or led by professionals in that area. And we think 

that is an important change going forward. 

Mr. CARTER. So you are acknowledging, then, that there has 

been a decrease in the number of new hires of people coming in? 

Mr. PERRELLI. There was a gap, a number—2 or 3 years there 

where they were not bringing classes through at the levels that 

they needed to sustain the work force. 

Mr. CARTER. But your assertion is that that was not caused by 

a lack of interest of applicants, but instead by the hiring process 

itself? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think there were budgetary issues. And then— 

but it was also the hiring process. It wasn’t that they lacked for 

applicants. It was that they struggled to get them through the 

process in a timely way. You would have people start the process, 

go through the process for up to a year, and then fall out of the 

process either because they failed a polygraph or for other reasons. 

Mr. CARTER. OK. All right. Hang with me real quick here. What 

about the force as it is today? Where are we at with our labor pool? 

Are we—what percentage will we see retiring in the next 5 to 10 

or be eligible to retire? I am worried about the fact that we are 

going to get into a situation where we don’t have enough Secret 

Service agents. 

Mr. PERRELLI. And I think our concern was, again, looking at 

that gap that the—really looking 3 or 4 years out from now where 

the individuals who, in an ordinary year, would have been hired 

and weren’t, would be starting their rotation in Washington as part 

of the President or the Vice President’s protective detail. So I think 

we think a new Director needs to start planning now for that. And 

that also includes, as you look forward, 2020 is going to be a year 

with the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, a Presidential 

campaign. That is going to be a year where the Service is going to 

be quite busy. And they need to make sure that they have the personnel ready to go and trained for that period. And that takes preparation now. 

Mr. CARTER. Would you say that the White House recognizes 

this? Because it is my understanding that the last budgets that 

had been submitted by the White House that Congress has actually 

put more money in there in order to address this scenario. 

Mr. PERRELLI. And I think, as we talked about in our report, I 

think the issue that we really saw was the Service having difficulty 

in defining what it needed and seeking resources for that. So it 

wasn’t so much that—it wasn’t that Congress was saying, you 

know, we are not going to provide the President’s budget. It was 

that, as this was working up through the process, the Service was 

approaching its budget by saying, ‘‘Here is how much we have. 

Maybe we ask for a little bit more,’’ rather than saying, ‘‘Here is 

what the mission is, here is what we need to achieve it,’’ and pursuing those resources. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, for myself—and I suspect and I hope for you 

as well—one of the most disappointing things that occurred to me 

in this report was the low morale. I mean, how did that come 

about? Did these guys not watch these movies? I mean, man, they 

get you all excited about being a Secret Service agent. What happened? 
38 

Mr. PERRELLI. Well, you know, one, these folks are working extremely long hours. And as I think we—in our leadership recommendations, we talk about the lack of confidence in the work 

force about disciplinary and other decisions, which I think, you 

know, has an impact there. 

You know, if you are—you know, we met with uniform division 

sergeants just shortly before Thanksgiving. And for them, they 

didn’t know whether they were working on—and they didn’t know 

if they would be—they didn’t think they would know whether they 

were working on Thanksgiving until Thanksgiving morning. Those 

kinds of things, plus long hours of forced overtime, they take a toll 

on the work force. 

Mr. CARTER. Listen, that sounds—you know, I am a business 

owner. That sounds like a management problem. That needs to be 

addressed immediately. Well, thank you again for everything you 

have done. We appreciate your efforts. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield the remainder of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I appreciate the gentleman. I 

now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

your consistently hard work on this issue while you have been the 

chairman and even before that when you were on the committee. 

I will throw this question to any of the four panelists who can 

answer it. Explain to me, picking up on Mr. Connolly’s question, 

how working counterfeit currency prepares you for personal protection. 

Mr. HAGIN. When a new agent comes out of Beltsville out of 

basic training, they are assigned to a field office for 4 to 5 years. 

During that assignment, they have, you know, various investigative roles, but they are also serving as manpower for protective 

stops. So if the President, the Vice President, and any of the 

protectees come into your region, you are assigned from your investigative role to be part of the manpower squad, which is how they 

start to become familiar with protective operations. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I get how practicing protection details helps 

you with protection details. I am trying to figure out how investigating someone using an inkjet printer to print counterfeit 

percent100 bills prepares you for that. I am trying to understand 

how those two missions are combined. 

Mr. HAGIN. Well, they develop law enforcement skills. They develop the—you know, the sense of when someone is lying, when 

someone is to be—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Which leads to this question: Your applicant pool, do 

you draw heavily from those women and men who are already in 

law enforcement and may already have those skills? 

Mr. HAGIN. I believe in the previous hiring practices over the last 

few years that that is not the case. They were hiring off of USA 

Jobs and—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Why not hire ex-military? I know there is an age 

cutoff, but why not hire ex-military, State and local law enforcement, a field that already has that basic investigatory skill package 

that you are looking for instead of hiring somebody who was an ac-
39 

counting major that just decided they want to join Federal law enforcement? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think that you are likely to see, Congressman, 

with the change in hiring process a shift to probably drawing more 

from State and local law enforcement and ex-military, which I 

think has been more common to the Service prior to the period 

when we think their hiring practices really became problematic. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you know—and I am sure the four of you know 

this. The U.S. Marshals have the broadest jurisdiction of any Federal law enforcement agency. They just don’t use it. They search 

for fugitives. They provide security in the courtroom. They provide 

security for courthouses. But they have very, very broad jurisdiction, they just don’t use it. They have become experts in a very— 

in a narrower field. 

I loved all of my years working with Secret Service. I thought 

they were really good on the currency and the counterfeiting cases. 

I just never understood how those two skill sets go together. 

Searching for missing persons and doing personal protection, I see 

how those go together. But investigating the use of an inkjet printer to print fake $100 bills and providing protection for the President or Vice President, I just don’t see how those skill sets go together. But it seems to me that you all are already on top of that. 

One question that arose with the former Director that I am not 

sure I got a good answer to. You mentioned training. I don’t think 

the failure to secure and search a crime scene is a training issue. 

And I say that, because I believe the housekeeper, who did not 

train at either Glynco or Quantico, knew enough to alert someone, 

you might want to come up and search this part of the White 

House. I just—if you have to be trained to secure and search a potential crime scene, you are probably not in the right line of work. 

So what explanation were you all, if any, able to uncover for how 

they missed that? 

Mr. FILIP. Congressman, I think you are putting your finger on 

something very important, and it also relates to the man who got 

inside the front door of the White House with a knife. There aren’t 

adequate explanations for failure to secure that evidence of the 

shooting up in the residence. Nor—you can talk about things forever and you can talk about training forever. If there were never 

another hour of training for 10 years, no one should get in the front 

door of the White House again. 

We are not here to defend either of those, period. Those were 

both grave mistakes, and neither one of them should have happened. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I appreciate your candor, and I appreciate the 

work that you did. And the Secret Service has a very rich, deep, 

good reputation and history. And I would like to see it get back to 

the days where I remember it. It is a very important agency. We 

have to get it right. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Palmer, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And Ms. Gray, you mentioned the excessive amounts of overtime. 

And it has been mentioned several times in this hearing. Do you 
40 

have an idea of how many overtime hours have been worked annually? 

Mr. PERRELLI. So I think when we looked at—so with respect to 

the agent population, we just don’t think there are actually accurate records for that because what we found was agents routinely 

enter 8 hours and 2 hours of a law enforcement availability pay 

time, even when they are working 17, 18, 20 hours. So that, I 

think, we—we think the accurate records for that are difficult to 

find. 

With respect—— 

Mr. PALMER. Let me ask you this: If the agents are not logging 

the hours they are working, does that mean they are uncompensated for overtime? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Well, they are getting paid for their 8 hours and 

their LEA pay. You know, I think—you know, frankly, we want a 

high-performing culture. We don’t want a group of individuals in 

the Secret Service punching the clock. I don’t think they view it as 

uncompensated time because I think—but certainly they are working, you know, extraordinarily long hours, well beyond what anybody has measured. 

Mr. PALMER. I don’t think I am communicating this correctly. 

What I am trying to find out is, within your budget process, you 

have so much budgeted for salaries and benefits and certain professional—certain professions when you work beyond the 8—not beyond 8 hours, but beyond 40 hours, you are compensated for your 

overtime. Some is time and a half, some is straight time. That is 

what I am trying to find out. 

Mr. PERRELLI. So in the uniform division, they are compensated 

for overtime. And what we found in the uniform division side is 

that there were wide variations. Some people were working extraordinary amounts of overtime. I think the—the precise number 

I don’t have right at my fingertips, but I think it is 58 hours on 

average, but again with wide variation. 

Mr. PALMER. All right. That is almost 50 percent more than what 

they normally should work. And obviously that has implications for 

stamina over time. If you are working consistent hours, that— 

working those kind of hours on a consistent basis. It also, though, 

has a budget impact, because generally you shouldn’t be budgeting 

personnel to work those kind of hours. 

So what I want to know is that we are paying for this. Does it 

make sense to be paying for overtime when we could convert what 

we are spending on that to new personnel? 

Mr. PERRELLI. And I do think that is a finding of our report, is 

that rather than bring on new personnel and train them up and 

get them ready, what happened was the need kept increasing, the 

personnel on board did not keep increasing, and they essentially 

substituted overtime for bringing on new personnel. So again, you 

are looking at the chairman’s chart. If you see the gap in hiring 

and the number of classes that go through, that is made up 

through overtime. And we think a less tired work force would, you 

know—some of that obviously would be compensated—and bringing 

on new people, having a less tired work force, some of that would 

be compensated by less overtime. 
41 

Mr. PALMER. Well, even on the training side, you could have 

them trained up, but if you are working that many hours you are 

reducing their effectiveness. But the thing that gets me is, it is a 

management issue, is that you are spending money on overtime, 

and someone is making a decision to pay overtime rather than 

bring in these new hires, which would reduce the demand on your 

personnel. That just doesn’t make sense. 

Mr. PERRELLI. We agree with that. 

Mr. PALMER. The clock changed on me. I thought for a moment 

there that I was out of time. 

The thing that keeps coming up—and from some of the other testimony that I have heard—is it seems to me there is an overall decline in morale in the Service. And I commend you for the work you 

are doing. I commend—I don’t know how much input you had into 

the report that we read on the recommendations for reforms, but 

I wholeheartedly support what is in the report, particularly bringing in someone from the outside. I am a big believer in bringing 

people in from the outside into a huge organization because they 

can see things that nobody else inside sees. You develop a culture 

over time where you just start to miss the obvious. 

So I want to encourage whoever needs to be encouraged to pursue someone from outside the agency, at least in a transitional-type 

setting, to be able to come in and make the changes that will bring 

the agency back up to the standard of excellence that you have enjoyed for years and years and that we all expect. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. 

Now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Sorry. Hit the talk button there, if you 

could please. Than you. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Very good. I have got a couple of questions 

for you folks. First of all, thanks for spending so much time with 

us today. I really appreciate you doing that. 

Obviously, there is a lot of discussion about who the new Director 

is going to be. There is a feeling that he ought to come from outside 

the agency now. I just want your opinions. Why do you believe the 

next Director should come from outside the agency? 

Mr. FILIP. And maybe we all should speak to that, and I will 

take the first crack at it, Mr. Congressman. We think that all 

things equal, it is easier for an outsider to achieve some of the 

things that are important, taking a fresh look at priorities, having 

consistent discipline, making tough personnel decisions, bringing in 

outside folks in the H.R., in the congressional relations, budgeting 

areas perhaps as appropriate. So again all things equal, it is easier 

for an outsider to come in and do that. The FBI does that historically. The CIA does that historically. 

Again, just to underscore this, obviously that is the President’s 

choice ultimately. And sometimes all things aren’t equal in the 

world in that, you know, someone from the inside brings in an outside leadership team with him or her, and they are the right person at the right time. We will support whoever the President chooses to the extent we can be supportive of them. But all things equal, 
42 

we do think an outsider would probably be able to do some of those 

other things easier. 

Ms. GRAY. Yes. I would agree with that. The only other thing I 

would add is that, you know, our report goes into detail in some 

of the budget and administrative functions of the organization that 

really need to have a priority in order to support the protective 

mission of the agency. And I think we think an outside Director 

can really bring a fresh perspective to that. 

Mr. PERRELLI. I would echo that. And, you know, we—one of the 

opportunities that we had as a panel was to talk broadly across the 

Federal Government in areas of technology and management. And 

we think there is a lot of talent that could help the Service. And 

we think that while, you know, certainly promoting from within for 

certain positions is important, we also think that there should be 

more people at senior levels who come from outside the Service 

with different backgrounds. 

Mr. HAGIN. And having someone who has the experience at 

changing an organization and being able to aggressively drive the 

changes that are needed here to, you know, both the use of technology, the management of technology, the human resource and 

budget issues really need a change agent. 

There are a lot of really great people in the Secret Service. And 

I think that we met and talked with quite a few people who we feel 

that with, you know, some further experience and education in 

terms of management training could be great directors of the Service going forward. But at this point in their history, they need 

somebody who can aggressively drive change, and our view was 

that that person best come from the outside. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. That is kind of illuminating, because usually 

when you deal in government people like—you know, they are 

afraid of somebody from the outside. But it says a lot for you guys. 

You guys would not—you feel that somebody other than Acting Director Clancy, kind of that outside view, would be an improvement? 

Mr. FILIP. Well, we did not do any sort of personnel review of 

Acting Director Clancy. He has done a great job and he has been 

a great public servant. And we just didn’t do a review to that effect. 

Again, all things equal, there is certain parts of this job that are 

easier, we thought, on average for an outsider. But I think we all 

have great respect for him. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. One other question, because we are running 

out of time here. Right now you guys fly in agents to supplement 

the uniformed division at the White House. And apparently that is 

very expensive. Could you comment on that practice? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Well, I think—and it does reflect an effort by the 

Service to address, you know, a short-term, trying to ensure they 

have adequate manpower at the White House. But I think similar 

to the questions we talked about about overtime, that is not a cost 

effective and long-term strategy for dealing with these issues. That 

is why we recommend them bringing on more people, permanent 

hires, the 200 additional uniformed division, the 85 additional special agents, because we think that that is a better way to do this 

than more expensive ways to do that that have—they are really 

only for short-term. 
43 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. So you feel we are spending money unnecessarily by doing things this way? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think that is right. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. 

Recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Again, I want to thank you all for all you have 

done. I just want to zero in on something that we have not spent 

a lot of time on. When I was the chairman of the Subcommittee 

over Maritime Transportation and the Coast Guard, under the 

Transportation Committee, we had a situation where the Coast 

Guard was purchasing boats that didn’t float, literally. Literally. 

And what we discovered was that the Coast Guard did not—the 

way they constructed their contracts and did their procurement, 

the major problem is they didn’t have people in-house who knew 

about procurement, which is incredible. And we literally lost hundreds of millions of dollars. 

And that takes me back to the piece where you all talk about 

maybe we need to have people who are experts in certain areas to 

do that. And then I was listening to what the chairman was reading—I guess that was budget language. And I asked myself, well, 

how do those things happen? You know, an accounting-type person 

speaks accounting. And so I was wondering, how significant is 

that? And it sounds like what they do is they take agents and put 

them in these positions that they may not—I don’t want to say may 

not be qualified for. But there are probably people who have 

trained in those expertise that would be better in that. And can 

you tell me the significance of that? And have I got that right? 

Mr. FILIP. You do, sir. I think the significance of it is real. I 

guess the way I would put it, I think the nicest way to put it is 

that in life you try to put people in a position where they have the 

best chance of succeeding, both for themselves and for the organization. And if you have somebody who is an A-plus protective person or law enforcement person, they may not be an A-plus person 

at media relations or congressional relations, any more than any of 

us would be good at being emergency room technicians or some 

such thing. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. 

What the FBI has done under—did under Director Mueller—and 

it seemed to be a material improvement in their endeavors, was to 

try to recruit—and it is not always easy. It is hard to get people 

to leave their positions, to move, things of that sort. But to put a 

real focus on recruiting experts who would come into the Secret 

Service. They were attracted—in that case, the Bureau. They were 

attracted to the mission. It was a way to engage in public service. 

It was a way to make a difference in America and be involved in 

human relations, be involved in IT efforts for the Bureau. And they 

improved things. 

The Bureau has a well-publicized history where it wasn’t that 

great at IT for a while. They had a lot of expensive challenges and 

frankly failures, and they got better. And so we think, respectfully 

again, that this is an area that would merit serious consideration, 

because bringing in senior-level people in human resources, in 

budgeting, in technology, congressional relations could really move 
44 

the needle for the whole organization, and it would be something 

that would be great public service for the senior folks who came in. 

Mr. HAGIN. To be fair, the Service does employ experts in human 

resources, technology, and others areas. They do not ever occupy 

the senior-most spot. And when you are trying to again, drive 

change, it is hard when the top guy—top person holding that responsibility is not the expert. 

Mr. PERRELLI. OK. I think it—and I just echo. I also think it is— 

you need to bring in those experts and you need to give them a seat 

at the leadership table. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Last but not least, we talk about morale. One of 

the things that we find in hiring people even here on the Hill, people like to know that they have a chance to move up in an organization. I guess it—the military is sort of like that, I guess. 

The people that you talk to, the agents, did they say that they 

would prefer somebody from the outside? I am just curious. 

Mr. PERRELLI. We got a mix of views on that. And again, I think 

very, very telling that there were a number of individuals who 

talked to us who said, you know, that, you know, we really needed—that would be a sign of change and that we think that as an 

organization we would benefit from that. So we did get a mix of 

views on that. 

There is—you know, within the agent population, I think, as we 

talk about in the report, there were questions about promotions 

and whether—was this one being fairly applied and were promotions being fairly applied? And I think that is something that a 

new Director has got to regain the confidence of the work force on. 

On the uniform division side, over time there have been eras in 

the Secret Service where it was possible to move up from the uniform division up through the special agent ranks, even to the Director of the Service. What we see, at least today, is a view of the 

uniform division that that pathway isn’t really open. And I think 

a new Director has got to think about opening that up again. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. As I close, let me just say this: That we—that 

the chairman and I have been working very hard on this issue. 

And your report and your work, without a doubt, has been a guiding light. And I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it. It has 

allowed us to be able to delve into some things that we probably 

would not even have known about. And the way you—and your recommendations, all of that will help us tremendously. 

And I think your report serves as an example of where, when we 

have crises like this, and I do consider it a crisis, that it is the kind 

of thing we probably need to start with so that we could then delve 

even deeper. So again, I want to thank you. And I want you to 

know that, you know, I think what you have done will make the 

Secret Service a much stronger organization and, as someone said, 

restore the honor that we have known for many, many years. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. I have a couple just 

procedural questions for you, and then we will wrap up. 

And let me first highlight how much we appreciate Homeland Security Secretary Johnson, Mr. Mayorkas, others who made this a 

priority and made it happen and were smart enough to engage you 

all in putting this together, because it is a first-rate panel. And we 
45 

appreciate the depth in which you were able to get information. 

And the report is so valuable to us. I can’t thank you enough for 

your time. 

What types of documents, how many—can you give me a sense 

of the documents that you were able to review, the size, the quantity, what types of documents? 

Mr. PERRELLI. Thousands of pages of documents. Everything 

from, you know, prior reports, sort of of the kind—you know, in the 

1990’s, for example, there was the plane that went down—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Right. 

Mr. PERRELLI [continuing]. In the White House property. So 

there were a series of reports that came out of that. But as well 

as lots of budgetary documents, certainly, you know, manuals 

about everything from training to how to undertake certain operational activities. So I think a pretty wide range of information. 

Certainly with respect to our classified report, we give details on 

specific classified documents as part of this report. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And how were they produced to you? On 

paper? Electronically? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think both. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And how long did it take from the time you 

made a request til you actually got the documents? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I think that we got terrific response from the 

Service when we asked for things. And so I think we were very 

happy with the responsiveness, both of the documents. And, frankly, folks came to us with a lot of candor, you know, and gave us 

their unvarnished view. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So if you were to ask for documents, how 

long would that—how long did that take to get them back to you? 

Mr. PERRELLI. I would probably have to ask our staff to talk 

about timeframes, because I probably wasn’t as focused on them. 

I am not sure any of the panel members were. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I am just looking for a generality. You 

were—you started your work. Day one was—— 

Mr. PERRELLI. We were brought on board at the end of October 

and then we worked through December 15th. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. That is an amazing amount of time. 

Did the Secret Service ever complain about giving you these documents? 

Mr. FILIP. No, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Any challenges with getting these documents? Any personnel issues that they cited? 

Mr. PERRELLI. No. I think—as I think we indicated, I think one 

of the challenges was trying to get the kind of budget—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Right. 

Mr. PERRELLI [continuing]. The kind of resource documents with 

respect to evaluating some of the staffing issues that we were concerned about. So, as I think we noted, trying to get that information was challenging and I think, in no small part, because I don’t 

think they have it in a form that is—you know, would be sort of 

useful to use. And so I think that—you know, I would identify that 

as a challenge that we had. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The budget? 
46 

Mr. PERRELLI. Those documents, because I think—or that information. I think more of it as information than documents. We 

wanted to make some, you know, even more specific recommendations about the appropriate size of the Service. And because it was 

difficult to get information about manpower usage and about particular staffing, you know, as I think I indicated to one member, 

you know, we were able to assess from the bottom up what you 

would need to bring the training level up. But it was much more 

difficult to assess if you wanted to bring everybody’s hours down 

to a reasonable level, what would that take? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Right. 

Mr. PERRELLI. And we weren’t able to do that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Again, on behalf of this committee, we 

want to thank you for your good work. You put a lot of time and 

effort in it. We appreciate you being here today. You made quite 

a sacrifice, but it is truly valuable. I think the Service is listening 

to you, and I think Homeland Security is listening to you. Certainly 

we are. And I hope that we find that, as time goes on, that all of 

these recommendations are implemented in their fullest. So we 

thank you again for your participation today. 

Sorry. Mr. Cummings? 

Mr. CUMMINGS. This is for our own sake, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 

Filip? 

Mr. FILIP. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You said something a minute ago that—you 

said—you were talking about—you were answering a question, and 

you said—you were talking about the President making a selection. 

But then you went on to say, ‘‘We could support that.’’ I mean, 

what does that mean? In other—not necessarily that particular 

question. 

So, I mean, what do you see as you all’s role now? That is what 

I am trying to get to. 

Mr. FILIP. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. 

Mr. FILIP. I don’t mean to sort of arrogate our expertise or anything, or elevate it unnecessarily, but we did put a lot of time into 

it. Our staffs put a lot of time into it. We hope that folks think that 

we generated some insights that are useful. Whoever gets picked 

to be the next Director, if it would be useful for them to meet with 

us or their chief of staff or whoever it is, so long as it is OK under 

the rules of appointment and all that, I can speak with great confidence for everybody involved that we would be happy to try to be 

supportive and useful to them in whatever role they would find 

useful. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Was it your understanding, when you were appointed, that that would be part of it or is that something that you 

all are basically saying we are willing to do? Are you following me? 

Mr. FILIP. I think we are just willing to do it. To be honest, sir, 

there is all sorts of rules and bureaucracy about how many days 

you can serve and all this and that. And, to be honest, I don’t really know how that all works out. I think we are just saying, if we 

can do it consistent with the regulations and the rules and stuff— 

we have developed a great respect for the Secret Service in this 

process, and obviously this is an issue that, you know, anybody 
47 

who cares about the country, and we all truly do, in the most bipartisan way that you all have embodied, can, you know, feel very 

proud to have any small contribution toward, and if we can make 

any further small contribution, we would be proud to do it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, that makes me quadruple my thanks. You 

know, I am serious that you would do your duty and then say that 

we—you know, we are willing to followup to help make this organization the very best that it can be. And I think that this is what 

America is all about. This is what—you all are what make this 

country the great country that it is. And I don’t say that lightly. 

And I really appreciate it, and I know that our committee does, too. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Again, we thank you. We thank your staff. 

We appreciate the great work that was done. This committee 

stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:35p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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