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94–541 PDF 2015

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: HOLDING THE PROTECTORS 

ACCOUNTABLE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 24, 2015 

Serial No. 114–16 

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, Iowa 

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 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

TRISTAN LEAVITT, Counsel 

MIKE HOWELL, Counsel 

MELISSA BEAUMONT, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on March 24, 2015 ............................................................................ 1 

WITNESS 

Mr. Joseph P. Clancy, Director, U.S. Secret Service, Department of Homeland 

Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 11 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

APPENDIX 

Statement for the Record, submitted by Rep. Connolly ....................................... 104 

Slides entered by Mr. Chaffetz ............................................................................... 106 

(1) 

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: HOLDING THE 

PROTECTORS ACCOUNTABLE 

Tuesday, March 24, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 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, Gowdy, Massie, Meadows, DeSantis, Mulvaney, 

Buck, Walker, Hice, Carter, Grothman, Palmer, Cummings, 

Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Connolly, Cartwright, Kelly, Lawrence, Lieu, Plaskett, DeSaulnier, and Lujan Grisham. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. Appreciate everybody 

being here. 

Reforming the United States Secret Service is not a partisan 

issue. Ranking Member Cummings and I have presented a united 

front on this issue, and I look forward to continuing this important 

work with him on both sides of the aisle. 

The most important mission for the Secret Service is protecting 

the President and his family. However, a litany of recent mishaps 

raise major concerns. 

In 2011, nobody recognized shots were fired at the White House 

until bullets were discovered by maintenance staff. It has been well 

publicized that Secret Service Agents engaged in misconduct in 

Cartagena, and Amsterdam, and Miami. 

In September of last year, a security contractor with an arrest 

record rode in an elevator with the President in Atlanta armed 

with a gun completely unbeknownst to the President’s detail. A few 

days later, a man armed with a knife jumped the White House 

fence, made it past the Secret Service, well into the White House. 

And now on March 4th, the second-in-command of the President’s detail drove his car through a crime scene involving a bomb 

threat while the President was in the White House. 

This has to stop. The Secret Service has a zero fail mission to 

protect our President and his family. This is especially true for the 

President’s Protective Detail, or what is often referred to as the 

PPD. We need to understand why these incidents keep happening. 

This Committee requested the Special Agent in Charge of the 

PPD, Robert Buster, attend a bipartisan closed-door briefing regarding the incident. Director Clancy said no. 
2 

The Committee requested the supervisors on duty before and 

during the incident in March to testify today, but Director Clancy 

said no. 

We asked Director Clancy to turn over video footage of the incident, and again the Director said no. 

In our closed-door briefing last week, Director Clancy was unable 

to adequately answer questions about the events of March 4th. Instead, he asserted that by referring the matter to the Inspector 

General, he was unable to ask any questions of his own, but Congress is also doing an investigation. To not do an investigation 

would be malpractice on our part. Congress has a role, we have a 

duty, we have a responsibility to conduct our own investigation. 

By refusing to allow the witnesses we invited to testify with firsthand knowledge of the incident, Director Clancy is keeping Congress and the American people in the dark. On top of that, the Secret Service has missed every deadline to provide this Committee 

with information, with no legitimate explanation as to why. 

It is unclear why Director Clancy is choosing at the start of his 

tenure to be so unhelpful to Congress. While I was hopeful Director 

Clancy would assist Congress in understanding how we can restore 

the Agency to its prior stature, this does not appear to be the case. 

The March 4th incident is concerning on three major points. (1) 

the interference of crime scenes by senior Secret Service personnel; 

(2) allegations involving decisions, communications, and dispositions of senior Secret Service personnel; and (3) the Agency’s apparent botched response to a bomb threat while the President was 

in the White House. 

Although the Secret Service has refused to provide video footage 

of the incident, the Metropolitan D.C. Police Department has. Initially, I had indicated that I was frustrated about the lack of response by the Metropolitan Police Department. This was based on 

information given to us by the Secret Service. I was critical of the 

Chief, and suggested that Chief Lanier was going to get a nasty 

gram from Congress, which we sent. But I can tell you, I have 

nothing but praise and thankfulness for her and her Department 

and Agency for swiftly and completely responding to Congress’ request. 

We appreciate her, the men and women who work at the Metropolitan Police Department, and their swift response to our request. 

It certainly stands in great contrast from what we’ve seen from the 

Secret Service. 

Now, we’re going to show part of a video here that was provided 

to us by the Metropolitan Police Department, but a few things before you see this. 

On March 4th, at 10:24 p.m., a woman drove her vehicle to a security gate outside the White House fence line on 15th Street and 

left a package she claimed to be a bomb. Secret Service agents and 

officers at the scene confronted the suspect, but were unable to apprehend her. The package sat unattended as traffic drove by for a 

long period of time. It took 11 minutes for the Secret Service to call 

the Metropolitan Police Department bomb squad. For 17 minutes, 

17 minutes traffic continued through the intersection and several 

pedestrians walked within feet of the potential bomb. I don’t understand how that happens. 
3 

When the Secret Service finally did call, they failed to mention 

to the Metro Police Department that it was an actual bomb threat, 

rather than just a suspicious package. It has been explained to us 

there is a difference, a difference in the response time, and the approach that they take. You can understand how around the perimeter of the White House there are oftentimes items that are left unattended, but it is a wholly different situation when somebody 

comes up and places at the perimeter of the White House a package that they claim to be an actual bomb. 

Let me show this video, and I’ll try the best I can. We have this. 

We’ll put this up on our YouTube channel. To try to describe what’s 

happening, it’s 10:30—roughly 10 to 20 plus at night, 15th Street. 

There’s the car, it pulls up. You can start to see the person who 

has dropped off the bomb, and then you’ll see an officer come out 

and try to apprehend the person who’s actually been charged now 

with a variety of different crimes. 

The potential bomb really sits next to that building right there. 

And, again, we’re doing time lapse video, but you can see the cars 

have been driving by and whatnot. Then we’re zooming in here, 

and you can see that the agents that were in question about what 

they were doing. This is a full 30 minutes after the initial wouldbe bomb was placed there. 

You can see that there are some big cones, or big barrels that 

are put out. Now, I—again, we have two crime scenes at this point; 

the assault on the officer, and then you have within just a couple 

of feet, you can see they’re actually bumping into that barricade 

there. That is not much of a barricade, in my personal opinion, but 

driving right within a couple of feet of this would-be bomb, which 

begs a lot of additional questions. 

It takes the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department about an hour and 20 minutes to finally come to the conclusion that this is not a bomb, and that the scene is then rendered 

safe. 

An officer followed the suspect in her car, so we get to another 

part of the story which begs a lot of questions. Somebody drives up, 

drops off a would-be bomb, and then the Secret Service actually 

gets an officer behind this person, but they were mistakenly called 

off the pursuit when the Secret Service identified the wrong car as 

the suspect’s. So, actually, right behind, I can only imagine this officer saying I’ve got this person in my sights, but instead of pulling 

this person over, instead of maybe going the extra step to just 

check, gets waved off. And they pursue another car, who isn’t actually the suspect. 

Thirty minutes, thirty minutes after the woman fled the scene, 

the Secret Service finally issued a BOLO, a Be On The Lookout for 

a vehicle to local law enforcement. Metropolitan Police Department 

didn’t know for 30 minutes what vehicle they were to be looking 

for, 30 minutes. 

The suspect was finally arrested 3 days later 90 miles away by 

a different police agency on an unrelated charge, unrelated 

charges. The day before she was arrested, she was interviewed by 

the Secret Service agent, but the Secret Service claimed they were 

unable to arrest her and, instead, canceled the lookout for the 

woman. 
4 

Back at the White House on March 4th, two senior Secret Service agents, including Mark Connolly, the President’s second-in-command on his Protective Detail, disrupted the crime scene. These 

agents placed themselves, their colleagues, and the President and 

his family in potential danger by driving their government vehicle 

through a barricade within feet of a potential bomb. 

Under Secret Service’s policy, video footage of the incident should 

have been retained; however, most of the footage has evidently, according to the Secret Service, has mysteriously gone missing. I find 

this highly suspicious. 

In a briefing last week, Director Clancy and Deputy Secretary 

Mayorkas played Committee Members two tapes of the incident 

that showed the same few seconds from two different angles, just 

a few seconds out of an incident that lasted more than an hour and 

20 minutes. There were eight Members there, three Committee 

Chairmen, several Ranking Members, four Democrats, four Republicans. Though limited, the footage clearly showed the agents purposely moving the barricade aside with their car. 

I want to set aside for a second the concern that the Secret Service is only maintaining video footage for one of the most important 

buildings in our country for only 72 hours. That makes absolutely 

no sense on any level to me, because there are issues related to national security, the prosecution of the actual event, and the basic 

ability to learn from past instances, as we’re having to deal with 

now. But based on the Secret Service’s policy, video footage of this 

incident should, nevertheless, been retained. 

We have two crimes scenes that should have immediately been 

highlighted; yet, an agency spokesperson told CNN: ‘‘In the event 

of an operational security incident at the White House complex, 

specific video footage is maintained for investigative and protective 

intelligence purposes.’’ That would seem to make sense, but that’s 

not what’s happened here. 

Yet, Director Clancy and Deputy Secretary Mayorkas only 

showed two very limited views of the incident to the Committee. 

Does a potential bomb near the White House not qualify as ‘‘an 

operational security incident?’’ If a potential bomb doesn’t qualify, 

then what does? 

These tapes should have been retained, and this Committee intends to find out why they were not. We were only shown seconds 

of a video for an incident that lasted for more than an hour. 

Director Clancy, today we expect answers, and we expect you to 

know them. We’re nearly 3 weeks after the incident. To help you 

prepare for the hearing today, my staff reached out to your congressional Affairs Office to let you know what subjects we would 

be covering here today. Your staff was fully briefed on what we expect you to know. I want to let you know that the ‘‘I don’t know’’ 

strategy is not going to sit well with our Committee. 

We look forward to your answering the questions and providing 

clarity on what happened March 4th. We do appreciate you being 

here. I can tell you that you have been personally very accessible, 

and I greatly personally very much appreciate that. 

So, with that, let me now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. 

Cummings. 
5 

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

thank you for calling this hearing today. 

Director Clancy, welcome, again. And let me start off by saying, 

Director, that there are moments in life that are and should be 

transformative moments. In other words, there are moments in all 

of our lives where something happens. It may very well be negative; usually, it is. And then we have to pause for a moment and 

learn from it, and correct it. And if we do not correct it at that moment, in my 64 years on earth I’ve discovered it usually gets worse. 

I am here to tell you that we are at such a moment. And the sad 

part about it is that these moments seem to keep coming. Usually, 

in life it’s one moment or two, but they seem to just keep coming, 

and coming. And I tell you, I have great concerns. And I’m glad 

this is a bipartisan effort because this is bigger than us. This is 

bigger than the Secret Service. 

This is about the security of the most powerful person in the 

world, so this is not—I know that this will not get down to a partisan battle, will not get down to a gotcha. But this is about us trying to do our job. 

Your job, and the great men and women of the Secret Service’s 

job is to guard the President and his family, our former President, 

and other protectees. Our job is to make sure you do your job, and 

to make sure that you and the agents are accountable. 

Now, I must tell you that I was disappointed to find out that we 

will not hear from the other Secret Service witnesses the Committee invited to testify here today. 

Director Clancy, I have the greatest respect for you, and your 

service to our country. Your job is crucial. Your reputation is exceptional, and sound, and you desire to protect your agents and officers against unwarranted intrusion is admirable. But as I’ve said 

to you before, if we are going to err, let us err on the side of the 

safety and security of the President of the United States of America. 

So, we wanted to speak with these witnesses for a very simple 

reason. According to your own testimony, you did not know about 

this incident until 5 days after it happened. You, yourself, had said 

that is unacceptable. And, again, as I said, we have those transformative moments, and that’s one symptom of the problem saying 

that we need to do some transforming. 

Your predecessor, in my conversations with her, one of the things 

that she said was that quite often she did not get information, she 

did not get complete information, she got inaccurate information, 

and in some instances got no information. Something is wrong with 

that picture, it was wrong with that one and, obviously, there’s 

something wrong here. 

With all due respect, I have to say how disappointed I was with 

your initial letter on Friday. It simply announced that you would 

be the only witness today without providing any reason for the 

other witnesses not testifying. No other Committee is doing more 

on this issue than our’s, and we are trying to conduct our work in 

a responsible, bipartisan manner. We really have no room for error, 

and if we’re going to err, we err on the side of the safety of the 

President. 
6 

But when we receive a response that rejects our request with no 

explanation at all, it’s difficult to view that response as respectful, 

which I know is not your intent. I understand that. 

For these reasons, I was heartened to receive your letter yesterday in which you outline your specific concerns with the public testimony of agents charged with protecting the President. I also appreciate your offer to work with this Committee to examine other 

ways to provide us with the information we need to fulfill our constitutional oversight responsibilities. 

Of course, we all understand that there is an ongoing Inspector 

General investigation of this incident, and we respect that. The IG 

has informed us that he will be moving quickly, and should be able 

to answer key questions in weeks, not months. 

We recognize the Inspector General’s investigation could result in 

recommendations for disciplinary action, and the last thing we 

want to do is interfere with that process. But keep in mind what 

I said, if we are going to err, we must err on the side of the safety 

and security of the President. 

That is why the Chairman and I have committed to consulting 

with the IG directly before taking any significant action that could 

impact this work. 

Director Clancy, my most significant concern has always been 

and remains today that you did not know about this incident, and 

that nobody in the entire agency told you about it. There’s something awfully wrong with that. Five days, 5 days, 5 days went by 

while you were in the dark. 

Last year when the former Director of the Secret Service, Julia 

Pierson, sat in the same chair that you’re now sitting in, I warned 

her that she was not getting the information she needed to do her 

job. I alerted her that agents and officers believe they were better 

off staying silent instead of raising their concerns up the chain. I 

informed her that there were agents that felt more comfortable 

coming to Members of the Congress of the United States than talking to people who were the higher ups at the Secret Service. Something wrong with the picture. And I lamented an environment in 

Secret Service that would allow these deficiencies to continue; yet, 

that appears to be exactly what happened here. 

I believe that when the chain of command is broken, when the 

chain of command is broken there is no command. It’s like a body 

without a head. And when there is no command, there is vulnerability. Again, that vulnerability goes to the safety of the President 

of the United States of America. So, let me make something very 

clear. 

This is not business as usual. This is not just another Oversight 

hearing about just another agency. I admire this President greatly. 

I admire him for his challenges, the challenges he’s overcome to be 

President, the accomplishments he has achieved since then, the 

principles he stands for on behalf of our country and the world, and 

the contribution he’s made to our Nation’s history. I also admire 

the people, our former Presidents and their families. I want to 

make sure, and all of us want to make sure that they are protected, so I don’t want you to take this personally. This is about 

us doing our job. 
7 

You have to be accountable to us, but your job is, of course, to 

guard the President. So, I do not want anything to happen to him, 

not under my watch, not under this watch. So, this would not be 

about politics, it cannot be. It cannot be about headlines, or unnecessary disputes that contribute nothing to the solution. We must 

come together in a nonpartisan way to take concrete steps both 

publicly and privately to turn this agency around. 

Again, this is a transformative moment. If we fail to do that in 

this moment, it can only get worse. The agents and officers of the 

Secret Service risk their lives on behalf of this great nation. They 

are great human beings, great public servants, and they deserve an 

agency that they can be proud of. 

One of the things that has concerned me greatly is the anonymous email that you got to us. Would somebody put this up? This 

email—you’re familiar with it, are you not? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And this email concerns me, ‘‘Since last Wednesday night, the Uniform Division established a crime scene at Special Post 15 at the White House after a package was thrown at an 

officer. The officer was told the package was a bomb, so they taped 

off the area and made it a crime scene. Then at some point an 

DSAIC from WFO, and a PPD DSAIC drove through the crime 

scene tape. Duty officers at the scene said they were both extremely intoxicated. They were coming home from Ed Donovan’s retirement dinner. They apparently flipped on the lights on their government vehicles to go around the roadblocks. Then the nudged the 

barrels close to closing the post with their government vehicles. 

Then were waving their White House passes around confused as to 

why the post was evacuated. 

UD officers were going to arrest both of them, but the UD Watch 

Commander said not to. Apparently, the whole incident was captured on video from inside the JLC.’’ 

What I don’t understand is this. A lot of people got this email, 

a lot of them got it, but you didn’t. That is a problem. But you 

know what really bothers me, as I read this, I kept reading this 

email this morning over, and over, and over, and you know what 

I concluded, it appears that we have an agency at war against 

itself. 

The idea that in an organization like this that somebody would 

create this kind of document to bring this kind of disruption when 

they are supposed to be guarding the President of the United 

States of America. We’re better than that, and some kind of way 

we have to take advantage of this transformative moment. If we 

don’t, it can only get worse. And with that, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize Mr. DeSantis of Florida. 

He’s the Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security. Mr. 

DeSantis. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The website, Secret Service lays out the vision and that’s ‘‘to uphold the tradition of excellence in its investigative and protective 

mission through a dedicated, highly trained, diverse partner-oriented work force that employs progressive technology, and promotes professionalism.’’ 
8 

Notwithstanding that Statement, the Secret Service has been 

falling short of that standard, and I think the Chairman did a good 

job of enumerating some of the problems we’ve seen in recent 

years. 

We are here to examine this most recent incident, and I’ve got 

to say, I join the Chairman in expressing my disappointment of the 

lack of cooperation. We wanted to speak with witnesses, we wanted 

to have information sooner, and I think that that’s not the way 

that this is going to be productive. 

This is a very important role that the agency plays not only in 

protecting our leaders against threats foreign and domestic, but 

that’s part of a larger mission to protect the integrity of our government, and to make sure that elections are honored, and that the 

people who are elected to those high positions are safe. And I think 

to do that effectively, you have got to have a system that has robust accountability. 

And I think that’s what the questions that we’re looking at today 

say OK, where is the accountability in the agency? And it just 

seemed throughout the whole saga with different problems that 

there’s not swift accountability. And I think that’s going to make 

it more difficult to get the agency where we all want it to be. 

But I do commend the Chairman, Mr. Chaffetz, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and my colleague on the National Security Subcommittee, Mr. Lynch, for their diligence in insuring that those 

that carry out this important mission are given the tools they need 

to carry out their responsibilities. 

We want high standards, we want accountability. That’s important, and I think the American people want nothing less. And I 

look forward to Director Clancy’s testimony, and I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. I will now recognize 

the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on National Security, 

Mr. Lynch of Massachusetts, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to thank Ranking 

Member Cummings for his work on this, as well as Chairman 

DeSantis. We really appreciate the fact that we’re working together 

on this. 

This hearing is to examine the continuing lapses in security involving the U.S. Secret Service. I’d also like to thank Director 

Clancy for being here, and to testify this morning. 

I have the utmost respect for Mr. Clancy, but I have to agree 

with the Chairman, Mr. Chaffetz, and the Ranking Member, and 

Mr. DeSantis that the fact that you were not notified of this incident for 5 days concerning your two agents is totally unacceptable, 

and it shows a deep problem within the organization that we have 

to deal with. 

At the outset, I’d like to notice that the purpose that we’re having this hearing today is not to disparage our dedicated Secret 

Service work force; rather, this bipartisan investigation into recent 

security incidents at the White House and other Secret Service protected locations and events is founded in our genuine concern over 

the safety of the President, his wife, and his daughters, his motherin-law, and White House personnel. 

Regrettably, systemic challenges, antiquated security protocols 

and entrenched agency culture have given rise to glaring gaps in 
9 

the security, and the critical protection mission of the Secret Service demands that we make every effort to address them. 

On the heels of the White House fence jumping incident that occurred in September 2014, and reported gunshots near the Delaware residence of the Vice President in January 2015, we’ve now 

learned about two security incidents that occurred on the White 

House grounds on the night of March 4th that again call into question the effectiveness of existing security protocols, security technology, information sharing, and post-incident review at the Secret 

Service. 

In briefing this Committee on March 17th regarding the alleged 

interference of two Secret Service agents with a live bomb threat 

investigation at the White House, the Secret Service played us two 

brief and seemingly incomplete video clips of a slow-moving vehicle 

bumping gently into a plastic barrier that were—those videos were 

taken from almost identical angles and contained absolutely no 

audio. In response to member request that he provide us with additional videos of the incident, Director Clancy revealed that the Secret Service routinely overwrites security camera footage after only 

72 hours. 

Given that Director Clancy also informed us that he did not receive notification of the alleged interference until 5 days later on 

March 9th, the security footage in question was reportedly purged 

two full days before the Director even found out about the security 

incident. That is simply unacceptable, and it tells me that we need 

a stem to stern review of our security technology policy at the 

White House. 

Director, you invited us over, members of the Committee, to review the command post for the surveillance of the White House, 

and I know for a fact we have full spectrum review and surveillance over that area. We probably have five or six cameras at least 

that would have given us useful information regarding this incident. And as the Chairman pointed out, we have overlapping incidents, so we have a bomb threat, an active bomb threat while the 

President is in the White House, and his family is in the White 

House. We have an active bomb threat, and then we have an interference by these two agents during that bomb threat, during that 

incident, and we purge the tapes, we purge the tapes. 

That active bomb threat against the White House was something 

that should have raised red flags with personnel from the Secret 

Service. It should have been on everyone’s mind. I know that multiple emails went out to supervisory personnel. Everyone knew this 

was a bomb threat; and, yet, we went ahead, at least that’s what 

I’m hearing so far, that we went ahead and purged the tapes surrounding that 72—excuse me, surrounding that bomb threat to the 

White House within 72 hours. We destroyed the evidence, and that 

completely is—that is just mind boggling that we might do something like that. 

Now, I’ve got a lot of questions. I know the members of the Committee do, as well, but as a frame of reference indicating the inadequacy of the 72-hour video retention policy, I would note that my 

own State of Massachusetts requires State and municipal agencies 

to retain their security video tapes for 30 days under the State 

Public Record Statute. That’s why agencies ranging from the Mas-
10 

sachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, to the Boston Housing 

Authority have a 1-month video storage policy in place. 

In addition, under its current Memorandum of Agreement with 

the Federal Transportation Security Administration regarding the 

use of consolidated camera surveillance systems at Logan International Airport, the Massachusetts Port Authority also has expressly agreed to retain captured images for 30 days. That’s at the 

request of a Federal agency, we’re retaining that for 30 days. 

Moreover, local educational institutions, such as Tufts University, University of Massachusetts have also implemented 30-day retention policies for the campus security cameras. 

In addition, I have a number of kindergartens in my district that 

retain, because of the security interests of those children, they have 

a 30-day policy. 

You know, I have to tell you, and I’ve said this before, you know, 

my local store 24 has a better surveillance system than we have 

at the White House. That’s a sad Statement of affairs, and that’s 

been the—that’s been because of a number of directors going back 

beyond your own service. So, there’s a lot of questions to be answered here. 

I’m going to let the rest of my Statement go. I appreciate the 

Chairman’s indulgence, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. 

I will hold the record open for five legislative days for any members who would like to submit a written Statement. 

We welcome today our witness, the Honorable Joseph P. Clancy, 

Director of the United States Secret Service. 

Before we go forward, though, let me say that the members of 

this Committee, I do not believe that the presence of Mr. Clancy 

alone is sufficient to achieve the goals of this hearing today. It is 

the Committee’s intention to bring forward a series of people in 

transcribed interviews. We would prefer to have done this a different way. The Secret Service has refused our ability to do that, 

but the people involved in these incidents should know that they 

will be invited by this Committee, both sides will be present for 

transcribed interviews as we conduct this further. 

To our dismay, the Secret Service refuses let other invited witnesses testify. In fact, the Committee has questions. When we 

issued these letters and invitations for these individuals to appear, 

did they receive those invitations, or was the Secret Service 

prompted, did Homeland Security become involved? We have a lot 

of questions about why those individuals who were asked to appear 

are not sitting here today. 

We do expect to close the loop with these witnesses in the future, 

whether that be at a followup hearing, but I said it is the intention 

that we will most likely do transcribed interviews through this 

process. 

With that said, Mr. Clancy, we do appreciate you being here. 

Pursuant to Committee rules, all witnesses are to be sworn before 

they testify. If you will please rise and raise your right hand. 

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? 

Mr. CLANCY. I do. 
11 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the 

witness answered in the affirmative. 

Mr. Clancy, we will now recognize you for your opening Statement. And please know that your entire written Statement will be 

part of the record. But we’re pretty lenient on the time, but please 

share with this Committee your thoughts and perspectives. Mr. 

Clancy. 

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH P. CLANCY, DIRECTOR, UNITED 

STATES SECRET SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. CLANCY. Good morning, Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member Cummings, and distinguished members of the Committee. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here to discuss the recent allegations of misconduct on March 4th, 2015, and the agency’s 

progress in fulfilling the recommendations of the independent U.S. 

Secret Service Protective Mission Panel. As Director, I’m honored 

to lead the men and women of this important agency through this 

challenging time. 

With respect to the recent allegations, I personally became aware 

of the incident on March 9th, when I received a phone call from 

a former agent informing me of an anonymous email that was circulating. On that same date, I determined that the allegations 

should be referred to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office 

of the Inspector General. I made this decision because allegations 

of misconduct involving employees at the GS–15 and higher level 

must be referred to the OIG in accordance with departmental policy. I trust the OIG’s investigation will be thorough. I have committed the Secret Service’s full cooperation to the OIG, and eagerly 

await the findings of their investigation. 

The fact that I did not learn of this allegation until 5 days after 

it is said to have occurred infuriates me. This is unacceptable. I 

called my senior staff together the week before last. I made clear 

my expectation for prompt notification of allegations of misconduct 

that could impact our mission, or that violate the agency’s standards of conduct. 

If it is determined that any of our employees failed to report information about this alleged incident, they will be held accountable. Our mission is too important for this to happen. It undermines my leadership, and I won’t stand for it. 

I am resolved to holding people accountable for their actions, but 

I want to make clear that I do not have the ability to simply terminate employees based solely on allegations of misconduct. This is 

not because I’m being lenient, but because the agency’s ability to 

take action is controlled by Title V of the United States Code, 

which provides Federal Government employees with certain statutory due process rights. I must respect these rights and the procedures Congress has put in place to preserve them. 

As it stands, the next step in this process is to wait for the 

issuance of the OIG report, at which point we will determine the 

appropriate disciplinary actions consistent with our established 

Table of Penalties. Once again, if the OIG investigation reveals 

misconduct, those involved will be held accountable. 
12 

I have personally reviewed video footage from the evening of 

March 4th with members of this Committee. The initial reports of 

a vehicle crash were inaccurate; there was no crash. The video 

shows a vehicle entering the White House complex at a very slow 

speed and pushing aside a plastic barrel. There was no damage to 

the vehicle. 

However, many people have expressed serious concerns that the 

available footage from the night does not provide a full picture relative to the alleged misconduct. While the primary function of the 

camera systems at the White House complex is for operational security, specific video footage is routinely maintained for investigative and protective intelligence purposes. 

I share the concerns of this Committee that more video footage 

from the night of March 4th was not preserved. After receiving consent from the OIG, the Secret Service has contacted the manufacturers of the digital storage unit and is leveraging our capabilities 

in cyber forensics to make every attempt to recover additional video 

footage from that night. 

Although it predates my appointment as Director, Secret Service 

practice has been to retain footage from camera systems at the 

White House for a period of 72 hours. This practice concerns me. 

Therefore, I have directed that the video footage storage period be 

increased to 7 days effective immediately. I have also directed my 

staff to explore the feasibility of further expanding this timeframe 

while being mindful of concerns related to security and privacy. 

Turning to fulfilling the recommendations made by the independent Protective Mission Panel. I will touch briefly on each of 

these three areas identified in the report. First, training and personnel; second, technology, perimeter security and operations; and 

third, leadership. 

Regarding training and personnel, I have consistently held that 

a primary focus of mine has been to increase the critical staffing 

in the Secret Service to meet the demands of the mission, and to 

incorporate regular and consistent training to sharpen skills, insure preparedness at all times. The Secret Service is expected to 

exceed its hiring goals for this fiscal year, and maintain this pace 

for Fiscal Year 2016. 

We have also fully completed integrated training for officers and 

specialty teams within the White House Branch, and made improvements with respect to the amount of training received during 

fourth shifts by agents on protective details. 

With respect to technology and perimeter security recommendations, the Secret Service is in the midst of a multi-phase project to 

replace the current fence around the White House. The goal of this 

project is to mitigate security concerns identified by the panel, including delaying potential intruders to give Secret Service personnel more time to react. The selection of a final fence option will 

be followed by design, procurement, and construction phases. 

As discussed in the classified briefings provided to this Committee, the Secret Service acknowledges the need for interim measures during this process, and has conducted initial testing, research, and development to that end. 

Finally, with respect to leadership, I am moving to rebuild, restructure, and reinvigorate the Secret Service, including elevating 
13 

and empowering those with specialized professional skills within 

our civilian force by insuring our people have the necessary resources by developing budgets from the ground up, and utilizing a 

mission-based approach. 

In closing, I would like to make clear, I am proud of our work 

force, and would be remiss if I did not recognize that the vast majority of these men and women perform their duties with honor and 

distinction. They deserve strong leadership, clear and consistent 

policies, and appropriate resources to support the important work 

they do every day. It is my life’s work to insure they get it. 

I thank the Committee for this opportunity, and welcome any 

questions you have at this time. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Clancy follows:] 
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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Now recognize the gentleman 

from South Carolina, Mr. Gowdy, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Clancy, do you believe Congress has a constitutional 

right to provide oversight over the Secret Service? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Do you believe that Chairman Chaffetz and Ranking 

Member Cummings are motivated solely by a desire to see what is 

best for the President, and for the agency, itself? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. With those two thoughts in mind, does this Committee have every single bit of video footage available from that 

evening? 

Mr. CLANCY. I’m sorry, sir. Would you—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Does this Committee have all available video footage 

from that evening? 

Mr. CLANCY. It does not, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Why not? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, we have provided that footage video that we 

have to this Committee. 

Mr. GOWDY. All of it? 

Mr. CLANCY. We have shown two clips. We have not shown all 

of it. 

Mr. GOWDY. That’s not my question, Director. You just said that 

Congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight. 

You just agreed with me that Ranking Member Cummings and 

Chairman Chaffetz have the best interest of the President and the 

agency in mind, so why would you not turn over all video footage 

to this Committee? 

Mr. CLANCY. Congressman, we will show all video at any time 

day or night that this Committee would like to review the footage 

that we have. We will—we have done that. In fact, the Chairman 

was the first, I believe, to see this video before we showed—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. With all due respect, that’s not true. Go 

ahead, Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. No, I would want—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Mr. Chairman, I’d like to just correct—if I have to 

correct the record, I’d like to correct it. 

Mr. GOWDY. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Utah, 

because I was under the misapprehension, apparently, that this 

Committee was not in possession of all available video from that 

night. 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct; they are not in possession of the 

video, but we did allow the Chairman to view the video. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You’ve shown us less than 1 minute of 

video. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, back to my question. Will you make all available video, and I say available because we’re going to get in a second to the fact that all of it was not preserved. Will you make all 

available video available to this Committee? 

Mr. CLANCY. We will make all video available to this Committee 

for your review at any time day or night. 
49 

Mr. GOWDY. Will you make a copy of it available so we can retain 

custody, as opposed to simply showing it to us? 

Mr. CLANCY. I will not release a copy of this video at this point. 

Mr. GOWDY. Why not? 

Mr. CLANCY. The OIG has an ongoing investigation. 

Mr. GOWDY. You think the OIG’s responsibilities supersede those 

of Congress? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, I know that they have an ongoing investigation. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, can’t you have simultaneous ongoing investigations? Why can’t Congress provide oversight while the IG is investigating? Why do you have to pick and choose? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, again, I think we have one initial investigation 

from the OIG, and we’ve given them the film to look at. 

Mr. GOWDY. But you understand the responsibility of the IG is 

very different from the responsibility of Congress. Congress determines funding among other things, the IG does not. So, those two 

are not exclusive. Why can’t Congress investigate what’s in its jurisdiction while the IG does what’s in its jurisdiction? 

Mr. CLANCY. Congressman, I’m sure after the OIG’s investigation—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I don’t want to wait until after, because that makes 

me think that you believe that Congress’ constitutional responsibility to provide oversight is subservient to the IG. And surely to 

the world, you can’t believe that. 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, the ongoing investigation that the Secret Service has, as well, regarding the Protective Intelligence case, we have 

an individual who committed a crime, made a threat, and that investigation is also going on at this time within the Secret Service. 

Mr. GOWDY. And how will providing that video footage to Congress jeopardize that ongoing investigation? 

Mr. CLANCY. That—— 

Mr. GOWDY. With precision, how will it? 

Mr. CLANCY. That video shows the actions of the individual who 

would be accused of a criminal act. 

Mr. GOWDY. I get that. My question is, how will providing that 

to Mr. Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz jeopardize an ongoing investigation? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, again—— 

Mr. GOWDY. With specificity. 

Mr. CLANCY. I am happy to show that video all day, and be available at all hours of the day and night to show that video, but at 

this point we cannot release that video. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. That’s the video that is available. The 

video that is not available, will you agree with me that there are 

at least two potential crime scenes at play on the evening of March 

4th, at least two? There’s an assault on an officer, and there’s a 

suspicious package. 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. Why would the video not be preserved as 

part of that ongoing investigation that you just cited as the reason 

you can’t give the video to Congress? Why wouldn’t you preserve 

it? 

Mr. CLANCY. The process—my understanding of the process is 

that the watch commander onsite relays back the incident that he 
50 

is the incident commander for, and he calls back to our Joint Operation Center and says we do have an incident here. We have a suspicious package. Preserve the video from this incident. 

Mr. GOWDY. Director, I’m out of time, but I want you to consider 

for just a moment the dueling narratives that you just portrayed. 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. No. 1, we’re not going to give the video that does 

exist to Congress because its investigation is subservient to the IG 

investigation. That’s narrative No. 1. And narrative No. 2 is, you’re 

not even going to preserve video that could be used in a investigation of two potential crimes. Did I hear that right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, we did preserve the video, the footage from 

the incident as those in the Joint Operation Center viewed it. 

Mr. GOWDY. Are you familiar—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, some of my time was taken by the Chairman, 

but that is the Chairman’s prerogative, and I would, of course, not 

ask for any more. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And the Chairman, obviously, made the 

right ruling. 

Mr. GOWDY. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Good decision. We’ll now recognize the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Norton, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think, Mr. Clancy, that you understand that the kind—the 

anger, the outrage that you hear really comes from this notion that 

you are a zero failure agency. We don’t expect that, frankly, of most 

Federal officials. 

I was really surprised to see that you were just now, and I’m 

reading from your testimony on page 3, sent an agency-wide memorandum saying that they have to report allegations, apparently, 

right away. When, for example, before you came to the agency, you 

knew of the White House incident where they actually shot into the 

White House, and they learned about that, the Secret Service 

learned about it perhaps months later when an attendant found 

these bullets. It seems to me that the very first order that should 

have been given is please let me know. Don’t put me on the hot 

seat of not knowing. 

And I say that, because I think the Committee did the right 

thing. It began at the right place with the leadership. So, we said 

we wanted new leadership. You’re the new leadership. It said we 

want an expert panel. We had that expert panel. 

Now, I think we ought to go—I realize you’ve not been in place 

for a very long time, but I’d like to focus us on the men and women 

who are under you, because I don’t think there’s been any focus except for that panel. And that panel really did focus on what I was 

amazed to hear that people were working sometimes 14 days, and 

with a day off, if they got it, but it could be denied. And that—and 

I tried to link this to what I knew about the Secret Service. A kind 

of serial misconduct, you know, in Columbia, for example, in the 

Netherlands, all of the drunken agents. 

Well, see, I don’t think that the Secret Service is a bunch of 

bums. I’ve got to look at what is happening to these men and 

women. I asked the staff to get—tell me something, are these peo-
51 

ple being trained? Are these people kind of letting it all out? And 

it looks like some of that is happening. And nobody’s spoken up, 

and if somebody doesn’t speak up, I’m not sure that this misconduct is not going to continue. This also was a drunken incident. 

Then I learned that in terms of the training, there’s barely any 

training going on at the Secret Service. There were eight special 

agent basic classes in 3 years, 1908, 1909, and 1910, but 2012 

there were zero, by 2013 there was one. The panel said that you 

needed staff urgently, for starters. What is the problem? Is the 

problem with the leadership, is the problem with the men and 

women, you’re not getting good people? Why don’t you speak up for 

these men and women? If, in fact, they’re letting off steam because 

you’re overworking them, are they being overworked? Will this 

budget that you’ve just gotten begin to relieve some of those serial 

days in which people don’t get any days off? 

So, would you describe that, and would you tell us more about 

training, and what training sessions are expected so that some of 

this misbehavior will be understood to be absolutely verboten. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. Congresswoman, thank you. I have the same 

concerns you have. In fact, I want to hear more and more from 

these agents and these officers what their issues are. 

Just in a nutshell, I’ll tell you that I walk by and around the perimeter of the White House frequently. This past Sunday, I went 

to the Roll Call Midnight Shift, the following morning went to the 

Roll Call, and wanted to hear what are their concerns. And in 

terms of the staff—— 

Ms. NORTON. But you can see what their concerns are, you know, 

the days off. Are people going to—according to the panel, the 

agents were consistently working 12-hour shifts under high stress, 

often with no days off. Is that going to change now that your budget has finally been released by the Congress, which has to take 

some of the responsibility for what’s been happening, as well? 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, you’re exactly right. When I first came back 

here, my No. 1 initiative was to increase the staffing. We’ve got to 

increase staffing, and to do that, we’ve separated one of our directorates, which is H.R. and Training. We separated them apart to 

give each more specific training. And we have been working overtime to buildup—— 

Ms. NORTON. You had a little class for 2013, there was only one 

class. If you need more agents and need more training—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Ms. NORTON [continuing]. With this new appropriation is there 

going to be another class of agents trained, and will the agents who 

are there who used to get training I understand every 4 weeks or 

so, will they have that regimen of training again? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. In fact, we will exceed our goals this year. We 

have six UD Officer’s classes, and six special agent classes that 

were scheduled. We will now go to nine and eight classes, so we 

expect to hire a lot more people in Fiscal Year 15, and continue 

that into 1916. That is a critical need for the Service, and that will 

also help with getting more people out to training. In fact, since 

September 19th, the Uniform Division training has increased 110 

percent. That’s just a snapshot that we’ve got to keep the momentum going. And with the agent side of the house, and the Presi-
52 

dent’s detail, that training has increased 78 percent. Again, not 

where we want to be, but as we increase the staff we’ll get more 

training for our people. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. Now recognize 

the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Mica, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning, Mr. Director. 

I’ve got some questions. I guess this is sort of another gotcha 

hearing. We just have incident after incident. We’ve had 

Cartagena, we have the fence jumper, we have this most recent 

one. And you testified that you cannot take action because—on personnel as far as discipline because of Title V. But as Chapter 102 

of Title V sets some requirements, have you seen a draft that was 

prepared last year? Can you give the Director a copy of this draft? 

It’s Deliberate Draft 72214, and its amendments to the hiring, 

managing, and discipline of its work force. This is amendments for 

Secret Service. 

So, rather than just talk about more incidents, let’s get down to 

the brass tacks of the issues you face. Right? 

First is hiring. Right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. You’ve got to hire good people. You came and you said 

you need more people. I submit that you need better people, and 

you need better qualifications. 

When I left the White House about a week ago, I followed a Secret Service car just by accident and I said, ‘‘What’s that on the 

bumper?’’ And it’s actually soliciting for folks to work on the bumper of a police vehicle. This is the way we hire folks for the Secret 

Service. 

I didn’t know your predecessor, Ms. Pierson, although she came 

from my local town. She called me after she was there for a while 

and she says, ‘‘It’s very difficult to get this place under control. I’ve 

got to have some ability to hire better qualified people.’’ I didn’t 

know that you didn’t need a college education for some of those positions. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. MICA. She said that by law we’ve dumbed down the qualifications. So, first you’ve got to hire people. You don’t hire them 

with an advertisement on a bumper of a vehicle. You want qualified personnel with the highest qualifications. Right? 

Second, you’ve got to be able to manage those personnel. And she 

asked for these things way back; in fact, on July 2d there was a 

meeting with Government Reform staff. Do you know where these 

recommendations are? I was told they went back to DHS. 

Mr. CLANCY. We have—— 

Mr. MICA. Where these suggestions for improvement are. Do you 

know where they are? Does anyone know? I want to know where 

they are, because they’ve been sitting around. She knew what was 

wrong before, you know, she was railroaded out. You’ll be railroaded out, too, if we don’t make changes. But the fault is in the 

guidelines that you have to follow. 

She told me managing personnel, administering them, you have 

a 20-year, I guess, retirement, then you have to retire on the law 

enforcement side? 
53 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s-the older plan was a 20-year retirement, but 

the FERS is not 20 years. 

Mr. MICA. OK. Well, in any event, when you get to the retirement, then it took 2 years to get people trained for SES positions. 

That still exists. Right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. OK. She said that needed to be changed, because the 

time we’re able to administer, you’re hiring people getting the best 

qualified. Then you want the best administration. Right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. MICA. OK. so, we have an impediment in that she asked for 

that change. Nothing’s been done. It’s probably sitting somewhere 

over—then, finally, she said to hold people accountable; Secret 

Service holding protectors accountable. That’s what this hearing is 

about. 

She asked for the ability to hire and fire an exempt agency under 

Title V. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, we do. 

Mr. MICA. And that’s one of her recommendations. But we have 

to do that, because you—we heard oh, there’s no command. Well, 

hell, you don’t have the ability to command, because your hands 

are tied by Title V. You can’t hire and fire. You have to go through 

this layer. 

I chaired Civil Service, and I know how difficult it is to get rid 

of folks, even discipline folks. Most people are just moved horizontally to some other position. Isn’t that just the case? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct, yes. 

Mr. MICA. OK. So, again, you’ve got to have the ability to hire 

and fire. 

This proposal, I submit, which was last July, and I read the recommendations of the little group that came up with some. Until 

you address this fundamental problem, that Director, or whoever 

succeeds him will not succeed in managing his personnel, because 

one, he can’t hire people that are qualified. Two, he can’t manage 

or administer those folks. And, three, can’t discipline, and hire and 

fire people that need to be held accountable. Is that right, basically? 

Mr. CLANCY. Basically, yes, sir. 

Mr. MICA. OK. And, finally, if a bullet hits the White House, a 

window, or the building, has something been done to address that? 

You talked about the fence. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, we have procedures now if there’s any—anything hits the White House. We have instituted procedures since 

2011. 

Mr. MICA. And I’d like to know more for the record, or behind 

the scenes about drones, and how they can penetrate the perimeter. Thank you. Yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

Ranking Member, Mr. Cummings, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Director Clancy, I want to get down to something that you said, 

that you said was unacceptable, and that is when you found out 

about this incident. You learned of these allegations on May 9th, 
54 

which was 5 days after the incident occurred. And that is a big concern for me, and I know it is for this Committee, too. 

First and foremost, there’s no doubt that you should have been 

informed about this incident immediately. Is that right? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, you should have been informed about it the 

day of. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, that’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. At our briefing last week, you told us that no one 

in the immediate office had been aware of this incident. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Last week you testified that the Secret Service 

personnel should have reported this incident up the chain. If I have 

this right, they should have reported as follows: from personnel on 

the ground to the Deputy Chief of the Uniform Division, to the Special Agent-in-Charge of Presidential Protective Division, to the Assistant Director of Protective Operations, and then to you. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, yesterday, the Secret Service produced documents to the Committee indicating that the Deputy Chief of the 

Uniform Division, Alfonso Dyson, became aware of these allegations on the night of the incident. 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. According to a briefing she sent to the Inspector 

General, and I quote; and I guess the briefing sheet is what you 

sent to start the investigation in the Inspector General’s Office. Is 

that right? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. And let me, if I can, correct the 

record, because I know I met with you and other members in a 

closed door briefing, and you had asked how was that process started? And I said, ‘‘I think it’s a phone call.’’ And it was started with 

a phone call, but I found out subsequently that there is a followup 

letter which is what we provided to you, that followup letter with 

our preliminary findings the very first day, on the 9th. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, in his—in the briefing sheet it says, and I 

quote: ‘‘Deputy Chief Dyson advised that he was familiar with an 

incident involving DSAIC Connolly and ATSAIC Ogilvie, and was 

briefed about the incident on the evening of March 4th, 2015.’’ 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So, Director, if the Deputy Chief of the Uniform 

Division knew about the allegations, did he alert the Special Agentin-Charge of the Presidential Protective Division? Did he? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know, sir. I’m going to tell you that I am infuriated that I have not been advised on March 4th. Why I didn’t 

hear any of that information, I don’t know, but I will tell you that 

the Deputy Chief needed to raise that up through the chain of command. And this is something that I’ve been battling since I first 

came back, in a very brief time here. I’ve been back about 30 days, 

and we are working furiously to try to break down these barriers 

where people feel that they can’t talk up the chain. 

I can tell you personally, I’m going out and reaching out to people, going to these roll calls and individually. We’ve got our Assist-
55 

ant Director of Investigations going out to the field talking to people. We’ve got our Assistant Director of Protective Operations going 

out talking to people. We’ve made all these avenues through ombudsmen, through hotlines and web pages to even anonymously get 

information up the chain. And why it didn’t happen in this case, 

I don’t know. If you’re not comfortable, and our work force I’m sure 

is listening today, if you’re not comfortable going up through your 

chain of command, you have all these other avenues anonymously. 

You can go and report incidents of misconduct, or whatever you 

want to report, but you’ve got to make use of these outlets. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you this. How about the Assistant 

Director for Protective Operations, when did he learn about these 

allegations? Do you know? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know—well, March 9th. March 9th, because 

when I found out. I found out the morning of March 9th. I reached 

out to the Assistant Director of Protective Operations. He did not 

know at that point. I asked him to go find what he knew about it, 

what he could find out about it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. All right. I understand there’s an ongoing IG investigation, but according to your own testimony you did not learn 

about these allegations from anyone at the Secret Service. Correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I’m concerned about whether there’s still a problem with the chain of command right now, and it sounds like there 

is. Based on what you know today, who is the highest ranked person who knew about this incident and failed to report it, to your 

knowledge? 

Mr. CLANCY. To my knowledge, again, on March 9th is when I 

was given all the details we had, and we turned it over to the OIG. 

Then I stepped out of it. In all candor, right or wrong, I compartmentalize things, and I didn’t want to see it. The Deputy Chief is 

the last one that was—that’s how it went. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, on more than one time here this morning 

you said you had a meeting with your higher ups. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you told them, this is—you’re not going to 

tolerate this. Did you ask them, any of them, did you all know 

about this? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, I didn’t. I was very blunt with what was 

my—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Rewind. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. These are your top people. Right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would that be the top—the eight Assistants? 

Mr. CLANCY. There would be more than that in this room. At 

that point, there were—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But you never asked them, you didn’t say, ladies 

and gentlemen, who knew about this? 

Mr. CLANCY. I did not. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Why not? 

Mr. CLANCY. At that point, I honestly did not want to interfere 

with this OIG investigation. I wanted no indication where I might 

be pressuring someone, no indication that we’ve reached out to peo-
56 

ple, or people to leave that room and say hey, the Director is asking for more information. I wanted to give this OIG complete ownership of this investigation. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just one last question, Mr. Chairman. Director, 

at any time did you have a staff meeting where you would have 

expected—I mean, you know, you and I have talked about the sacred trust in Secret Service, these jobs of honor. Would you have 

expected—did you have any meeting amongst your higher ups 

where you would have expected somebody who knew about this to 

say it to you? 

Mr. CLANCY. Absolutely. Absolutely. When I heard this on March 

9th, I was in disbelief. I didn’t believe it, but I called the ADMPO 

and said hey, look, run this out. But I honestly could not believe, 

especially over that timeframe. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Director Clancy, all over this country there’s been a growing belief for many years now that the Federal Government and many 

top-level Federal employees have been becoming more and more 

bureaucratic, elitist, arrogant, and there’s—along with this, there’s 

been a growing belief that we’ve ended up with a government that’s 

out vying for the bureaucrats instead of one that is up vying for 

the people. And when you refuse to allow these four witnesses to 

come here and testify to us who are supposed to represent the people as best we can, when you refuse to allow these four witnesses 

to come, and you refuse to release most of the video that’s been requested, you should realize that this looks very bureaucratic, 

elitist, and arrogant. 

And it looks as though you feel you’re working—you’re not really 

working for the people of this country, that you’re working to protect the people of the Secret Service. And last week in the House 

Appropriations Committee, Chairman Rogers said in a very strong, 

very emphatic way that he felt there should be terminations and 

firings for all these incidents that have happened. And I hope that 

you agree with that. 

I assume that you are close friends with Mr. Connolly and Mr. 

Ogilvie, but I hope that you feel that you have more of a duty to 

the people of this country than you have a duty to protect Mr. 

Ogilvie and Mr. Connolly, and the others who have been involved 

in this other instance. What do you have to say about that? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, you’re absolutely correct, and I’ve already made 

changes in our agency of people that I know, and who served honorably, but I wanted a fresh perspective. Friends of mine, I have 

moved them, offered them positions in other components in DHS, 

so I’m not opposed to moving people that I know. It’s all about the 

agency. In terms of 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, that’s one of the problems, though. Too often, 

Federal employees who really mess up, they aren’t really disciplined. They’re not cut in pay, they’re not fired, they’re not terminated, they’re just moved to a nice desk job someplace else. And 

I’ve already been told that Ogilvie and Connolly have been moved 
57 

to some other desk job someplace, and not much at all has been 

done to them. 

I’m going to yield the balance of my time, though, to Mr. Gowdy. 

I think he has another question or two that he wishes to ask. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank the gentleman from Tennessee. 

Director, who has custody of the video that was retained and preserved? 

Mr. CLANCY. Our Technical Security Division. 

Mr. GOWDY. And who has the power to make a copy of that video 

and turn it over to Mr. Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, I would in consultation with my legal counsel, 

but I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t know that for certain. 

I’m relatively new in the position. I’ll have to go back—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, to the extent that you do have the power, or 

you have influence over those who do have power, will you recommend that a copy of all video footage be made available to Mr. 

Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz? 

Mr. CLANCY. Congressman, I’ll certainly talk to our department 

and with our legal counsel. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, you don’t need lawyers for everything. I mean, 

you’ve got a bunch of them on this panel. And I’m telling you, if 

the only excuse they have for not turning it over is there some theoretical, potential investigation or prosecution, I promise Mr. 

Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz, they’re not going to interfere with either one. I’ll promise you that. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOWDY. So, we can eliminate that concern. Now, will you 

turn over all available video to Mr. Cummings and Mr. Chaffetz. 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, the video will be available at all times, but 

I will go back to the department within our agency and revisit this. 

Mr. GOWDY. Do you know if there was, emphasis on the word 

‘‘was,’’ video footage of the alleged officer misconduct? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, I’m not aware. 

Mr. GOWDY. You don’t know whether any of the cameras were 

trained on the car that these two agents were in? 

Mr. CLANCY. The only video I’m aware of, Congressman, is what 

we have provided as they entered the gate at the South Park. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, do you have a policy of retention and preservation of any video that could be potentially part of a criminal investigation, or officer misconduct? Is that part of your policy? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, we retain video that is related to any incident 

on the complex. 

Mr. GOWDY. So, if there were video of that, no one would have 

taped over it, or destroyed it. 

Mr. CLANCY. The video would not have been destroyed if there 

was—if someone saw an incident somewhere else in the complex, 

yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. How about taped over, would it have been taped 

over? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, by practice, it’s automatic. You have to—my 

understanding is, you have to selectively decide what you want to 

preserve; otherwise—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Wouldn’t potential officer misconduct be one of those 

things that you wanted to preserve? 
58 

Mr. CLANCY. Without knowing the facts, I don’t know what took 

place beyond that entry point. 

Mr. GOWDY. I yield to the Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s 

time has expired. We now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on National Security, Mr. Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m a little bit, more than a little bit put out by the willful ignorance here. You know, when you—let’s just back up a second. The 

Secret Service is an intelligence gathering organization, and then 

you don’t ask questions, and you destroy evidence. 

I guess the—I’m trying to have faith, I really am. And I offer no 

disrespect whatsoever. I think you’re an honorable man, but I’ll tell 

you, this whole system—you said at the tail end of your testimony 

that you had implemented a change to go to 7 days retention of 

video. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mr. LYNCH. So, we went from 72 hours now to 7 days. 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct, with the intent to look at our storage 

capabilities to go beyond that. 

Mr. LYNCH. All right. I’m actually going to—if we have to do it 

legislatively, the fact that the Department of Homeland Security 

requires Logan Airport to retain their video tapes, TSA, for 30 

days, if I have to do it legislatively, I’m going to make a recommendation that we have—we adopt legislation that requires 

that Secret Service keep video for 30 days, if that’s what we’ve got 

to do. 

Director Clancy, who is responsible, who is the individual responsible for Technical Security Division, because I want to send them 

a subpoena, as well. They’re not on this list of folks that we had, 

but who’s that person? 

Mr. CLANCY. OK. Now, he is relatively new in the position, 

just—— 

Mr. LYNCH. That’s OK. 

Mr. CLANCY. Joseph DePietro is the Chief of the Technical Division now. 

Mr. LYNCH. OK. So, would it be correct in me assuming that he 

is responsible for that whole surveillance around the White House, 

and the technology, the tapes, you know, the purging or scrubbing 

of the tapes, and all that? Is that the person I want? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, he would be able to talk to those questions that 

you have. 

Mr. LYNCH. OK. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. LYNCH. All right. And we would give him a subpoena deuces 

tecum, as well, to have him bring whatever information he has. 

That would be good. 

You know, I mean, the local Piggly Wiggly, my local supermarket 

has 30 days of retained tapes, so it’s—you know, by scrubbing 

those tapes, not asking for questions, it just—and coming from an 

intelligence gathering organization, it’s just—it leaves me almost 

speechless. And I just can’t imagine a more deliberate attempt not 

to understand the nature of the problem. 
59 

Let me see. What’s the penalty—now, it’s clear from the tape 

that the two officers drove into an active bomb investigation. I 

don’t think there’s any question about that. Right? Mr. Ogilvie and 

the other gentleman, I’m blanking on his name, but the two agents. 

Mr. CLANCY. Mr. Connolly. 

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Connolly. OK. So, you have an active bomb investigation going on, and they drive right into the—you know, they 

drive right through it. I guess they were going back to—they left 

their car at the White House, so they were going to get their car, 

I understand that. But in the meantime, they drove right through 

an active bomb investigation. Any disagreement on that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know the facts in terms of going to get a vehicle, but I know they absolutely drove through an active investigation. 

Mr. LYNCH. OK. So, there’s no question about that. And, yet, we 

reassign them, so we know that. We don’t even ask them questions 

about that, and yet, we just reassign them to desk jobs. There’s no 

discipline at all. What’s the thinking behind that? 

Mr. CLANCY. To put them on administrative leave, they would 

have administrative leave with pay, and I felt that we could still 

get some work out of them. And, also, I didn’t want to do the discipline in a piecemeal fashion. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I need to interrupt you right there. The signal 

that you’re sending to every other Secret Service agent, Uniformed 

and PPD, is that those folks were not penalized at all for doing 

what they did. And so, you didn’t remove them, you didn’t remove 

them. You know, I think it would have been a clear signal to send 

to every other member of the Secret Service that those two guys 

screwed up, and they’re gone for now. And we’re going to hold them 

responsible. Instead, and now you’re thinking about OK, they’ll be 

sitting at home instead of working. But I think on balance, I think 

it was more important, especially with the history we’ve got here 

of folks shooting at the White House, and jumping over the fence, 

and it’s like the Keystone Cops here. So, you know, I think it would 

be more important message to send to the employees that these 

guys screwed up, and they are being held accountable, rather than 

just putting them on a desk job. 

Mr. CLANCY. And, Congressman, rest assured, once we get the 

final report which, again, I’m told will be weeks, people will be held 

accountable. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. 

Mr. CLANCY. And I can understand the frustration for many here 

on the Committee, as well as within our work force, but they’re 

looking to see how are these things handled, and how do you handle agents as opposed to Uniform Division. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yes. 

Mr. CLANCY. So, I respect your view, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. I just want to—in closing, I just want to say there 

needs to be a rapid response to these incidents. We can’t put this 

into a bureaucratic process where I get an answer in 8 weeks, or 

10 weeks. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LYNCH. That cannot happen. We need to—you need to have 

the ability to act right now on an incident like that, rather than, 
60 

you know, file some forms, and bring in somebody else and, you 

know, engage in willful ignorance, and let somebody else handle 

the stuff. 

You’re in that spot because you’re very capable, and we need to— 

in the future, we need you to have the ability to act. I’ll yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you gentleman. Now recognize the 

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

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Clancy, thank you for your testimony. I want to return to 

what you said earlier about meeting with your senior staff and not 

asking what they knew. When did that happen? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, it happened—forgive me, sir, my memory with 

everything else is converging. If somebody can—Wednesday. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Wednesday. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Wednesday, what date? 

Mr. CLANCY. That would have been the 11th. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So, you met with your senior staff, but 

you waited until Wednesday to meet with your senior staff when 

you were informed of this on the 9th? Why would you wait 2 days 

to meet with your senior staff? 

Mr. CLANCY. I had a hearing on the day in between, and—Mr. 

MEADOWS. I have hearings every single day. It doesn’t preclude me 

from asking detailed questions like that. 

Mr. CLANCY. Forgive me, sir, let me correct the record. I did not 

have a hearing. I don’t know what my schedule was, what I was 

doing on Tuesday. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, why did you wait 2 days? Was it not important to you, Mr. Clancy? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, as I expressed earlier, this is hugely important 

to me and to the agency. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So, why did you—you said earlier you 

didn’t ask a question what they knew. You’re not interfering with 

an investigation for you to be informed of what they knew. That 

wouldn’t have interfered with an investigation. Why wouldn’t you 

have asked the question? Is it so that you could pull a Sergeant 

Schultz here today that you know nothing? I don’t understand. 

Mr. CLANCY. No. In fact, when I pulled that group together, this 

hearing was not scheduled. I did that because, again, I—it’s probably hard to understand for this Committee. 

Mr. MEADOWS. It is very hard for Mr. Lynch and I to understand 

how there would be a lack of inquisitive nature on why the Director would not want to know. 

Mr. CLANCY. To be candid, I compartmentalized this incident. I 

gave it to the OIG so I could concentrate on—I have protectees all 

around the world, classified documents I have to keep up with, the 

President of Afghanistan. I’ve got all these other issues that really 

I need to focus on today and future threats, and this, in my mind, 

I—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, the President of Afghanistan may be very 

important and, indeed, he probably is, but the President of the 

United States is a lot more important, and I wouldn’t compartmentalize and put that somewhere else. Would you? 
61 

Mr. CLANCY. All of our protectees are important, but certainly 

this—in my mind, I gave it to the OIG, and I was content to wait 

until we get all the facts and not do things piecemeal because I 

thought that was a dangerous path to take, to do things in a piecemeal fashion, because information starts to leak out, and information would have started to leak out. People would start—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, keeping these guys there working on administrative duties, do you not think that they have the ability to talk 

to some of their fellow workers and spin a different narrative instead of sending them home, as Mr. Lynch had suggested? Do you 

think it’s not dangerous that they might interfere with the investigation? 

Mr. CLANCY. They could still converse, in my view, at their residences with anyone they wanted to, so keeping them—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, you haven’t told them not to converse and tell 

a different story. 

Mr. CLANCY. I haven’t spoken to those individuals. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, these are GS–15, and you haven’t spoken to 

them, why? 

Mr. CLANCY. The two individuals—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. Why have you not spoken to them? 

Mr. CLANCY. I didn’t want to, again, interfere with the investigation. One is an SES and one is a—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Clancy, we-you were hired to clean up the 

mess. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And you and I have met personally, before you 

were actually the official Director. And I told you about a number 

of things where I was actually getting emails. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And I still get emails, anonymous emails on all 

kinds of different things that are happening, details in Honolulu 

where we’ve had some of the same accusations made that have 

been made in other parts of the country. Details where people have 

actually had major offenses and then were left within the Secret 

Service and allowed to retire a year later. What are you going to 

do, because I asked you specifically about forced transfers and how 

the threatening of taking away their security clearance for some of 

the rank and file, and yet nothing has been done with that, Mr. 

Clancy. Are you going to act on that eventually? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. In terms of threatening to take away their 

clearances, I understand that was in a letter that went out to people when they were—routinely, we move people around the country, and it is—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. It’s used as a force of manipulation for most of 

the rank and file, at least that’s the way they see it. And so, are 

you going to make sure that they know that their security clearance will not be taken away? Pure and simple, yes or no? 

Mr. CLANCY. Their security clearance is not taken away as—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. If they decide not to transfer, you’re not going to 

affect their security clearance. 

Mr. CLANCY. You can’t do that, Congressman. We need to have 

people—for example, now the President’s Detail needs additional 

personnel, so we have to move people from the field offices to the 
62 

President’s Detail. If they say no, I don’t want to go to the President’s Detail, now we’re short on the President’s Detail. So, we 

have to—it’s the nature of our business, and they’re informed of 

that when they’re hired. 

Mr. MEADOWS. You know, this sounds like just the same old 

problem that we had under the previous Director, Mr. Clancy, and 

I’m very troubled. And I’ll yield back. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. And, Mr. Clancy, welcome to the 

Committee, and thank you for your service to your country. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I want to cite—well, first of all, I think there’s 

bipartisan, a lot of bipartisan agreement on this Committee about 

a problem, obviously, at Secret Service, and I think that you’re 

going to find there’s bipartisan comity and agreement on an approach to how we resolve this. 

My friend, Mr. Gowdy, in his questioning raised a very interesting point, and I’m pretty sympathetic with his point of view, but 

I’m open to hearing a counter argument. 

You’ve got an OIG investigation going on, so they’re got the 

tapes. Well, Congress has a constitutional role irrespective of what 

an OIG is doing. Now, the fact that we have the power to compel 

doesn’t always mean we should use it, especially with an ongoing 

investigation. There are plenty of precedents for not doing that, for 

not dropping that hammer because we don’t want to unduly interfere with a prosecution, or whatever it may be. But I will say, to 

underscore Mr. Gowdy’s point, I think the burden is on you and 

your lawyers to make a case before this Committee representing 

the institution of Congress for why at this time it would otherwise 

corrupt an ongoing investigation. 

Absent such compelling testimony or rationale, it seems to me 

this Committee is entitled to those tapes for its own investigative 

purposes. We are an independent branch of government and we 

have every right to exercise our oversight. Hopefully, we do it responsibly, but I just—I’m telling you in my view, we’re going to 

move forward on a bipartisan basis on this issue, not always the 

tradition of this Committee, but in this case, I think that’s where 

we’re heading, and I don’t speak for the Ranking Member, but I 

join with him in his observations. And I just—a word to the wise, 

Mr. Clancy, that’s where we’re headed. 

Mr. CLANCY. Congressman, I sense all of you, your outrage, all 

of you. And I will go back and revisit this with our folks and with 

the department, and see if we can accommodate the request. I’ve 

heard all of you loud and clear today with what we need to do. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank you. I’m going to try to get through five 

questions quickly, and hopefully you’ll cooperate. 

Do you believe, given your new responsibilities, and I know 

you’ve got a lifetime invested in this very noble service with historic history. Is there, however, do you think parallel with that, or 

sort of superimposed on that noble tradition perhaps a creeping 

cultural problem that has to be addressed in your ranks? I think 
63 

both the Chairman and the Ranking Member catalogued a history 

going back of unfortunate headlines. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. Congressman, I think we do. I think, to be candid—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. We do what? 

Mr. CLANCY. We do have an element that has—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. OK. 

Mr. CLANCY. We do have a small element that has a culture of, 

in this case—in most of our recent cases, alcohol has been involved 

in the most recent cases. However, I will say that the OIG did a 

report, and I think 8 percent of our incidents involved alcohol. But 

irregardless, in our—looking back at our recent history, some alcohol has been used, so that is clearly something I’m concerned 

about. And we’re looking at how to address that. 

In terms of the culture of not bringing information up through 

the ranks there, obviously, is a concern with that as all of you are 

getting these anonymous calls, or maybe not anonymous. Either 

way, that’s something we’ve got to fix. And I know it’s not a proper 

answer, but some of these things take some time, and it has to 

come with building trust, and it’s communication, and we’re trying 

to hammer this home. Give us a chance through communication. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. OK. The 5-day delay, to what do you ascribe it? 

Was it bureaucratic inertia, or do you believe somebody was deliberately trying to withhold that from you so that—to preclude your 

taking action? 

Mr. CLANCY. This is speculation on my part. I don’t think anyone 

was intentionally hiding it from me, but at a lower level, if they 

felt that—I don’t know how they viewed the incident. And the OIG, 

again, I’m sorry to keep leaning on him, but we’ll find out those 

facts. I don’t want to speculate for those at that level, that rank. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Obviously, it would be very troubling if it were 

the latter. Right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Absolutely. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Bureaucratic inertia, we can manage through 

that and try to clean it up, but if somebody’s deliberately stymying 

your ability to scrutinize, you know, an unfortunate incident that 

doesn’t put us in a favorable light, then you’ve got a different problem, Mr. Clancy. 

Mr. CLANCY. It would be a direct reflection of my leadership. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Well, it would be a direct challenge of your leadership. I don’t know that it yet reflects your leadership. And that’s 

another element of concern, I think both for us and for the public. 

We had a review panel that recommended strongly that the President should seek an outside Director for your position. He didn’t 

take that advice. He chose you, because he had confidence in your, 

apparently. And there is an argument to be made that only an insider, a careerist like yourself, can actually make the tough decisions, knows where the bodies are buried, and doesn’t put up with 

sort of nonsensical arguments. 

On the other hand, the counter argument can be yes, we’ll put 

somebody in there who’s co-opted, who couldn’t possibly be a 

change agent, and isn’t what we need. I’d like to give you the opportunity as my final moment of questioning to respond to that. 
64 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, thank you, Congressman. Let me just say, one 

of the things we’ve done since I’ve come in, it’s not the same old 

upper tier of management. We have made some changes, and primarily because we wanted to take better advantage of our subject 

matter civilian experts. So, what we’ve done in the past, we’ve had 

a Director and a Deputy Director. Now we have a Deputy, just recently made a Deputy Director was named, but additionally at the 

same level, a Chief Operating Officer. We’re reaching out for a 

Chief Operating Officer who will not be from within the agency. He 

or she will be from the private sector. And then underneath that 

Chief Operating Officer, who again is on equal level with the agent, 

the Deputy Director, we have a tier of several, a Chief Financial 

Officer, a Chief Information Officer, several other civilian experts 

in that side of the house, and we’re integrating both of them. So, 

this is not the same old Secret Service from 1 month ago. In the 

short time, 30 days I’ve been here, we’ve made significant changes 

to the traditional culture and the structure of the upper management. And we are new, including myself, and I’d like to have some 

time to try to let that progress. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Director, I’m trying to figure out with this video 

policy, last week you said that there were three clips of the woman 

with the suspicious package, but only two clips of the agents in the 

vehicle, so why is there one more clip of the woman than of the 

agents? 

Mr. CLANCY. Where the female was positioned, it’s outside of 

that gate area, just outside, so that is specific to that incident with 

the suspicious package, and the confrontation between the officer 

and the lady. So, there are three very short clips of that and her 

actions. 

The other two clips are more—although, it captures the package, 

the suspicious package, but it also captures the agents nudging 

that barrel and coming through a secure zone. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So, the third angle just would not have captured 

the vehicle. Is that why? 

Mr. CLANCY. The first one would not have—well, there are two 

different timeframes. Yes, I can’t answer that question, sir. I 

don’t—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. So, the—because on Mr. Gowdy’s questions 

about allowing Congress access, you do not want to provide Congress with any of its own versions or copies that we could then 

look, review with the staff, and then determine the next steps that 

we may want to take with the investigation. Is that your position? 

Mr. CLANCY. I just recently said that I will revisit it. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. 

Mr. CLANCY. I understand the outrage on this. Our initial offer 

was to be there whenever you needed to view it. We would provide 

it at any time day or night, but I understand that’s not—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK, good. Yes, and I’ve been bouncing around, so 

I apologize, I did not hear that. 

Now, Mr. Gowdy also raised the issue of this Inspector General. 

And I know you’re doing what you think you’re required to do, but 
65 

sitting here in hearings and across the whole Federal Government 

conducting oversight, the number of times when witnesses say 

well, that’s the IG, you know. We can’t do anything. We can’t give 

you information, Congress, because of the IG. And I just don’t believe that that was ever the intent of Inspector Generals to cause 

the rest of the world to stand still. I mean, we have an independent 

duty to conduct oversight over all these agencies. We are asked to 

fund the agencies, and I think the American people, obviously, 

need to know what’s going on, so that we can make decisions about 

that. 

What is the timeline of the IG investigation? 

Mr. CLANCY. I’m told weeks. Now, again, I haven’t been conversing with the IG. I did have one call with the Inspector General, 

but I’m told that it would be a matter of weeks, not months. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And he’s also doing a kind of look-back investigation for some of the previous incidents. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. I saw that somewhere in print, but I’m not sure we 

talked about that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So, that was not something that you asked the 

IG. You went to the IG with the incident at the gate. 

Mr. CLANCY. Specifically, this incident, yes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. OK. And then at that point—well, let me ask you 

this. With the witnesses that were invited, we had four witnesses 

that we asked to attend. They are not, obviously, here, so what is 

the reason for not bringing those witnesses here today? 

Mr. CLANCY. There’s a couple of reasons for that, right or wrong. 

They’re the rank and file. They didn’t sign up for coming in front 

of an open hearing with this—with the cameras, and lights. And 

I think it’s my responsibility. It’s my responsibility—— 

Mr. DESANTIS. But, did you—correct me if I’m wrong, but you 

have not allowed them to be interviewed behind the scenes, have 

you? 

Mr. CLANCY. We have not. I understand the staffs may still be 

discussing that, and correct me if I’m wrong in this, but my understanding is that we’re not doing that. Again, it goes back to interviewing people twice, you get different stories. Every time you 

interview someone, you get a little slight difference, not intentionally, but it could be perceived different. And we went through 

some examples of this in the closed-door hearing, but I think you 

should have one investigation, initially, to do their investigation, 

and then if there are gaps or whatever, then certainly others can 

followup. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, I think that that’s problematic. I mean, we 

have our own duty to conduct oversight, and the questions that we 

may ask from a congressional perspective may be different than 

what an IG would be looking at. And I think we’re all interested 

in accountability, but how that accountability will be done within 

the executive branch will be different than how we, as a group that 

has received recommendations, that knows that there’s going to be 

funding issues with this, of some of the issues that we would want 

to examine. So, I’m not satisfied that that is the way to do it, and 

I join the Chairman. I wish, you know, at a minimum that these 

witnesses would have been provided, at least behind the scenes so 

that we could have received some answers. And I yield back. 
66 

Mr. CLANCY. I will revisit that, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs. Lawrence, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you, Chairman. 

Director Clancy, I looked for the core values of the Secret Service, and on the website it says that the agency has five core values, 

‘‘Justice, duty, courage, honesty, and loyalty. These values in the 

Secret Service which is worthy of trust and confidence. And that 

to reinforce these values, Secret Service leaders and employees promote and measure personal accountable and program performance 

across the agency by holding each person to the highest standards 

of personal and professional integrity. The Secret Service assures 

that they preserve the core values and the fulfillment of the vision 

and the success of that mission.’’ 

And then I’m always interested in leadership, and so I understand that you have 27 years as a veteran of the Secret Service. 

And during your career, you were a special agent in charge of the 

Presidential Protection Division. 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. You, yourself was in charge of that division. 

And that during your tenure of 27 years, you also served in the Secret Service Office of Investigation, the agency’s Internal Affairs 

Division. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct, for a brief time. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. So, my concern after listening to all the testimony, and my question to you today, is that I recognize that you 

were brought into this office, or given this opportunity. You’ve been 

in the office a little more than 30 days, but you were brought in 

in February of this year. Correct? And I would—in looking at your 

resume, I would think that experience like this would put you in 

a position where investigative skills, the knowledge of how a department should operate having—because you went up through the 

ranks, so you have actually performed the duties of the people you 

are now the Director of. 

But I hear things like I don’t know, I’m outraged, that shouldn’t 

have happened, yes, there is a culture. When you’re put into the 

job, you’re expected to bring all those skills and to provide leadership, and to be able to address issues and concerns. 

I’m really challenged right now. My question to you, with all of 

your experience, and with the continuing—because when you were 

brought on, we already had those issues that we have outlined 

today. What—how are you going to make a difference? I know that 

you said you need time, but when I hear you didn’t talk to those 

who were your executive level to investigate this, when you, yourself were in charge of the agency’s Internal Affairs, I would think 

that you would be really prepared to be able to dig right into that. 

And to sit here today and have a clear vision, and a clear mission 

under your leadership, how you’re going to address these. And I’m 

not hearing that. 

So, my question to you today as a Member of Congress and of 

this Committee is, where is the vision, the leadership, and just the 

fierce commitment to these core values that you took yourself personally, that you now personally are in charge of making sure that 
67 

that is the mission of this agency? I need you to give that to me, 

because I’m not hearing it. 

Mr. CLANCY. Congresswoman, in my opening Statement I said 

this is my life’s work. I’ve spent most of my life, 27–28 years protecting four Presidents. I’ve given everything I had at great expense, personal expense, to insure that our protectees, our Presidents are safe. I didn’t come back from private industry to just 

enjoy the ride. This is critical for me, it’s critical for the country. 

I’m going to give it everything I have. I’m immersed in it, I spend 

hours talking to people at all levels, and we’re pushing it out to 

this new leadership team that we’ve just built. We built this new 

leadership team, we’re bringing up the professional people to marry 

the responsibilities of law enforcement, get them working together. 

This is a new look. We’re trying to reinvigorate the look of the 

Secret Service. And, unfortunately, I can’t—I don’t have a magic 

wand. It’s going to take a little bit of time, but one of the things 

that’s going to be key here is once this report is done, our people 

are held accountable. And we have this Table of Penalties that 

we’ll work with, and it’s based on what other agencies use, and 

we’ve only had it for about a year, but we will definitely be holding 

people accountable. And that’s what our people want to see. You 

know, when you go around and ask why is their morale down, 

there’s several reasons. Quality of life is one of them, but the other 

thing is we’re not holding people accountable in a consistent manner. And I think that’s what one of the members said here today, 

so that’s our first test. Are we being consistent with the way we 

hold people accountable? And insure we followup with that accountability. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentlewoman. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. I yield back my time, but results is what will 

measure your leadership. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mrs. LAWRENCE. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentlewoman. Will now recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mulvaney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. 

Clancy, for being here. 

I’m going to ask you a couple of specific questions about the incident that we’ve been discussing here today, and then we’ll talk 

more generally, I think, about the agency. 

As best I can tell, a layman summary of this is that a woman 

dropped off what she said was a bomb at 10:24 on a Wednesday 

night. Yet, it looks like the Be On The Lookout order didn’t go out 

until Thursday afternoon at 4:15. Is that—does that delay surprise 

you? Is that ordinary course of business? Is that unusual? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can’t confirm. I’m going to ask my staff if that’s 

the actual timeframe for that to go out. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Well, let’s assume for sake of discussion that it 

is. Would that be too long? 

Mr. CLANCY. It would be too long. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Have you all looked into why, because I can assure you it did take that long. I’m looking at the document in front 
68 

of me. I’d be happy to share it with you, but have you investigated 

why that happened yet? 

Mr. CLANCY. Our Investigative Office certainly will investigate 

why. They’re going to look at the whole process. 

Mr. MULVANEY. OK. But you’ve talked to your folks about this. 

Right? I mean, you said you talked to your senior folks about it. 

You’ve done perhaps not a formal investigation, but you’ve asked 

them why. Right? 

Mr. CLANCY. On the incident involving the lady throwing the 

suspicious package, I have talked to our people about that, been 

briefed on the incident. 

Mr. MULVANEY. But you still don’t have any idea why it took 

that long to put out the Be On The Lookout Order? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know why it took that long, no. 

Mr. MULVANEY. And then—and, again, I’m just coming to this 

issue for the first time. You found her, Friday morning, the woman 

who threw a package at the White House, and then ran over a Secret Service agent with an open car door as she was speeding away. 

Well, you found her on Friday morning at a hotel in Virginia. Your 

agents talked to her in the lobby of the hotel while she’s having 

breakfast and they didn’t detain her. Were you aware of that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am aware of it after being briefed, yes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Why didn’t they detain her? 

Mr. CLANCY. I’m going to make an assumption here. Other than 

the fact that there was no arrest warrant out, the arrest warrant 

came out the following day, I believe. 

Mr. MULVANEY. How long should it take you to get a warrant for 

somebody who throws a bomb at the White House? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, the other factors here, again, making an assumption, is that at this point we know there are—we know that 

she has a history with the Secret Service, and she has been interviewed in the past. 

Mr. MULVANEY. She does have a history, so you knew who she 

was. The arrest warrant, by the way, didn’t go out until the following Tuesday. It took you 7 days to get the warrant to arrest this 

lady, which takes me to the next step in the timeline. On Saturday, 

she was arrested by local police in Virginia, and the local police 

called your PIOC, and the PIOC told the local police that the suspect is no longer a Secret Service—on the Secret Service Lookout. 

Were you aware of that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I was not. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Does that strike you as something unusual and 

strange, and perhaps wrong? 

Mr. CLANCY. It does. I’m not sure why she would not be a lookout. 

Mr. MULVANEY. And I guess we—I don’t want to pile on, Mr. 

Clancy, because I know it’s been a rough day for you, but I would 

hope that—this has been a month now since this happened. You 

knew it was a high-profile event, and granted a lot of the attention 

went to what happened with the officers that evening, but still, a 

woman threw a bomb at the White House, at least something she 

said was a bomb when she dropped it off. It turned out that it 

wasn’t. And for you at this point, sir, not to know these details is 

a little disappointing to me, but we’ll leave that for another day. 
69 

Let me ask you my general question. You’ve been there 27 years. 

You seem like a very dedicated public servant, and I thank you for 

your service. I think people undervalue folks like you and what you 

do for this Nation. Has it always been this bad? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, sir. 

Mr. MULVANEY. What changed? 

Mr. CLANCY. Sir, I’ve got—I don’t know that answer. I wish I did. 

I know there was great dedication when I was younger, and I think 

there is—I know there’s great dedication now. 

I honestly believe it’s a smaller element of people that are not 

satisfied. And, again, it goes back to how we’re treating our people, 

you know. And they’re getting crushed, some of them, with the 

hours because the staffing is so limited. And we’re up for some real 

challenges as we go into the fall here with the Pope’s visit, and the 

U.N. That is going to be a tremendous challenge which, again, is 

going to create a tremendous burden on our work force. And I 

think that’s part of it, too. 

I think that the demands on the work force as our mission has 

somewhat expanded, but primarily our staffing levels haven’t kept 

up. And I think that’s affecting our morale, but I don’t want to dismiss the leadership. You know, leadership is a key part of this, too, 

and that’s something that I’ve got to correct and have got to work 

on. But the staffing levels which we’re making some headway to, 

I think that’s going to help over time. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Let’s look at that together. Let me ask you one 

last question, Mr. Clancy, just out of curiosity. Was it better when 

you all were under Treasury? Is that part of the problem here, that 

you’re under Homeland now, and not Treasury? 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, I was a young agent, a young manager when 

we were under Treasury, so I don’t know those relationships and 

how that worked during that timeframe, so I wouldn’t be able to 

give a good answer on that. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Now recognize the 

gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands, Ms. Plaskett, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. Yes, good morning. And thank you very much, 

Chairman and Ranking Member. Mr. Clancy, thank you so much 

for your time here. 

My questions really go along the same line, but a much more 

condensed timeframe, as my colleague, Mr. Mulvaney. And I wanted to really talk with you about allegations that are out there, as 

opposed to facts. I have a real problem with people putting information out that is not substantiated by direct facts, so I wanted to 

talk about this anonymous email, and some of the allegations that 

are in it. 

We understand that you received this anonymous email 5 days 

after the fact. Correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And you’re now very familiar with this, and it 

was given to this Committee yesterday. And I wanted to walk you 

through some of the allegations that were in there to see what you 

have been able to ascertain as being factual, as opposed to those 

which are not credible, or you still do not have information about. 
70 

In the email, it says at some point an ATSAIC from WFO, 

George Ogilvie, and a PPD DSAIC, Marc Connolly, drove through 

a crime scene tape. Now, I’m going to get back to that allegations 

of a crime scene tape specifically, but later on it says the officers 

at the scene said that they were both extremely intoxicated. They 

were coming home from Ed Donovan’s retirement dinner. 

Were they, in fact, coming home—coming, returning from a retirement dinner? Do you know that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I know there was a retirement dinner that night. 

I don’t know if they were coming from the retirement dinner. 

Ms. PLASKETT. You haven’t been able to ascertain the list of the 

guests or individuals who were there? 

Mr. CLANCY. I have not. I stepped away from it, for the OIG. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. But the OIG is looking into that. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, they are. 

Ms. PLASKETT. All right. And they apparently flipped on the 

lights of their GOVs to go around the roadblocks. What’s a GOV? 

Mr. CLANCY. It’s a Government-Owned Vehicle. 

Ms. PLASKETT. So, they were in government vehicles coming back 

to the White House. 

Mr. CLANCY. That’s correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And they went—did they, in fact, go around the 

roadblock? What does that mean? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know that. It would be an assumption on my 

part. I know that when they arrived at the gate on E Street and 

15th Street, there was a barrel there that was placed there by our 

officers to secure the zone, and they did go through, they moved 

that barrel over. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. Well, it says—the email says apparently, 

flipped on the lights. Does that mean—you know, I’ve been an investigator and a prosecutor. Apparently means that the person 

doesn’t know themselves. What do you think? Were they—do you 

believe that this individual who sent this email was, in fact, there 

at the scene? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can only—I don’t know that, because I don’t know 

if the lights were flipped on or not. You know, reading that, it 

sounds like it’s secondhand information, but that would be an assumption on my part. 

Ms. PLASKETT. That’s what I get out of it. And that the agents 

nudged the barrel, as opposed to—we have heard nudged, we’ve 

heard crashed. Which one was it? 

Mr. CLANCY. It was more of a nudge. It was on the right side of 

the bumper. It was—— 

Ms. PLASKETT. And why would you call it a nudge, as opposed 

to a crash? 

Mr. CLANCY. Because there was—the barrel didn’t crossover. It 

wasn’t—it was more of a purposeful move, it wasn’t losing control 

of a vehicle. It was a very delicate movement of the barrel with the 

vehicle. 

Ms. PLASKETT. How fast were they going? 

Mr. CLANCY. One to two miles an hour. 

Ms. PLASKETT. So, to crash something would probably require a 

much greater speed. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, the barrel would have been tipped over. 
71 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. Now, I want to talk about a specific time period. We have, and you tell me if I’m correct with these times, at 

10:24 the suspect drives up. Correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, that’s correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And then at 10:30, the Joint Operation Center notifies the Metropolitan Police Department. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, that’s correct. 

Ms. PLASKETT. 10:32, they report the—the Uniform Division reports the incident to the Joint Operating Center. Right, 10:32? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t have the timeline in front of me, but yes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And then at 10:47, a notification message goes 

out. Right, at 10—— 

Mr. CLANCY. According to the timeline, yes, I believe. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. Now, at 10:47 the PIC sends a notification 

message regarding the suspicious package. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. And then at 11:12, the PIC issues the first of two 

notification alerts regarding the suspicious package. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. What is the difference between the one at 

10:47, a notification message, and the 11:12, the notification alerts? 

Mr. CLANCY. 11:12, the alerts should be the same. They’re both 

Protective alerts to alert the Director staff that there is a suspicious package, or there’s an incident at the White House, or 

whatever the incident is. So, they are updates to the original alert. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK. And when did the officers arrive on the 

scene? 

Mr. CLANCY. Metropolitan arrived—— 

Ms. PLASKETT. No, the two officers in question. 

Mr. CLANCY. Oh, the two officers in question arrived at—— 

Ms. PLASKETT. 10:58. 

Mr. CLANCY. 10:58. 

Ms. PLASKETT. 10:58, so they didn’t know that there was a scene 

there, did they, at 11:12 when the notifications went out? 

Mr. CLANCY. They should have. They would have received the notification. Typically, senior staff would receive these notifications, 

so they should know. And the assumption is they saw the barrels 

there, and they should know. 

Ms. PLASKETT. But was, based on the emails, was there crime 

scene tape? Was there any notification, was there anything there 

that would have let them know that this was a scene, a crime 

scene? 

Mr. CLANCY. From the video that I looked at, the Committee has 

looked, I don’t remember seeing any crime tape or any tape. There 

may have been some out there, but I just—I didn’t see it in the 

video that I saw. 

Ms. PLASKETT. OK, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence with the time. It just appears that this anonymous email 

does not, necessarily, comport with the information that we have. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is why we need to see the tapes. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
72 

Mr. Clancy, who is required, under the policies of the Secret 

Service, to report misconduct? 

Mr. CLANCY. Anyone can report misconduct. 

Mr. HICE. OK. We have a slide in that regard. So my question 

is not, can anyone report misconduct, but who is required to do so? 

Mr. CLANCY. Every supervisor is required—is required to report 

misconduct. 

Mr. HICE. OK. And if a supervisor fails to report misconduct, 

there are penalties. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. HICE. And we have another slide. OK. 

Mr. CLANCY. That is correct. 

Mr. HICE. All right. So these slides are accurate in terms of what 

is required and the punishment, the penalty, if policy is not followed. 

On the night of March 4, Captain Michael Braun was a watch 

commander overseeing the White House. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. That is correct. 

Mr. HICE. OK. And in a nutshell, what does the ‘‘watch commander’’ mean? 

Mr. CLANCY. The watch commander is the on-duty supervisor for 

the White House complex. 

Mr. HICE. OK. So the on-duty supervisor in charge that night. 

Who does the supervisor, the watch commander, report to? 

Mr. CLANCY. He reports to the—to an inspector in uniformed division. 

Mr. HICE. OK. Who does the inspector report to? 

Mr. CLANCY. The inspector reports to the Deputy Chief in uniformed division. 

Mr. HICE. Which would be who? 

Mr. CLANCY. Which would be Alfonso Dyson. 

Mr. HICE. OK. Who does Deputy Chief Dyson report to? 

Mr. CLANCY. He reports to the special agent in charge of the 

President’s detail. 

Mr. HICE. Which would be who? 

Mr. CLANCY. Robert Buster. 

Mr. HICE. OK. Now, you have confirmed that the incident was 

reported. Is that correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. The—— 

Mr. HICE. Yes. The incident on March 4, it was all reported. Did 

it go through the proper chain of command? 

Mr. CLANCY. It was reported up to the Deputy Chief of the White 

House complex, Mr. Dyson, and from that point on I don’t know 

what notifications were made. 

Mr. HICE. OK. Were the reports that were made done so in a 

timely manner? When were they reported? 

Mr. CLANCY. And, again, there is two separate incidents, though. 

If you are talking about the misconduct, I know that it stopped 

at—— 

Mr. HICE. Or, really, both. I mean, the question, I am trying to 

determine if we are following the proper chain of command—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Right. 

Mr. HICE [continuing]. And doing so properly. 
73 

Mr. CLANCY. The incident involving the throwing of the books, 

that followed the proper chain of command. The incident involving 

the misconduct, it did not follow. 

Mr. HICE. It did not. OK. And so it did not. Could it be that it 

did not follow the proper chain of command for the misconduct because he was a superior officer, a superior agent? Could they have 

been intimidated, fearful, or even instructed not to report Mr. 

Connolly? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can’t answer that, but I am sure when they interview the watch commander that would come out. But I don’t—I 

can’t answer that. I don’t know. 

Mr. HICE. Don’t you think you should know? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, I will know once the investigation is completed. 

Mr. HICE. OK. What would have happened to this crime scene 

had it been disturbed by someone other than Secret Service agents? 

Would anything have been handled differently? What if someone 

driving a car ran into the area? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. I would say they would be interviewed—they 

would be detained, they would be interviewed, and see if there was 

intent. Did they know what they were doing? Was there intent to 

disrupt the zone? 

Mr. HICE. But that did not happen if it is an agent. So is one 

set of policies for an agent, which is basically nothing, versus had 

it been a civilian, the entire scenario would have been treated differently? 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, not knowing all the facts, it may have been 

longer—— 

Mr. HICE. But that is what you seem to be indicating. Had it 

been someone else—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. HICE [continuing]. It would have all been treated differently. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. HICE. Do you have policies for agents who are intoxicated? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. If you are driving under the influence and operating a motor vehicle, there are penalties for that. 

Mr. HICE. Do you believe that the agents who responded to this 

incident should be reprimanded for any failure not to report according to policy? 

Mr. CLANCY. Now, I am prejudging here, but—the investigation, 

but if they—if we find that people did not report to their—all the 

way up through the chain of command, absolutely. 

Mr. HICE. But you have already admitted—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Absolutely. 

Mr. HICE [continuing]. You have already admitted that that did 

not happen. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. I can’t say that I know that it went to the Deputy Chief, but I don’t know where it went after that. 

Mr. HICE. But there was a breakdown. So there was obviously—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, there is a breakdown, yes, sir. 

Mr. HICE [continuing]. A breakdown. 

Mr. CLANCY. Because I—— 

Mr. HICE. Yes. OK. 
74 

Mr. CLANCY [continuing]. I didn’t hear about it. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HICE. And so you have also admitted that there should be 

reprimands. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. HICE. What reprimands have taken place to this point for 

those agents who did not properly report? 

Mr. CLANCY. None to this point, sir, because, right or wrong, I 

don’t want to piecemeal some of these disciplinary actions. And I 

want to wait until I hear all the facts, too, because there is a lot 

of hearsay out there right now, and I would like to get the one definitive report. 

Mr. HICE. You have Stated a significant number of facts, and 

there has still been no reprimand. I find that inexcusable, sir. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. 

We will now recognize the gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. 

Lujan Grisham, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Clancy, I recognize that this is a difficult environment, and 

I have to say that I think there is general agreement by both sides 

of the aisle in this Committee, and in other committees of jurisdiction, that this is a significant series of issues that affect the Secret 

Service, and then ultimately affect the security and safety of the 

Commander-in-Chief, and largely everybody else in the White 

House, and the credibility of the country as a whole about our ability to provide that level of protection and security here and currently abroad. 

And I also know that no amount of money will fix an environment that is like the environment that you are describing, where 

there are questions of accountability, transparency, whether there 

are reprimands, whether those are fair, whether it is clear that you 

have got low morale, that folks aren’t reporting incidents. 

You have said—while you are having an independent review, you 

did say that the chain of command on the face was not followed, 

and I would have to agree that even if you get ancillary and additional information that that, in and of itself, warrants some action. 

And there may be other actions as you garner more information 

about what is coming. And so I believe that without a sustained 

and concerted effort to change the culture of the Secret Service that 

nothing will change. 

Now, I say this because I have headed a difficult culture change 

in my career when I was the Department of Health Secretary, and 

it requires rigorous, constant work, and a clear timeframe where 

you are evaluating whether or not those culture shifts are making 

a difference. And while it is—I understand that you are making administrative changes, that there will be some new folks, if you are 

not careful and that is all administrative, you still aren’t going to 

attract the right kinds of shifts in a culture change in that—in the 

Secret Service. 

And I also recognize that you have got a very difficult job, and 

that we expect you, because that is part of your job, you have to 

restore not only the operations but our trust, and the public’s trust, 

that you can do that. I also know it is an honor and a privilege to 

work for the Secret Service. 
75 

So here is the question. Tough environment, we don’t feel like we 

are getting the right answers. You are trying to have some independence, but we are not seeing the kind of work day to day that 

would indicate leadership on culture change. Give me some substantive, clear examples, more than the CAO, about what you are 

doing to instill a culture shift in the Secret Service. 

Mr. CLANCY. No. 1 is staffing. We know that our people are being 

overworked, and we are trying to buildup their staffing and, once 

we do that, give them more training, so that they can—if they receive this training, they are going to feel more pride in their work 

I think, be more efficient, and just operate better. 

We have also initiated about 5 weeks ago, 6 weeks ago now, a 

work life initiative, where we are reaching out to our work force 

to see what is troubling them, what do they need from us, what 

suggestions do they have. We have brought in an outside contractor 

to do this. We expect to hear some very promising results. 

But I would say also that some of these changes we are making, 

including the COO and the CIO, et cetera, the chief financial officer, those changes are going to have an impact on the work force. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I am not getting a sense, though, about 

that timeline. And I am not saying I disagree that those investments are important, but I am going to disagree that you need to 

give me something—I would like something about your management style. 

If there is not accountability for every investment that you make 

in supporting that work force, which I agree you have got to have 

a work force that feels like they are supported, but they also have 

to feel like it is a fair work environment. And if there is no accountability or transparency, I don’t believe that you will have the 

changes that you desire. What kind of management style, what is 

the message that you are providing today to the Secret Service? 

Mr. CLANCY. We are reaching out in ways that we haven’t done 

it in the past, to hear our work force, all of our executives are getting out to talk to the work force, an investigation. In fact, next 

week I am going—— 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. So accountability is not part of your management style. 

Mr. CLANCY. Oh, absolutely, it is. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I mean, I am not hearing that from you, 

Mr. Clancy. 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, accountability—and, again, once this investigation is completed, then we will see what accountability is administered. And we do have this table of penalties, which is very 

strict, we have to follow, and it shows that we are serious about 

holding people accountable. 

So there is no making decisions on our own here, how do we discipline; we have it in stone and it is modeled after other agencies. 

So, and you are right, that is what our people want to see—accountability, fairness across the board. 

Ms. LUJAN GRISHAM. I am still concerned, I have to say. 

With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We thank the gentlewoman. 

We will now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, 

for 5 minutes. Mr. Palmer, pardon. Mr. Palmer. 
76 

Mr. PALMER. Second straight hearing where I have been misappropriated to the wrong State. My jurisdiction has expanded. 

Thank you, Mr. Clancy, for coming in today. There is many reports that suggest the Secret Service morale is at an all-time low. 

According to the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government 

Report, the agency ranks 226 out of 300 agencies. There are routine requests for uniformed division officers to work on their days 

off, and the Secret Service’s failure to pay proper overtime. 

This is particularly troubling in the context of what we have 

been discussing, because when you have low morale at what was 

once one of the most respected agencies in the world, it seems to 

be indicative of a climate and an environment not conducive to excellence and, in some respects, not conducive to integrity. 

How do you respond to that? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, you are exactly right. When I went to this roll 

call the other night, the first question when I asked, what are the 

issues here, what do you need and why, why are we having these 

issues? And the staffing was the first thing they said. They said, 

‘‘We can’t get a day off.’’ To get a day off in uniformed division, 

very often you have to put in a leave slip to—sick leave, because— 

and you may have a very important function within your family. 

Now, we all grow up with that. You know, you miss your anniversaries and birthdays, and all that, growing up, but it is more 

exasperated now, especially within uniformed division. They are 

routinely held over for an additional 4 hours or their days off are 

canceled, and that is one of the most important things we have got 

to address. 

Mr. PALMER. Let us talk about the excessive overtime. And this 

was brought up in a previous hearing and the lack of training. I 

think they said that uniformed officers were getting 25 minutes of 

training, and that the protection detail previously had been spending 25 percent of their on-duty time in training. It is now down to 

2 percent. 

Does that not indicate that you have got a staffing problem? And 

not only that, in the context of what has happened, the quality of 

the people that you are recruiting—I, frankly, don’t understand 

why you are advertising for Secret Service agents on bumper stickers instead of going to college campuses and recruiting the best and 

brightest that you can find. 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, first of all, we have corrected that. We have 

asked for funding to go out to these universities, to the military 

bases, and do a better job of recruiting. I will say, we get still, last 

I heard, 40,000 people apply for a special agent position. So we are 

getting a lot of people, but trying to get the right people, it takes 

us a while to get to them. 

Mr. PALMER. All right. In that regard, though, Deputy Assistant 

Director James Helminski sent an email to all of the Secret Service 

field offices saying that because of an upcoming class the Secret 

Service was trying to fill in March, all background investigations 

had to be completed within 3 days. I, in a previous position, had 

a national security clearance, and I can promise you that they did 

not do the background check in 3 days. Are you familiar with this 

email? 
77 

Mr. CLANCY. I am not familiar with that particular email. I know 

typically they are given 14 days, and I think there is some talk to 

bring it back to 10 days, to speed up that background check. But 

they still go through the polygraph examination, they still go 

through several other steps. 

Mr. PALMER. Ten days, though. Even 10 days, you know—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, right. 

Mr. PALMER [continuing]. When you are responsible for safeguarding the President and his family and other members of the 

executive branch, does it make sense to have in this case a 3-day 

background check? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. Let me just say this, that there are specific requirements in that background check, so they have to be met. We 

don’t lessen the requirements. And, again, it is about a 7-month or 

8-month process to ensure that we get right people, good people. 

They are fully vetted, and that is one of the reasons why it takes 

a while to get our staffing levels up. 

Mr. PALMER. You have had some foreign nationals—— 

Mr. CLANCY. And, yes, clearance. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PALMER [continuing]. You have had some foreign nationals 

apply, and in one case you had a Chinese-born foreign national who 

had—apparently had her review expedited in the Washington field 

office, despite the fact that it wasn’t confirmed whether or not she 

had renounced her Chinese citizenship. What is the Secret Service’s policy for someone who applies—a foreign national who applies who has dual citizenship? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t have that answer. But to be an advisor, you 

have to renounce your citizenship, renounce your citizenship. Mandatory. 

Mr. PALMER. I realize that this country is a melting pot, but does 

it make sense that we are not—that we are recruiting foreign nationals to serve in the Secret Service? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. You have to be a U.S. citizen. That is—to be 

employed by the Federal Government. 

Mr. PALMER. I believe my time has expired. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman from Alabama, great 

State of Alabama. 

Mr. PALMER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thanks much. First of all, I want to just say I 

disagree a little bit for one of my Statements of one of my colleagues. It doesn’t bother me if some of your guys don’t have college degrees. That is overrated. I know so many great people without college degrees. 

But let me ask you some questions, digging a little bit more 

about this situation with this woman’s vehicle. According to Metropolitan Police, they weren’t contacted until 30 minutes after she 

fled the scene. Is that an accurate Statement? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know if that is accurate or not, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. I would look into it, because at least that 

is what I have here on my paper. And, I mean, to me if you had 

two law enforcement divisions—you know, say in my neck of the 
78 

woods the county and the city—and somebody was fleeing into the 

county, man, the sheriff’s department would be notified immediately. I mean, it is kind of scary if it took them 30 minutes. 

Mr. CLANCY. I would just say that I know they in a very short 

period of time I think reached out for the bomb explosive unit, so 

it should have been in that same timeframe that the police force 

was notified. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Maybe my stuff here is wrong, but check into it. 

Did you have a copy of her license plate right away? 

Mr. CLANCY. They had a license plate. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Did the officer—did you find somebody show 

up like right away where she lived, assuming there was—— 

Mr. CLANCY. My understanding is that the license plate is what 

helped identify who this individual was. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Right, right, right. And I assume that once you 

know who the person is at least they have an address on file. Did 

somebody show up at the—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. GROTHMAN [continuing]. House? 

Mr. CLANCY. They showed up at the spouse’s address in the 

Philadelphia region, and we had agents go out to that residence 

and talk to the spouse, who indicated that this lady was down in 

the Washington area. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. What was their name? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can’t say that in a public hearing. I will be happy 

to give it to you later. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. What else can I say? For every open spot, 

how many applications do you get for Secret Service? 

Mr. CLANCY. When I first came back here at the Acting Director, 

I was told that for a special agent vacancy announcement we had 

45,000 people apply, and very few actually made it through the 

process. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. Like ‘‘very few’’ means how many? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am told there are about 70 that made it through 

the process. Now, that is on USAJobs, 45,000, and so it was very 

cumbersome. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. But you get 70 people who at least make 

the first thing for everybody—everybody in there. You have said a 

lot of these problems are alcohol-related, which is kind of scary, but 

you were not familiar with how to deal with them. I guess it kind 

of bothers me because like I have a lot of trucking companies in 

my district. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. And you can’t drink at all. And, nevertheless, 

these guys never seem to have huge problems finding guys to drive 

a truck who don’t have an alcohol problem. And I guess I will just 

suggest you talk to some of the local trucking firms. And if, you 

know, you guys are having a hard time finding guys without alcohol problems, you can ask them how they do it. 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, first of all, we have changed the policy driving—within 10 hours, you cannot enter a government-owned vehicle or a leased vehicle. That policy has gone out. We revisited that 

and—yes. 
79 

Mr. GROTHMAN. OK. I would just wrap up with one more thing 

and kind of a followup on what Congressman Palmer said there. 

When I was a kid, I mean, the Secret Service was the top of the 

top. I mean, if you heard the Secret Service was coming to town, 

you really felt you had an elite institution. 

And, you know, you go through the stuff in the file when they 

got their name in the paper the last four or 5 years, it is kind of 

embarrassing. I mean, it is almost like a screen play for some comedy or something like that. So just good luck in your new job, and 

hope you can do something to bring back the pride, and just explain to the guys you are working with, and gals that you are 

working with, that right now it is like—like I said, you look at it, 

it is like it is some comedy movie starring Phil Silvers or something or other. 

Mr. CLANCY. Congressman, thank you, and I will say that as we 

are focusing on certainly the negative aspect that we have had over 

several years here, I don’t want to paint the entire 6,500 force in 

a negative light. We have people that are doing great work, and 

they are pained by this as much as we are here. But there is certainly an element, and rightfully so, we have got to work to try to 

get them to where they need to be. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Thanks much for coming over. I yield the remainder of my time. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let me ask you, 45,000 applications. Why do— 

what is the reason most of these people don’t make it? And I think 

a lot of people don’t realize that we are hitting a brick wall in this 

country, in many instances with regard to quality of people. And 

I hate to say it, when I listen to my Bowman City Police Department and others, they tell me they have to go through a whole lot 

of applications before they can get to a few people. 

And I am just wondering, when you are talking about 45,000, to 

fill how many positions? 

Mr. CLANCY. That would be a class of 24 is my understanding, 

that that is what I heard when I first came back. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so what is the main reasons why—if you 

know. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. Again, this is more anecdotal than having the 

stats right in front of me, but primarily it is drugs, drug-related 

past or credit issues in the past. They are two of the things that 

rule people out. 

But one of the things we are doing now is with this excepted 

service we can bring people in that we may know that have a good 

background, and they can get into that pipeline a little bit quicker 

to go through the polygraph and do the background check and all 

that. So rather than waste a lot of time on people that we don’t 

know if they are going to make it through or not, we can highlight 

those that we know will probably get through that process. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Pursuant to Clause 

B of Committee Rule 9, we will use the next 60 minutes for an extended period of questioning of the witness. I will now recognize 

myself for 30 minutes. 
80 

Director Clancy, who was the most senior official on duty the 

evening of March 4? 

Mr. CLANCY. Most senior official on duty at the White House was 

the watch commander, Captain Braun. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Captain Braun. Did the individual act appropriately and report the incident per United States Secret Service policy? 

Mr. CLANCY. I know he reported it up to the next level. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Which is? 

Mr. CLANCY. To the lieutenant or, I am sorry, the inspector. He 

reported it up to his inspector, who was not on the complex. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Is it the Joint Operations Center? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. The inspector is just his in-line supervisor. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And he did report it. 

Mr. CLANCY. To the inspector. That is my understanding. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did the inspector report it, then, to who? 

Mr. CLANCY. My understanding, again, from the initial preliminary review was he reported it to the Deputy Chief, Alfonso Dyson. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who is he supposed to report it to? 

Mr. CLANCY. He would report it or should report it to the special 

agent in charge, Robert Buster. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Both of which these—again, these people 

were invited, too. You indicated that you learned of the event from 

a former Secret Service agent. 

Mr. CLANCY. That is correct. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Can you describe that call? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. On the morning of March 9, I was getting 

ready to leave our headquarters to an offsite meeting, and I received this call from this individual who said, ‘‘Hey, are you aware 

of this incident that happened supposedly on March 4?’’ And I said, 

‘‘No.’’ And he went into some of those details based on the email 

that you put up there on the screen and—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who is the first person you called? 

Mr. CLANCY. The first person I called I believe—now, again, 

please forgive me as I go through this, because this is weeks ago 

and I don’t have notes in front of me, so I don’t intentionally mean 

to misspeak—but I believe it was the assistant director of protective operations. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who is? 

Mr. CLANCY. William Callahan. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who counseled you not to ask questions on 

your own following the incident? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am looking at the Management Directive from 

Homeland Security regarding the OIG investigations. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who is that? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, no. I am sorry. The Management Directive—it 

is a memorandum with the Department of Homeland Security. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who did you consult with to make the decision that you couldn’t ask any questions? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know if I spoke to or—well, re security, the 

Office of Professional Responsibility. And I think that is—they described the process. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did you consult with Homeland Security? 
81 

Mr. CLANCY. Not other than advising them of this incident. I 

didn’t consult with them in terms of what I could investigate. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who in your chain of command is ultimately responsible for briefing you about security threats around 

the complex? 

Mr. CLANCY. The assistant director of protective operations. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When did you know that there was an assault on one of your officers? 

Mr. CLANCY. The evening of March 4, I would have received that 

alert via email. And I believe they called me as well. They typically 

call as well. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you knew that there was an assault on 

your officer that night. What did you do? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. I know that there was a suspicious package, 

and I would have to go back to the PIOC alert, but that there was 

an altercation with an officer. That is routine. They happen almost—I wouldn’t say every day, but that is a routine event at the 

White House complex. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Should that have triggered the saving of 

the videos? 

Mr. CLANCY. It would have—the fact that there was a suspicious 

package would have triggered saving videos. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Assaulting—assault on one of your officers, 

does that trigger—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. That would have as well. It was one in the 

same. It was the same incident. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Well, two different incidents, but—— 

Mr. CLANCY. OK. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ [continuing]. What period of time is reasonable before and after that altercation should they have saved the 

videos? 

Mr. CLANCY. I would say within—once things settled down, they 

would call that evening. Before the shift—certainly before the shift 

was over, I would assume that the watch commander would call 

the Joint Operations Center. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No. I am saying how much video before 

and after the incident is a reasonable time to save? 

Mr. CLANCY. I think anything that captures the incident—that 

captures the incident. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you deal with these incidents different 

when the President is in the residence? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am sorry. Do you mean video—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Does your policy change—all of these discussions about response and video and—— 

Mr. CLANCY. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Does not change if the President is in the 

White House. 

Mr. CLANCY. No, Mr. Chairman, it does not. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Was the President or anybody in the White 

House briefed on the March 4 incident? 

Mr. CLANCY. The White House was briefed on the March 4 incident, not on March 4, though. When I found out about it on March 

9. That is my assumption. March 9, when I found out about it 

was—— 
82 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who was briefed? 

Mr. CLANCY. The Deputy Chief of staff. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And who briefed him? 

Mr. CLANCY. The special agent—no, I am sorry. Initially, I did 

via an email, and I think the special agent in charge may have followed up on that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you sent an email to the Deputy Chief 

of Staff. Who is the Deputy Chief of Staff? 

Mr. CLANCY. Anita Breckenridge. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have you ever spoken with Metropolitan 

Police Chief Lanier regarding this incident? 

Mr. CLANCY. I have not. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have you ever visited with her? 

Mr. CLANCY. I have not. We had a—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You are the director of the Secret Service. 

She is the Chief of Police. 

Mr. CLANCY. And can I just say that we did have a meeting 

scheduled, and it was—there was a conflict. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have been in this position for 6 months 

as the acting and current director, and you are—you have never 

had a personal conversation with the Chief of Police for the Metropolitan Police Department? 

Mr. CLANCY. Since I have been back, I have not had a personal—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. In the last 6 months. 

Mr. CLANCY. That is correct. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And not about this incident. 

Mr. CLANCY. And not about this incident. Again, there is interaction all the time with Metro around the White House complex. 

There are issues every day. There are arrests every day. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I just don’t understand when the principals 

don’t talk to each other. 

Mr. CLANCY. And I don’t think the Chief would want me to call 

every time we have an incident at the White House complex. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But I would think there would be some 

open lines of communication, some indication that—do you all even 

know each other, and that you have each other’s telephone number. 

What time did the Protective Intelligence Operations Center 

alert Secret Service personnel about the bomb—about the email 

about the bomb threat? I believe the answer is 11:12 p.m., correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. This is 47 minutes after the package was 

dropped and 15 minutes after the crime scene was disrupted. Who 

drafted the alert? 

Mr. CLANCY. Protective Intelligence Division would draft the 

alert. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you have a specific name or title? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you think it was complete? 

Mr. CLANCY. I think based on the information they received it 

was complete. I don’t—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have reviewed this. 

Mr. CLANCY. I am sorry? 
83 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have reviewed this. You have gone 

back, looked at it. 

Mr. CLANCY. I have read the PIOC alert, yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Why didn’t this alert contain information 

about the suspicious package barrier being breached by Mr. 

Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know that they were aware of it. I don’t 

know that the Protective Intelligence Division was aware of it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. They are watching this on—there is a live 

feed of this, correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. There is, yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And nobody notices that a car kind of just 

drives right through the scene? 

Mr. CLANCY. They may have noticed it. I can’t answer, but I do 

know—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is why we are going to drag these 

people in and have a discussion with them. We tried to invite Mr. 

Buster, Kimberly Tello, Thomas Rizza, and Michael Braun, very 

senior people within the organization. Did the witnesses we sent 

invitations to for this hearing personally receive those invitations? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know that answer. I know they were aware, 

but I don’t have the answer if they personally received them. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. How do you know that they were aware of 

it? 

Mr. CLANCY. Because I know that some of our people have talked 

to them. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But not you. 

Mr. CLANCY. I have not. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did they personally decline? 

Mr. CLANCY. Did they personally? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Decline to come testify before Congress. 

Mr. CLANCY. I was not involved in those conversations, but I—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Whose decision—— 

Mr. CLANCY [continuing]. Don’t know if they were asked. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Whose decision was it to not allow witnesses invited to testify before this Committee? Who made that decision? 

Mr. CLANCY. Ultimately, it is my decision. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Why is it your decision? 

Mr. CLANCY. They work in the Secret Service, and it is my responsibility to make those decisions. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So you told them not to come testify before 

Congress. 

Mr. CLANCY. I didn’t specifically tell them. Through our staffs I 

said, working with the department, that we would not provide 

them in this open hearing. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Why? 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, I was focused on this open hearing, and I 

didn’t think it was proper to have them in an open hearing giving 

testimony which would—as we have heard today, the morale in the 

Secret Service among many people is not where it should be. And 

as we bring out—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Are you concerned that it would have been 

embarrassing? 
84 

Mr. CLANCY. I am concerned that some of the information that 

would have been released would have generated a lot more conversation within the ranks, and they would have said, well, if those 

four were brought up, why didn’t we have others, or why were they 

representatives, or their story doesn’t sound right. It might taint 

others that have to be investigated or interviewed. So there is a 

number of things that would have—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So instead of transparency, you opted for 

just keep it close to the vest and don’t provide that transparency, 

correct? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. I wanted—again, I—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You wanted one filter point. 

Mr. CLANCY. I wanted the Office of the Inspector General to give 

them some—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We will go back to the conversation that we 

had. Did you or your staff have any conversations with any White 

House officials regarding their appearance? 

Mr. CLANCY. With the White—no. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You had no conversations with anybody at 

the White House. 

Mr. CLANCY. No. My conversations were with—actually, it was 

through my staff, with the Department of Homeland Security. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who at the Department of Homeland Security? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can’t answer who at the Department of—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Was it Mr. Mayorkas? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. I did not speak to Mr. Mayorkas regarding—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Will you give us the answer to that later? 

Mr. CLANCY. I will research that. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When will you give us that answer? 

Mr. CLANCY. We should be able to get that this afternoon, I 

would assume. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. That would be great. 

If we invite these individuals, and others within the Secret Service, if we invite them in for transcribed interviews, will you provide 

these individuals to the Committee? 

Mr. CLANCY. I will. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Will you provide all personnel we request 

to the Committee for transcribed interviews? 

Mr. CLANCY. With the department, I will certainly work through 

this. But I answered—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You are the director. 

Mr. CLANCY. I am the director under the Department of Homeland Security. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Can you make this decision by yourself? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can take responsibility for it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Can you make this decision by yourself? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, we would have to see. We would have to see. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What does it depend on? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am sorry? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Is it Jeh Johnson that makes the decision? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Is it the President that makes the decision? 

Who makes the decision? 
85 

Mr. CLANCY. I would seriously doubt this raises to that level. I 

would imagine—again, I am assuming—that it gets to the legal offices, and decisions are made there. And I don’t know if they are 

looking at precedent. I don’t know what they might look at there. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Why haven’t you fully responded to the 

Committee’s letter, done in a very bipartisan way, the letter of 

March 19 for our document request? 

Mr. CLANCY. I think some of that takes time to acquire all—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you intend to fully comply with it? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, we do. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. By what timeframe? 

Mr. CLANCY. I can’t answer that. I know the intent was to try 

to have it ready completely by today. But some of these things it 

just takes time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have you had conversations with Homeland Security about the fulfillment of these requests? 

Mr. CLANCY. Our staff, I would assume, has. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Is anybody else in the administration clearing or approving your response to the Committee? 

Mr. CLANCY. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But Homeland Security is. 

Mr. CLANCY. Homeland Security is looking at the work and the 

decisions that we make, yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Anybody at the White House? 

Mr. CLANCY. Not that I am aware of. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Why haven’t you provided the Committee 

a detailed description and timeline of when you became aware of 

the alleged misconduct or other events of March 4? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know. I thought I was forthright in the testimony today of what my account of that day was. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. We need a more complete timeline. You 

have yet to provide a list of all the personnel on duty or otherwise 

involved in the response on March 4. Is that something you will 

provide to the Committee? 

Mr. CLANCY. We will. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t have a timeframe for that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What is reasonable? 

Mr. CLANCY. Depends. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. It shouldn’t be that hard to tell who is on 

duty. 

Mr. CLANCY. No, it shouldn’t be that hard, so I would assume by 

the early—early tomorrow. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That would be great. We appreciate it. 

Thank you. 

Let me ask you, when you were the special agent in charge of 

the Presidential Protective Detail, the PPD, did you ever have a 

situation in which a lower level agent or officer raised concerns 

about security at the White House complex? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, I am assuming yes, because I was pretty open 

talking to officers. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. How did you respond? 

Mr. CLANCY. This is when I was a special agent in charge? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 
86 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, I—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. How did you deal with those? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, I would talk frankly with them, what is your 

concern, what can we do, what vulnerability do you see, have you 

talked to your chain of command, I am glad you came to me, but 

be—you should be comfortable going through your chain of command. But I don’t think it would be unusual for me to say, ‘‘I won’t 

talk to you.’’ 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you think you encouraged junior officers 

or agents to raise concerns up the chain of command? 

Mr. CLANCY. I think I did, and I think my manner was the same 

as it is today, that I am very—I would think very approachable. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. What is a fireable offense? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, something that would require your security 

clearance to be removed if you have something that might affect 

national security in terms of your relations with foreign nationals. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did you take any disciplinary action regarding the failure to report misconduct by your staff? 

Mr. CLANCY. In this case, I have not at this point. Well, the 

only—it is not discipline, but I did move the two individuals involved until we get through this investigation. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. At the time of the March 4 incident, what 

was the Secret Service policy for driving a government vehicle after 

drinking alcohol? 

Mr. CLANCY. At the time of the incident, you cannot drive a government vehicle under the influence of alcohol. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Can you have a drink? What level is acceptable? 

Mr. CLANCY. The way the policy reads, going off memory here, 

is that if you are impaired, if you have—you are not able to control 

your actions. So it is not a legal limit. It is not the legal limit. So, 

in other words, it could be less. You may not be intoxicated by a 

legal limit, but someone could say that you don’t have proper abilities. 

Mr. GOWDY. Will the Chairman yield for a question? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Has the Chairman or the Ranking Member been 

able to establish who asked Agents Connolly and Ogilvie to respond 

to the scene? 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, I don’t know the facts of this case. What I 

have heard—and, again, at this point, some are news reports and 

so much information, but I am told that they were returning to retrieve a vehicle. They were not responding back to the White 

house. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Can you determine somebody’s level of intoxication based on a phone call? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t think so. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you know how many people attended 

the retirement party of March 4? 

Mr. CLANCY. I do not. 

Mr. GOWDY. Will the Chairman yield for another question? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. Director, I am trying to understand this dichotomy 

between the inspector general and you. Does the inspector general 
87 

have jurisdiction to issue subpoenas to people outside the Secret 

Service? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know that answer. 

Mr. GOWDY. Does the inspector general have jurisdiction to interview former agents? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am assuming he can ask. They are private citizens. 

Mr. GOWDY. But the answer might very well be different, right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Different in which way, sir? 

Mr. GOWDY. Different from a current agent than a former agent. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. You can’t discipline a former agent. 

Mr. CLANCY. You are absolutely—— 

Mr. GOWDY. Does the inspector general have the power to subpoena, say, surveillance video or credit card receipts from a bar, 

hypothetically, where a retirement party may have taken place? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. So the inspector general does have subpoena power. 

Mr. CLANCY. My understanding is they do. My understanding is 

they are 1811s. They are investigators. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, my understanding was that they had less 

power than even you would have to investigate your own folks, 

which is why I am kind of wondering, and I am sure the Chairman 

is headed there, why you would stand down your investigation of 

agents in lieu of the inspector general who has no authority over 

former agents at all. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. I may be wrong on that in terms of the subpoena power, but I believe they are investigators and we can confirm that. And also, looking at the Management Directive from the 

Department of Homeland Security, specifically says that you have 

to stand down with your investigation. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Let me jump in on this, and we can come 

back if that is all right with the gentleman. So I understand that 

the Washington field office requested the video the morning after 

the incident, within the 72-hour period whereby the video should 

be retained. Why were the videos then erased if they were requested within that period? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am not aware of that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you think it is suspicious? 

Mr. CLANCY. From what I understand of the process, it does not 

seem suspicious to me, first of all, no. You can argue that that loop 

every 72 hours, you can argue that that is not enough. But we are 

not in the position where we delete—we intentionally delete film. 

It is a matter of just selecting what you think is pertinent to the 

incident. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. By the way, the Washington field office requested, and something that you actually did produce to this Committee, but how many different videos or angles have you reviewed? 

Mr. CLANCY. I would say the same—well, I would say including 

the lady who—yes, I would say three, four. I don’t know. I know 

there were five clips. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Right. 

Mr. CLANCY. So there may have been five views, very similar—— 
88 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When did you first get to the see the videos? 

Mr. CLANCY. Again, the days, I don’t know when the days are. 

I know I saw it before—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. It is kind of important. 

Mr. CLANCY [continuing]. Before you saw it. I wanted to see what 

we were going to present to your Committee. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. By the way, the timeline, Thursday, March 

5, 10:40 a.m., WFO requests a copy of the surveillance video recording of the incident, is where this comes from. 

Would it have been U.S. Secret Service policy to train cameras 

on the alleged misconduct by Mr. Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie in the 

event—in the evening of March 4? 

Mr. CLANCY. I wouldn’t say it is policy, but I think if there is an 

incident the watch commander has to decide what an incident is, 

and then he calls back to the Joint Operations Center and says, 

‘‘Preserve this video,’’ if he saw—whatever he sees as an incident. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have you discussed providing custody of 

the video to our Committee with Homeland Security? 

Mr. CLANCY. I have not personally, but I believe our staff has. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have you communicated with the White 

House, you or your staff, on possession of the video? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, not that I am aware of. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You said you sent an email to the White 

House Chief of Staff regarding the Deputy Chief of Staff on the 

March 4 incident. Did it reference that your staff had interrupted 

a crime scene? 

Mr. CLANCY. It referenced—yes, it—I think the way I phrased it 

was that two individuals drove through the secure zone. I think 

that is it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did you receive a response? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am trying to recall if I spoke to the Deputy Chief 

of Staff or the special agent in charge did. I don’t honestly remember. I know I did speak to the deputy special agent—I am sorry, 

to the Deputy Chief of Staff. But I don’t know if the SAIC spoke 

to her first. I don’t know that timeframe. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So, but you did speak with her. 

Mr. CLANCY. I spoke to her, yes. Yes. I don’t know the timeframe, 

though. I honestly don’t know the timeframe. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But you will get that to us? 

Mr. CLANCY. I will look for it. I didn’t keep notes, but I will look 

for when I may have spoken to her. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And will you give us a copy of the email 

you sent? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. Sure. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who in the Joint Operations Center would 

have been responsible for real-time flagging of the video during the 

March 4 incident? Who at the Joint Operations Center is responsible for that? 

Mr. CLANCY. There is an on-duty supervisor at the Joint Operations Center that—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You have a forensic services division, correct, at the—— 

Mr. CLANCY. We do. 
89 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Have they been engaged in this? 

Mr. CLANCY. I think everyone has been trying to retrieve these 

videos. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. When you say ‘‘everyone’’—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, I am sorry. I should be more concise. I know 

that when we didn’t have these videos available that you requested 

we brought in some of our people from cyber investigations, as well 

as some of our people from our technical side, as well as the manufacturer. I directed the staff—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So did you engage the forensic services division? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know personally who—I just don’t know. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who gave orders on which tapes to preserve, which to not, during the March 4 timeframe? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know that answer. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who should have been responsible for that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I would—there is a sergeant, a lieutenant in the 

Joint Operations Center, as well as a GS–14 supervisor. And the 

watch commander decides who or what—what is an incident, and 

typically, as I understand it, would call back and make that request. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Recognize the gentleman from South Carolina. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly, and then I 

want to go to the gentleman of North Carolina who has done so 

much work on this issue. 

Director, I am a little bit vexed as to whether or not these two 

agents were on duty or not. I am sure that you have policies on 

the consumption of alcohol while you are on duty, and I don’t know 

whether or not either of these agents consumed alcohol. Do you? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know if they consumed alcohol. That will be 

a matter of the investigation. It will come out. 

Mr. GOWDY. What we do know is that they either responded to 

a crime scene, which would be problematic because they potentially 

contaminated a crime scene, or, secondarily, they were unaware 

and they just can’t drive worth a damn and drove over a barricade, 

neither of which would be good scenarios, right? 

Mr. CLANCY. That is correct. 

Mr. GOWDY. I continue—and then I want to go to the gentleman 

from North Carolina—I continue, honestly, to not understand this 

desire/willingness of government agencies to stand down for the inspector general and suspend their own internal investigations. I 

just—you have been an investigator for how long? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, I have been in the business 27 years. 

Mr. GOWDY. All right. Twenty-seven years. If you saw two GS– 

15s fighting in the parking lot, would you call the inspector general? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, we call the inspector general, and then it is 

their option whether to take it or give it back to our agency. They 

could have refused to investigate and give it back to us, but I 

think, again, in an effort to try to be transparent, you know—and, 

again, I am required to do that by the Department of Homeland 

Security’s memorandum. 
90 

Mr. GOWDY. But if there were an ongoing theft, just an ongoing 

theft of, say, a vending machine at your headquarters, you wouldn’t 

call the inspector general. Wouldn’t you interrupt that theft? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, that one would not be required, because it is 

not a GS–15. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, what if it were a GS–15? 

Mr. CLANCY. If it is a GS–15, we could notify the OIG, and then 

they could make a decision on—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I cannot believe that in the throes of an ongoing 

crime you would notify the inspector general. I mean, we trust you 

to protect the life of the President of the United States, and you 

can’t investigate a suspected drunk driving? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, we would investigate the incident that—of the 

protective interest, which is the female with the bomb. That is 

ours, and we would take that. With regard to misconduct, that is 

something that we would offer to the special agent—or to the OIG. 

Mr. GOWDY. Well, I am going to say this in conclusion, and then 

I am going to give the time to the gentleman from North Carolina, 

it is great to correct and punish misconduct after the fact. It is 

even better to prevent it in the first place. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. GOWDY. And there is not a person here who does not want 

to see you successful, Director. Not a single person on either side 

of the aisle does not want to see you successful. I just don’t think 

this is a training issue, and I don’t think it is a resource issue. But 

you have got to get to the bottom of whatever is pervading the culture, and I hope you can because it is a venerable, well-respected 

agency, and I hate to participate in hearings like this. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. I reclaim my time. 

Director, it was, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, 11 minutes after a suspect has dropped what might be a 

bomb on the gate of the White House with the President in the residence. It takes 11 minutes to call Metro Police Department. Why 

does it take so long? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But how do you not know? This is what is 

so infuriating. You are the director of the Secret Service. It is almost 3 weeks after the incident, and you don’t know why it takes 

11 minutes to pick up the phone and say, ‘‘Hey, Metro Police Department, we have got a problem down here and we need your 

help.’’ It takes 27 minutes to secure the scene, 27 minutes. What 

if it was a real bomb? What if it was a real bomb? 

Mr. CLANCY. Mr. Chairman, I have been at the White House 

complex when we have cordoned off areas, when we have secured 

zones, and it happens very rapidly from my—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But this didn’t, and this is the most recent 

example. Why didn’t it happen? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know, and—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Who are you holding accountable? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, we are going to wait—we are not going to—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. You are going to wait. That is the problem. 

Mr. CLANCY. We are going to wait and not—— 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is the problem: we are going to wait. 
91 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is the problem. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That is the problem. It took you 30 minutes—30 minutes—to be on the lookout for a woman who dropped 

a package at the White House and said, ‘‘This is a bomb.’’ I want 

her taken down. I want a net to go over that city. I want her in 

custody immediately. You take 11 minutes to call Metro Police Department, you take 27 minutes to secure the area, and you take 30 

minutes to say, ‘‘Hey, we have got a problem here.’’ 

You get an officer behind the right car and they get waved off. 

They didn’t pull them over. You said you had the license plate 

number. We spent millions of dollars building a video capability. 

Somebody can’t push rewind and go see what that car make, 

model, and license plate is? Don’t we trust that officer who had 

that person in their sight and say, ‘‘Go ahead and pull them over 

until we clear this up.’’ But, no, that is not what happened. 

Then, you go out to Virginia, you find the person and the agents 

say, ‘‘Well, we don’t—we can’t really arrest this person.’’ This is 

somebody who had already come in contact with us, and the problem is, you are still waiting. We are not playing games. 

This is the life, safety, and security of the President of the 

United States and the White House. Don’t let anybody get in that 

gate. And when they come to the gate and they have got a bomb, 

and they say they have a bomb, believe them. Take them down. 

Take them down. That is what I want to see. I want to see determination. I want those officers and those agents to know we have 

got their back. You take those people down. You do not let that 

happen. 

This is the United States of America. The threat is real, but I 

don’t feel it, I don’t see it, and it is unacceptable. 

Time has expired. Yield to the gentleman from Maryland. 

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

Mr. Clancy, I want to just go back for a few minutes, because 

when all of the dust settles the question is—when all of the dust 

settles, is the President of the United States and his family and all 

of the other protectees safe? 

Mr. CLANCY. The President, the White House, the First Family, 

is safe. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And tell us why you say that. 

Mr. CLANCY. I have protected four Presidents. Four Presidents 

who apparently respect the work that I have done. I have directly 

protected Presidents. I know what it takes to protect Presidents 

and their families, and I know that we are not a perfect agency. 

And this is not a perfect science. 

When you look at the number of sites that we have per year, you 

look at the 36,000 people that come through that White House 

every month, we know what we are doing. But do we make mistakes? Yes, we do. We make mistakes, and we followup on them. 

Our mistakes, compared to the number of visits that we have 

throughout a year, 5,700 sites in 1 year, we have got a pretty good 

track record. Doesn’t mean that we have got to—we have a problem 

here, definitely have a problem. We are going to fix it. 
92 

But it is not that all of our practices are off or our foundation 

is bad. We have just got to get—do a better job of training our people and responding quicker to some of these events. I could list several very positive events where we have saved lives, where we have 

responded very quickly to individuals who wanted to climb the 

fence. I could cite numerous examples of that. But I know that 

today we are looking at the—this negative incident. 

But I am confident that because of the good work that is being 

done by the vast majority of our people that the President is safe, 

the First Family is safe, and the White House is safe. But it is not 

an easy task. It is a challenge in an urban environment. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. A little earlier I said that when I looked at the 

memo, the email, the anonymous email, that it made me realize 

that—or believe that we had an agency in war with itself. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you understand why I say that? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. There is conflict within the agency. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The idea that someone would even create the 

email, would create it, put it out there—let us assume it is not 

true. That makes it even worse—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS [continuing]. To put it out there. You know, there 

used to be a—when I was a kid, there was a saying that said, 

‘‘When two elephants fight, the ground suffers.’’ And the point is 

is that when people are involved in conflict, and that is distracting—I know that is—from the mission—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS [continuing]. That is a problem. Would you agree? 

Mr. CLANCY. Absolutely. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Just the idea that somebody would put that out 

there. 

Mr. CLANCY. It is a reflection on all of us that we are not—there 

is not enough trust within the agency that you can’t bring things 

up through the agency. Somehow we have got to regain that trust. 

Rather than going out and doing an anonymous email, bring it to 

someone’s attention. 

And, again, we have so many avenues that we have created so 

that you can do that, even outside your chain of command, use 

these hotlines and ombudsmen and—or call me directly. I have had 

people directly contact me with issues that they have, and then I 

have followed up on them. 

So, and to the work force that is listening today, if you are not 

getting results, contact me so that we can get results. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. What is the—you know, I think one of the things 

that becomes frustrating for a lot of us up here is that—is something I sent to you a little bit earlier. It is one thing when you have 

one incident here, then maybe 2 years go by and you have a little 

incident there. But when you see them and they just keep coming, 

keep coming, keep coming, that is when you move into that zone 

of culture. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And It seems like the problems, because they 

keep coming, it seems like we are not maybe digging down deep 

enough to try to get to that ongoing situation. 
93 

Now, hold that point, and let me go to number 2 with that. One 

of the things you also talked about, and Congresswoman Eleanor 

Holmes Norton talked about, was this overtime and the fact that 

people can’t even get a day off and all that. And all of that—and 

I am sure that plays a role. But help us try to understand how you 

see it. 

I mean, you have got to be sitting there scratching your head 

saying, OK, it is one thing after another. Is it—am I digging deep 

enough to get to the problems? What else do I have to do? I mean, 

when you look at all that you have seen, what—I am sure you see 

some daylight at the end. The question is: how do you see yourself 

getting to that daylight? 

And when I say ‘‘that daylight’’ I mean bringing the agency back 

to the level of integrity that it once held. And how do you do that? 

I mean, how do you see yourself doing it? And can you see yourself 

accomplishing that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I am trying to stay the course. I am trying to stay 

the course of what we have started 30 days ago when I was named 

the director. As an acting director, you do some things, you make 

some changes, but you are not the permanent director. And to be 

honest with you, I thought if they brought in someone else, they 

would want to bring in their own team, bring in their own restructuring, and I didn’t want to extend too far out until I was the director. 

And now in the last 30 days, I want to stay this course of trying 

to do all we can to hire this staffing. That is the biggest issue we 

have. And I admit there are other issues we have got to work on 

with the way we have handled this incident. But if we handle this 

staffing problem, I honestly believe it is going to help the morale 

a little bit. When people start to get days off, then they are more 

excited to work as a team and get back into the business. But that 

is something we have just got to fix, the staffing and the communication. I can’t say it enough and I know it doesn’t mean maybe 

a lot here as I speak to the committee, but we have been stressing 

with all of our officials in Uniform Division, as well as my executive staff. And I have personally tried to engage people, engage 

them and make them feel comfortable to talk to us and try to make 

this agency better. 

It is that 1 percent. And I have said this to our roll call. It is 

the 1-percent that is tearing down the 99 percent and it is that 99 

percent who has got to stand up to that 1 percent. And that is what 

I am asking our work force to do. If you see someone starting to 

go south on their professional or personal conduct, then that 99 

percent has got to straighten it out. That person in that vicinity 

has to grab that individual and say that is not what we do. And 

somehow I need the help of the work force, too, besides the supervisors, I need the help of the work force to stand up for that agency 

and make it the way it was so many years ago. 

And one last thing, I know I am talking too much here, but 

again, we are talking about some very negative things here, but 

there are so many wonderful, wonderful agents and officers, these 

professional people—I am sorry. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I agree with you. They are great agents. And I 

have talked to a number of them and as a matter of fact, I had one 
94 

visit with me not long ago. And this was an agent who has been 

around for a good while. As a matter of fact, he is about to retire. 

But he really wanted to make sure that the Agency got back to 

that place that I just talked about. 

And the reason why I ask you these questions is because I am 

trying to figure out can we—I mean it seems as if some people 

probably have to go. And do you understand that? That there may 

be some people who maybe this is not where they need to be or 

maybe they are good people, but it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily good for this Agency. 

Mr. CLANCY. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And so I mean how do you make those determinations? I mean how do you come to that? How do you come to 

those kind of decisions? And do you feel that you can make those 

decisions? If you know somebody, known them for 20 years, I mean 

it is—— 

Mr. CLANCY. I have made that decision with some people that we 

did offer some other positions in DHS. Again, good people, but I 

wanted this fresh look and this aggressive work that we need to 

have done on the upper levels. If we can set a tone, if we can set 

a tone at the upper levels, that is going to filter down. Not only 

the work ethic, but the professionalism, but also this idea of trust. 

I am a great believer in trust. You have got to try to through 

your actions, through your actions, gain trust of people. I think we 

just have to—it is going to take time. But I am not giving up. It 

is going to take time. But we are going to have to just keep working through it. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now Chief Lanier had told the committee that 

30 minutes was a quick time response. Do you see that as quick, 

30 minutes? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know. I can’t evaluate the chief’s force. But 

ideally, we want them there as soon as possible. We have our own 

people on the complex. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Is there a bomb expert inside? 

Mr. CLANCY. Inside the complex, but not for the metropolitan 

streets. Not for the District. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But inside the White House. 

Mr. CLANCY. It is actually in the—I believe it is in the NEOB, 

the New Executive Office Building, so they can respond within 

minutes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. A question also came up with regard to the IG. 

And according to code, the IG does have the—the IG is authorized 

to require by subpoena the production of all the information, documents, reports, answers, records, accounts, papers, and other data. 

Did you know that? Were you aware of that? 

Mr. CLANCY. I made an assumption and an answer to an earlier 

question, I thought that they could, yes. They are 1811s. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, I just want to make sure that we are clear 

on that. 

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Tell me, describe your relationship with—between the relationship between the Secret Service and the Metropolitan Police Department. 
95 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, with our Washington Field Office, the Agentin-Charge or Washington Field Office, they work very closely with 

the Metropolitan Police Department. And I can see it myself as I 

walk around the White House, as we have protestors and incidents 

at the White House. They are very responsive. I can see them in 

force. It is actually very comforting as just maybe it was a week 

ago, 2 weeks ago, I walked down, it was St. Patrick’s Sunday, I 

think, I walked around—or that weekend. We had a St. Patrick’s 

Day Parade, and there was a Syrian protest group and there was 

a large crowd on the north fence line. And the Metropolitan Police 

was there offering a lot of support. 

And I remember talking to some of the officers as I walked 

around. My view, it is much better than it was from years ago. So 

I think the relationship was very strong, but their support has 

been very helpful to us. I think there is a very good relationship. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what has their communications been? How 

has that been between your agency and theirs? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, at the level with the Washington Field Office, 

it has been very good. But to the chairman’s point I agree that I 

should have made more of an effort to meet with Commissioner Lanier. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you plan to do that any time soon? 

Mr. CLANCY. I do. It is on the schedule for maybe next week. I 

can’t remember off the top of my head, but I know that it had been 

canceled, and then we had another event that we were going to 

have a table top exercise and that had to be canceled, so we have 

missed a couple of opportunities, but that is on me. I should have 

made more of an effort to reach out to the chief. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now going back to the incidents of March 4th, 

I understand what you were saying when you said that you were 

concerned. You turned this investigation over to the IG. Do you 

think your Agency, if you had the authority, could have done the 

investigation? 

Mr. CLANCY. Absolutely. I think we could have done it much faster. I think we would have worked, again, I don’t want to cast judgment on the OIG. I am sure they are doing a very good, thorough 

job, and that is why we gave it to them, but we would have worked 

on this very quickly. But I didn’t want that view. The concern was 

that it is the Service taking over their investigation of their people 

and then I just didn’t want to take that chance. And again, I am 

required to give it to the OIG. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I understand that. But I have heard you say this 

many times about being concerned about—first of all, you had a 

duty to do it, but putting that aside, this idea of the perception—— 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Talk about that for a minute, the perception that 

if you had gotten involved. Because I have heard you say this now 

at least five or six times. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, I just wanted to be as transparent. Maybe the 

best example I can give you is I know many members wanted an 

outsider in this position so that that outsider could make decisions. 

So here we have this incident and I have reached to an outsider 

to investigate. And now I am being told that it should have been 

an insider, us, to do it. So I am trying to be transparent here. 
96 

I admit that being new in the role that there is a lot for me to 

learn and I am going to learn from my mistakes, but I did want 

to be transparent. I just didn’t want to have any indication that we 

were tainting the investigation. And that is why again right or 

wrong, I compartmentalized things and said OK, the OIG has got 

it, let me focus on the protection of the White House today and tomorrow and future trips, the First Lady who is making a trip overseas. 

There are so many other issues and threats that are coming in 

and this is my third hearing and I had the closed hearing, too. As 

you can imagine, that takes considerable amount of time from some 

of my other duties that I am concerned that are in the future here. 

And I have got to focus on these like the Pope’s visit, and the campaign. These are things that I should be looking at now, in advance, to make sure that we don’t go down the wrong path. And 

again, it is on us. We put ourselves in this position, I realize that. 

But it has taken a considerable amount of my time to look back 

when I was content, at this point, to let the OIG do that investigation so I could, I had hoped to be able to focus on the protection 

today and our future events. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You know, I told you that one of my concerns all 

along here is that, and I think you are getting a feel that it is probably the concerns of a number of us is that in the process of waiting for the OIG to come back with their findings, recommendations, 

and what have you, that the President still has to be seen. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And a lot of the concern went to if there are 

things that could be threatening to the safety and welfare of the 

President and the family and all the others that you protect, 

whether while we are waiting something could not be happening. 

Now let me finish. You had mentioned to me, you had told us that 

you were going to go back a few days later to the OIG and be in 

contact with them as to things that they could let you know that 

would allow you, if they being serious enough to be able to act with 

regard to disciplinary issues. Did you have that conversation? 

Mr. CLANCY. I did not have a second conversation with the OIG. 

I will say that as a result of what I do know here where these 

agents drove through the secure zone, we had our assistant director for training. We gave him the task of going back out and looking at our model for incident commands, what do we do when we 

have an incident like this? Are we securing the zone properly? Is 

the communication done properly? So that directive has gone out 

from my office to the training director. So we are looking at this 

from where we are now from the outside. And just from that, we 

know there are things that we can do better and we are addressing 

those. The piece that is missing, primarily, is the accountability 

piece, and that comes when we get the definitive facts as they come 

through. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now you were going to, you told the chairman 

that you were going to produce certain witnesses. Now I am not 

trying to put words in your mouth now, let me finish. I want to 

make sure we are all on the same page and I want to make sure 

you said what I think you said, that you are going to produce cer-
97 

tain witnesses for interviews. Is that right? Is that your understanding? 

Mr. CLANCY. I have to go back to the Department, but that will 

be my recommendation that if we go back to the Department and 

not in open hearing though. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. 

Mr. CLANCY. We will do it in a closed hearing. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. 

Mr. CLANCY. And do it in that mode. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And would that satisfy your concerns with regard to interfering with the IG? And by the way, we told the IG 

that we would work with them so as we would avoid those kinds 

of problems. 

Mr. CLANCY. It would satisfy my concerns. In all candor, that 

will go through the work force and they will know who has been 

brought in, who hasn’t, and it generates a lot of chatter, but it 

would satisfy my concerns. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. But you know, when you say it would cause a 

lot of chatter, a lot of chatter is going to be caused no matter what 

because the IG has to interview the same people we want to interview. You understand that, right? 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. If you are going to do all the interviews they 

are doing, yes, sure. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. We probably will do quite a few interviews. And 

so what is the difference? 

Mr. CLANCY. There may not be, Congressman, in a closed hearing. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes, I am talking about closed. Yes, I am talking 

about closed. So what can you tell us, so if you were working with 

the IG, you said that if you had done the investigation, it would 

have been much faster. Is that right? 

Mr. CLANCY. That is my view. Again, it would be an assumption, 

but knowing that we would throw all of the assets that we have 

available, we would take investigators, we would empty out our Internal Affairs and 24 hours a day, we would follow through on this 

to get it done so we can act on it quicker. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now when you have a shortage of manpower, 

how do you deal with that? You talked about all the vacancies. I 

still can’t get over this 45,000 people. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. When we have a shortage of manpower, 

operationally, we pull people in. Just as an example, at the White 

House now, the Uniform Division, as we have discussed is short in 

terms of manpower. So we have brought in agents to assist in some 

of these positions until they get up to staff. And we are working 

toward building up their staff. In fact, this year we should hire approximately 192 officers, maybe a little bit more to bring them on. 

Now the key here is the retention piece of it. It is one thing to 

bring them on, but if we lose a hundred, then our increase is not 

as great as we would like. So we are looking at both, not just the 

hiring, we are looking at retention matters, too. Should there be bonuses available, retention bonuses? We are looking at other options, too, looking at annuitants, people who have retired. Can we 

bring them back in some kind of a role with our Uniform Division? 
98 

So we are looking at as many different options available to try to 

buildup our staff and that is where we are. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Does it surprise that out of 45,000 people, you 

can’t get a few? I mean does that surprise you? 

Mr. CLANCY. It absolutely does. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And you said mainly because of drugs. 

Mr. CLANCY. Primarily because of drugs. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And when you say drugs, do you mean a history 

of drugs or they come in for a drug test and they are still on drugs? 

Mr. CLANCY. Very often it is through the polygraph examination, 

when they are asked questions through the polygraph examinations, there are admissions to possibly selling drugs or having some 

kind of a past, crime in the past or something. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Let us say if somebody is asked have you ever 

used marijuana? And they say, yes, I used it in high school and 

now they are 27 years old. What happens to that person? In other 

words, is that the kind of thing that disqualify them? 

Mr. CLANCY. I don’t know that I can go into specifics for each 

one. Because, I am sorry, others may hear that—— 

Mr. CUMMINGS. I got you. So it is a major problem though. 

Mr. CLANCY. It is a dilemma, but we have to go through that in 

order to get good people. We are willing to—we are not going to 

compromise our hiring standards. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Right. 

Mr. CLANCY. Because we have got to get good people. Now the 

thing I have got to battle with, we have done all this vetting and 

it takes seven or 8 months and they go through the polygraph and 

the background checks and they get this Top Secret clearance, 

where do we lose them when they get to the 10-year mark, the 15- 

year mark? Why are they not—why do they write to the members? 

Why are they disgruntled? Why are they not reporting up through 

the chain of command? That is something I have got to find a solution to that because we are getting good people on the front end. 

And again, I am so sorry to keep saying this, but again, we are 

looking at a smaller element. Our work force is listening to this, 

probably saying hey, this isn’t the work force I know. But there is 

an element that we have got to do a better job of reaching. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do we have to do a better job of making sure 

that the people in the supervisory roles are well selected? Because 

I have told you several times I have been sitting for years on the 

board of the Naval Academy. And one of the things I have noticed 

is that they are very—the students are very selective about who 

has leadership roles up and down the ranks. And it is earned. People have earned trust. People have shown good examples. And it 

is not a I am going to scratch your back and you scratch mine, 

none of that. But I am just wondering, are you looking at how you 

are elevating people because you can have people at the top, but 

if you have got folks in supervisory roles, for example, who might 

say to officers rank and file don’t conduct a sobriety test, hypothetically. We are still figuring all this out. 

Mr. CLANCY. Right. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. That is pretty bad because then you have got the 

person who is trying to do their job being told not to do their job. 

You are talking about something that would be harmful to morale 
99 

and at the same time take away from the mission. That is a hell 

of a dilemma. So are you looking at how you promote people and 

trying to make sure you have the right people in the right positions? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, a couple of things. I know some things that 

have taken place in the time that I was not in the Service when 

I had left. To make it more objective, there is testing. So you have 

got to either pass the test or you don’t pass the test to go on to 

the next level. So that prevents someone from just tapping their 

friend and saying you are going to be a supervisor. So you have got 

to get through that test. But beyond that, we have got to do more 

training with those supervisors we have in place today. We have 

got to do more ongoing training so that they engage their work 

force. I am just thinking of the Uniform Division, for example. 

Those officials need to be walking around that complex as much as 

possible, engaging their employees, testing our employees. Go up to 

the officers and say OK, if this happens, what are you going to do? 

I often give the example, you know, if you have ever played baseball, you sit out there in right field and you are thinking about 

what if it is a ground ball or what if it is a fly ball, what am I 

going to do with the ball? Well, that is what we have to do in our 

line of work. I think you have always got to be thinking about if 

this happens, what is my reaction so that you are not slow in reacting. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Yes. My time is running out, but let me say that 

first of all to the men and women of the Secret Service, I want to 

thank them for what they do. And I have watched them whenever 

they are around. I mean I have just seen phenomenal professionalism. But when these things happen, you are right, it just 

takes away from all of those folks who are doing a great job. And 

I am hoping that they will accept your directions. And that is that 

if there are people who are not doing the right things, that they 

themselves will weed them out, like they do in the Naval Academy. 

They will weed them out in a minute because they want to make 

sure that they keep this elite organization elite and maintain that 

reputation. They want to make sure that the reputation matches 

the performance. 

So again, I want to thank you, but I have got to tell you, as I 

have said many times, we have got a high-powered microscope on 

this agency. 

Mr. CLANCY. I understand. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And we will not rest in a bipartisan way. We will 

not rest until we get back to where we need to be. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Clancy, thank you 

for being here. We appreciate this very much. I want to reiterate 

what Representative Gowdy said earlier and that is that we all 

want to see you succeed, we do. We truly, sincerely bipartisanly. 

We want to see you succeed and we hope that you will do that. Unfortunately, off to a bad start. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 
100 

Mr. CARTER. And that happens, OK? Let me ask you something. 

When your agency hires a new employee, can you tell me what the 

process—how much time it usually takes when you hire a new employee, the amount of time? 

Mr. CLANCY. Well, to go through the hiring process is approximately 7 months, seven or 8 months. We have cut it down. It was 

longer up until about a year ago, but we have cut it down to about 

seven or 8 months. And then once we get them on board, they go 

through training for 7 months. We send them down to Georgia for 

three and a half months of training down at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. 

Mr. CARTER. By the way, that is in my district. Thank you very 

much. 

Mr. CLANCY. It is a great facility. It has grown quite a bit since 

I have been down there, but they get excellent training down there 

in basic law enforcement training. And then they come up to Washington for more specific training related to the Secret Service laws, 

investigations, and protection and of course, our cyber mission. So 

it is about a 7-month training. 

Mr. CARTER. Of that 7-month training, and I am not talking specifically about training, but what about background investigations? 

How long does that usually take? 

Mr. CLANCY. And others can correct or we will correct the record 

later if I am wrong on this, but it was 14 days—— 

Mr. CARTER. I am looking specifically for the background check. 

Mr. CLANCY. For the background, the field office to the best of 

my knowledge is they get 14 days to go and go to your schools and 

neighborhoods and do that background check. 

Mr. CARTER. Right. 

Mr. CLANCY. Now it may have been brought down to 10 days. 

Mr. CARTER. But recently, has it been adjusted to be less than 

even that, maybe just 3 days? 

Mr. CLANCY. You know, one of the other members had mentioned 

that. I am not aware of that down to 3 days. I was aware that it 

may go down to 10 days. I will research that when I go back to 

see if it dropped down to 3 days. 

Mr. CARTER. Wait, you weren’t aware of it. We have got information that says there was an email sent out that said because you 

were trying to fill a class for March that you wanted to decrease 

it to 3 days, but you didn’t approve that? 

Mr. CLANCY. No, now I don’t get involved at that level to be candid with you, sir, with how they are—I set the tone with how many 

classes we wanted to get, what is the goal? To get nine classes or 

eight classes, and then just fill those classes. I don’t know if they 

have brought it down to 3 days. I am not aware of that. 

Mr. CARTER. Do you feel like you should get involved? I mean 

that seems to me like that is a pretty high management decision 

and that is something that you ought to run by the boss. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, well, the requirements stay the same though. 

There is somewhat of a check box. You have to make sure you talk 

to so many neighborhood—neighbors, somebody at schools. You 

have to still do a background check. It is just that your time to do 

it is condensed. It is not that you can knock off some parts of the 

background check. 
101 

Mr. CARTER. OK, well, let me ask you in the background check, 

if you find someone who has got a dual nationality, does that impact whether you hire them or not? 

Mr. CLANCY. A dual nationality? You cannot have dual citizenship. 

Mr. CARTER. You cannot have dual citizenship. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes. 

Mr. CARTER. But it is my understanding that that did happen 

during this time that you had the 3-day background check period. 

Mr. CLANCY. That someone was brought in with a dual citizenship? 

Mr. CARTER. That is my understanding. 

Mr. CLANCY. I will check on that. Our staff will check with yours 

and we will followup on that. 

Mr. CARTER. OK. I am just concerned. It seems to me like when 

there is an alteration in policy, you know, the one thing—look, I 

am a small business owner. OK? The one thing I don’t like is surprises. And that is all I tell my staff. 

I believe you surround yourself with good people and you let 

them go at it and I admire that and I think that is good management practice, but at the same time I don’t like surprises. And it 

would appear to me that going from a 14 or a 10 day background 

check period to a 3 day, that is a surprise. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. That is a considerable condensing of our 

hiring process. We will definitely followup on that and certainly if 

you will help us with that dual citizenship issue. 

Mr. CARTER. OK, back to the dual citizenship. If you do find out 

they have dual citizenship, then they are ineligible? They have to 

renounce one of their citizenships? 

Mr. CLANCY. My understanding is yes, they have to renounce 

their citizenship. They have to be American citizens. 

Mr. CARTER. OK. All right, well, again, let me reiterate that we 

want to see you succeed and we don’t want to see you here. OK? 

The less we see of you, the better off we are and the better off you 

are. 

Mr. CLANCY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

Mr. CLANCY. Thank you, Congressman. 

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

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank the gentleman. Listen, on behalf of 

all of us, please convey to the men and women who do the hard 

work day in and day out, holidays, weekends, they have got the 

family lives going on and yet, they are asked to continue to perform 

their duties. Please, I hope they know how much we love them, 

care for them, and wish them nothing but the best. That is why 

we go through this process. It is part of what makes the United 

States of America the greatest country on the face of the planet is 

we are self critical. You can’t do this type of discussion that we are 

having in most countries. 

As representatives of the people who care about what you do and 

how you do it, that is the spirit in which we approach that and I 

know you share that as well. So we thank you for your personal 

service. We thank the men and women for all that they do and the 

men and women who are behind you supporting you here today, 
102 

but probably most importantly back at the office or at home or on 

the grounds of the White House or wherever it might be we thank 

them. So this will continue. We do appreciate it, but the committee 

stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:33 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
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