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95–421 PDF 2015

U.S. SECRET SERVICE: ACCOUNTABILITY FOR 

MARCH 4, 2015 INCIDENT 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 14, 2015 

Serial No. 114–31 

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 


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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 

MIKE HOWELL, Counsel 

TRISTAN LEAVITT, Counsel 

SHARON CASEY, Deputy Chief Clerk 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 14, 2015 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

The Hon. John Roth, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 6 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

APPENDIX 

Chairman Jason Chaffetz, Opening Statement .................................................... 62 

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Opening Statement ..................................................... 65 

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Opening Statement ....................................................... 67 


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U.S. SECRET SERVICE: ACCOUNTABILITY FOR 

MARCH 4, 2015 INCIDENT 

Thursday, May 14, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 2:03 p.m., in Room 2154, 

Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jason Chaffetz [chairman of 

the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Chaffetz, Jordan, Walberg, Amash, 

Massie, Meadows, DeSantis, Buck, Walker, Blum, Hice, Russell, 

Carter, Grothman, Palmer, Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Clay, 

Lynch, Connolly, Cartwright, Kelly, Lawrence, Watson-Coleman, 

and Welch. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Committee on Oversight and Government 

Reform will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

We’re meeting today to talk about the United States Secret Service and the accountability for the March 4, 2015, incident. On 

March 4, two senior Secret Service special agents—one had the 

title of Deputy Special Agent in Charge, the Presidential Protective 

Detail, that is Mr. Connolly, and the other one had a title of Assistant to the Special Agency in Charge for the Washington field office, 

that would be Mr. George Ogilvie—the allegation and the concern 

was that they drove through a criminal scene investigation of a potential bomb at the White House. 

Following the incident, there were allegations that the two 

agents were intoxicated after being at a bar downtown for a retirement party. Most concerning, however, was the allegation neither 

agent was given a sobriety test, nor were the agents reprimanded 

in any way. 

Part of the concern was what happened in this potential bomb 

scene, and what did they do about it, what did the supervisors 

know, when did they know it, and how did they report it up the 

chain of command? Instead, everyone involved was told to go home 

and pretend like nothing happened. 

To get a better sense of what happened on March 4, Ranking 

Member Cummings and I met with Secret Service Director Clancy. 

Director Clancy could not answer our questions. Next, Mr. Cummings and I scheduled a public hearing on the incident. At the 

hearing, Director Clancy said he could not answer the questions. 

Instead, he deferred to the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, who was investigating the matter. 


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That investigation is now complete, and we’re pleased to have 

Mr. Roth here with us today to talk about the conclusions of that 

investigation. 

Now that the facts are in, it is time for accountability. The inspector general determined it was more likely than not both Agents 

Connolly and Ogilvie’s judgment was impaired by alcohol. Since a 

sobriety test wasn’t given to either agent the night of March 4, the 

inspector general came to the conclusion based on the facts. These 

included: Both Connolly and Ogilvie spent 5 hours in a bar running 

up a bar tab that included 14 drinks after 2 hours of an open bar, 

and the objective behavior of the two experienced Secret Service 

agents who should have known better. 

The agents’ impaired judgment resulted in them driving, ‘‘into a 

crime scene inches from what the rest of the Secret Service was 

treating as a potential explosive device and which, under different 

circumstances, could have been—— 

[Disturbance in hearing room.] 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Let me read that quote again. Sorry for the 

disruption. 

The agents’ impaired judgment resulted in them driving into, 

‘‘into a crime scene inches from what the rest of the Secret Service 

was treating as a potential explosive device and which, under different circumstances, could have endangered their own lives and 

those of the Uniformed Division officers responding.’’ 

If that had been true, if it had been a real bomb, these agents 

would have been lucky to be alive. They were endangering the lives 

of too many people by doing what they had done. 

Following the incident, the story of the incident began making its 

way up the chain of command, where it eventually reached Mr. 

Connolly himself, for, you see, he is in the chain of command. 

Though required to report what happened, Mr. Connolly chose not 

to. Mr. Connolly even met with his boss, Special Agent in Charge 

Robert Buster, on March 6 to talk about the suspicious package incident, but made no mention of being involved with the incident 

himself. 

Mr. Ogilvie, likewise, had a duty to self-report, and chose not to. 

As the inspector general found, their failure to report, ‘‘reflects either poor judgment or an affirmative desire to hide their activities.’’ 

Relying on the honor system for reporting this type of egregious 

misconduct does not work when agents do not act honorably. 

Senior Uniformed Division leaders also violated their duty to report by failing to inform Mr. Connolly’s boss, the head of the Presidential Protective Division. 

Perhaps the situation would have been dealt with earlier if the 

agents were given breathalyzer tests that night. An officer on the 

scene told the inspector general the watch commander decided not 

to administer a breathalyzer to Mr. Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie because he was worried to do so would be a, ‘‘career killer.’’ The 

watch commander was probably right. 

Additionally, as the inspector general stated, the watch commander’s decision was likely influenced by the, ‘‘Secret Service reputation for punishing or ignoring those who would further investigate or report violations.’’ such as drunk driving. 


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And that is why the problems that led to this incident extend 

well beyond March 4, 2015. It is one of the ongoing concerns that 

the deep-seeded cultural problems within the Secret Service are 

pervasive and they continue. We have thousands of good men and 

women who serve this country honorably and patriotically, we appreciate them, but they are not above the law. The Secret Service 

has to abide by the law as well. 

We’ve heard over and over again the source of morale problems 

within the Secret Service is that senior personnel are treated differently from the rank and file and that the Uniformed Division is 

treated differently from the agents. We have little doubt that because of this disparate treatment, Connolly and Ogilvie believed 

they could act in a way where they would be able to get away with 

it. 

The culture of special treatment for senior agents must stop. It’s 

an embarrassing and highly concerning pattern of misconduct and 

security incidents that need to end. The Secret Service mission is 

too important. 

I want to commend Mr. Roth and his team for their good work 

on this report. They acted swiftly, they put a lot of people towards 

it, and it’s produced a very worthwhile result, and it’s why we’re 

here today. 

We look forward in the future to hearing from Director Clancy 

on this incident and learning whether the agency plans to take disciplinary actions against the individuals involved. I have a concern 

that just retiring or stepping aside doesn’t solve the problem, that 

they don’t truly have the consequences that would be associated 

with such egregious behavior. The job of the Secret Service is too 

important not to reprimand those who exercise shockingly poor 

judgment, which could put the President and his family at risk. 

One of the other things that we’re going to explore is how within 

the Department of Homeland Security there are different tables of 

penalties within the Department itself. While there’s a standard for 

the Department of Homeland Security, there seems to be a different standard within the Secret Service and other agencies themselves, and yet this is the very reason we formed—one of the reasons we formed the Department of Homeland Security is to make 

sure that they have got best practices and management together so 

they could have this uniform across, but it’s not. 

In fact, one of the things that the inspector general found is that 

even the most senior people didn’t understand what the alcohol policy was. Sort of an important thing to do and certainly an important thing to understand and know. 

Again, we appreciate the good work of Mr. Roth and look forward 

to a good, vibrant discussion today about his findings from him and 

his team. 

With that, I’ll now recognize the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, for 5 minutes. 

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

And I want to thank you, General Roth, and your team for all 

your hard work on this investigation from the very beginning. You 

worked with us and met with us, and we took your guidance, and 

we really appreciate all that you all have done. 


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You all started immediately after receiving these allegations on 

March 12, a week after the incident, and finished them in less than 

8 weeks, and that says a lot. In that time, they conducted an impressive 48 interviews and obtained a wide variety of documents 

and other materials. 

The report released by the inspector general confirms some key 

allegations, such as the claim that two agents, Mr. Connolly and 

Mr. Ogilvie, in fact had been drinking before driving a government 

vehicle to the White House and then driving their government vehicles home. 

The report also debunks other allegations. It concludes, for example, that there is, ‘‘no evidence that the video of the incident was 

intentionally deleted or destroyed.’’ 

This was a model of how an investigation should—should—be 

conducted, and it demonstrates why Congress and this committee 

in particular rely so heavily on the work of our IGs. 

Unfortunately, this report makes clear that there is still much 

work to be done to improve the culture at the Secret Service. At 

a previous hearing on September 30 of last year, I expressed grave 

concern with a Secret Service culture that seems to punish those 

who raise concerns, a culture in which employees are afraid to report incidents up the chain of command. 

At the time, we were discussing an incident in 2011 when multiple shots were fired at the White House. One officer on the scene 

believed bullets had hit the White House, but she feared the consequences of disputing her superiors. As a result, it was not discovered until 4 days later that the White House had been struck 7 

times. 

The inspector general’s report indicates that this cultural problem is indeed widespread. For example, the report highlights, ‘‘the 

Secret Service’s reputation for punishing or ignoring those who 

would further investigate or report such violations.’’ 

According to the inspector general’s report, some officers relayed 

that the watch commander at the scene on the night of the incident 

raised concerns. According to one officer, the watch commander 

told his colleagues that the agents who drove into the barricade 

were, ‘‘hammered.’’ According to that officer, however, the watch 

commander said ordering a sobriety test would have been, ‘‘a career killer.’’ Therefore no sobriety test was done, and both agents 

drove their government vehicles home after a night of drinking. 

The inspector general’s report concludes, ‘‘The watch commander’s actions must be considered in light of the vast disparity 

and rank between the watch commander and Connolly, who was in 

the watch commander’s chain of command.’’ 

I’m also extremely concerned, because just 2 days ago, our committee conducted a key interview that further corroborates this 

view. Committee staff interviewed Alfonso Dyson, the Deputy Chief 

of the Uniformed Division, who manages more than 600 officers. 

Mr. Dyson admitted to our committee staff that he had two telephone calls with Mr. Connolly on the night of the incident, one 

while Mr. Connolly was in the middle of the suspicious package 

scene and another as Mr. Connolly was driving home later that 

night. 


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In those calls, Mr. Dyson warned Mr. Connolly that the watch 

commander, ‘‘was going to make it a problem.’’ Mr. Dyson also admitted that he told Mr. Connolly that the watch commander might 

cause trouble for him. Mr. Dyson stated, ‘‘He was going to stir the 

pot, he was going to spread the rumors, he was going to get the 

guys riled up. That’s what I believed and that’s what I relayed to 

DSAIC Connolly.’’ 

This is simply unacceptable. Based on the IG report, the watch 

commander should have done more that night, not less. And it is 

appalling that senior Secret Service officials would discourage junior officers from doing the right thing. The agents and the officers 

of the Secret Service will never have the full trust of their colleagues while the fear of retaliation continues. 

Finally, let me conclude by thanking Director Clancy for his cooperation and quick action. As the inspector general report concludes, ‘‘Director Clancy acted appropriately upon receiving information about potential misconduct.’’ The inspector general also informed our committee that he received, ‘‘outstanding.’’ cooperation 

from Director Clancy and the Secret Service during the entire investigation. 

Although we had hoped that Director Clancy would be available 

today, this is Police Week, and he’s attending several events to 

honor officers for acts of valor and the families of those who have 

fallen in the line of duty. And he called personally the chairman 

and yours truly to express his concern and his regrets that he could 

not be with us at this hearing. And I know that the chairman understood that, I understood it, and I want to thank him for all he’s 

done. He has offered to reschedule for another date, and I look forward to hearing from him, Mr. Chairman. 

And with that, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the ranking member. And it is true 

that I really do believe through experience that Director Clancy 

has been more than responsive to requests from Congress, and his 

availability is very much appreciated. We may disagree on some 

points, obviously, but his accessibility has been one of the best that 

we have seen. 

I also want to highlight, just at this moment the Secret Service 

was evidently involved and engaged in apprehending somebody 

who was trying to fly a drone. I’m basing this solely on media reports. But every day these men and women are dealing with very 

exceptionally difficult situations. Something can go wrong at any 

given time. They do far more than we ever hear or see, and we 

greatly appreciate that. 

It is not enough to just say we appreciate it. They need to know 

we love and care for them and we pray for them. And they have 

a no-fail mission. And that’s why when something goes so terribly 

wrong, we’ve got to learn from it and make sure that we fix the 

problems, because some of this egregious behavior is just unacceptable. 

I would also note that just literally happening here today, the 

Secretary’s Award for Valor was given to one of the Secret Service 

agents, William Uher. I hope I’m pronouncing his name properly. 

Hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. His duty station is Washington, D.C. Let me just read the paragraph. 


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‘‘While en route to work on November 22, 2014, the U.S. Secret 

Service Sergeant Technician William Uher came upon a motor vehicle accident at the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and was the 

first to respond. After notifying 911, he went to the scene to offer 

assistance. When Sergeant Uher noticed flames originating from 

underneath the hood of the vehicle, he removed the occupant, who 

was would later determined to have a broken pelvis and unable to 

walk.’’ 

And the men and women who serve as first responders, people 

like that, who do this great work, can’t thank them enough. They’re 

dealing with tough situations. 

But we expect a lot. And we expect that people will make mistakes, but not of such egregious consequences that it puts the mission in danger, puts others in danger, and certainly can never, ever 

put the President in danger. He’s our President. I don’t care Republican or Democrat, I don’t care how you feel about the President, he’s our President, and he has to stay safe. And that’s why 

it’s so pivotal that we continue to investigate that. 

I will hold the record open for 5 legislative days for any members 

who would like to submit a written statement. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But we’ll now recognize the witness who’s 

here today, who represents a large, big group of people who have 

spent a lot of good time in innovative investigative work to come 

to this meeting today. So it’s with pleasure that we welcome Inspector General John Roth. Mr. Roth assumed the post of inspector 

general of the Department of Homeland Security on March 10, 

2014, after previously serving as the Director of the Office of Criminal Investigations at the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. 

Before that, he had had a long and distinguished career with the 

Department of Justice. 

Welcome. 

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

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

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about 

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

truth. 

Thank you. Let the record clearly reflect that the witness answered in the affirmative. 

Mr. Roth, we will now recognize you. And don’t even bother 

starting the clock. We’ll hear your report, and then when you’re 

done, we’ll ask questions. 

Mr. Roth. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN ROTH, INSPECTOR 

GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. ROTH. Thank you. Chairman Chaffetz, Ranking Member 

Cummings, and members of the committee, thank you for inviting 

me here today. As you know, we have made public our report concerning the incident at the White House Complex on the evening 

of March 4. 

Our objective was to conduct a factual inquiry and to assess the 

reasonableness of the actions of the individuals involved. We conducted this investigation from March 12 until April 30. 


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This inquiry centered on the activities of two senior Secret Service supervisors. Marc Connolly is the Deputy Special Agent in 

Charge of the Presidential Protective Division, a position that he 

has held for the last 2 years. Connolly’s duties include all aspects 

of White House security. George Ogilvie is the Assistant to the Special Agent in Charge at the Washington Field Office and is a supervisor in the protection squad. He has previously worked in the 

Presidential Protection Division. 

The report that we wrote is a summary of the investigation, and 

it is attached to my written testimony. The materials of our investigation that we produced, our reports of interviews, the physical 

evidence, and the documents we found, have been turned over to 

the Secret Service in accordance with our regular procedures. 

The Inspector General’s Office does not make recommendations 

as to whether or what personnel actions should be taken, but 

leaves that to the Secret Service. Our duties in this instance are 

purely investigative. 

The report makes some conclusions based on the evidence that 

we found. For example, it was more likely than not that Connolly 

and Ogilvie’s judgment was impaired by alcohol. The two agents 

displayed poor judgment and a lack of situational awareness in 

driving into the scene. 

While during their interviews each denied drinking to excess, we 

must assess those denials in light of the Uniformed Division officers’ observations of the agents’ behavior, the fact that they had 

just spent the 5 previous hours in a restaurant bar, and that two 

highly experienced supervisors drove into a crime scene inches 

from what the rest of the Secret Service was treating as a potential 

explosive device and which, under different circumstances, could 

have endangered their own lives and those of the Uniformed Division officers who responded. 

Moreover, both agents were required to report their conduct up 

the chain of command, but failed to do so. Each told us that they 

did not believe that what they had done amounted to a reportable 

incident. Their failure to report reflects either poor judgment on 

their part or an affirmative desire to hide their conduct. 

With regard to the actions of the Uniformed Division that 

evening, we found that they reacted to the suspicious package generally in accordance with Secret Service policy and operational procedures. However, the establishment of the perimeter should have 

been better executed. While there’s often confusion inherent in a 

fast-moving and factually fluid situation, a number of vehicles and 

pedestrians came within close proximity to the object after the Uniformed Division had established the safety perimeter. 

The Uniformed Division officers made reasonable attempts, while 

they were securing the scene, to canvass the area for the suspect, 

but an early partial description of the suspect’s vehicle foiled the 

ability to apprehend the suspect during her flight. However, the 

Secret Service investigative agents reacted quickly to identify the 

suspect and determine the nature of the threat. 

It was the watch commander’s sole decision to allow Connolly 

and Ogilvie to pass without further inquiry as to their sobriety. 

The watch commander made this decision on his own assessment 

based on his observations. While it would have been far preferable 


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if he had ordered a field sobriety test or made other inquiries to 

establish both agents’ fitness to drive, the watch commander’s actions must be considered in light of the vast disparity in rank between the watch commander and Connolly, who was in the watch 

commander’s chain of command, the vague and insufficient Secret 

Service policy regarding drinking alcohol and driving government 

vehicles, and the Secret Service reputation for punishing or ignoring those who would further investigate or report such violations. 

The watch commander reported the facts as he understood them 

to his superior officer. The watch commander and his subordinates 

should have been able to rely on their superior officers to appropriately report the situation. Both Uniformed Division Deputy 

Chief Dyson and Uniformed Division Chief Simpson were notified 

that night that the two agents had driven into an evacuated area 

and that alcohol was involved, and each could have reported the incident, but did not. 

I would like to publicly acknowledge the hard work of the agents 

of the Office of Inspector General who conducted this investigation. 

They displayed a dedication to the OIG mission and professionalism that does me proud, and I am grateful for their efforts. 

Additionally, I would like to express my appreciation for the outstanding cooperation we received from the Secret Service’s Office of 

Professional Responsibility and from Director Clancy himself. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my testimony. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Roth follows:] 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize myself for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. Roth, there was an email about the incident forwarded up 

the chain of command on March 4. Can you tell me a little bit more 

about that email, what you found? 

Mr. ROTH. Certainly. What we had found was that—and let me 

get to the page in the report that has that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. The version I have is page 15. 

Mr. ROTH. Thank you, sir. 

Correct. There was an email that was sent really up the chain 

of command all the way to the SAIC of the Presidential Protection 

Division that described in sort of very vague terms what had occurred at the entrance of E Street. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And why do you think the email was forwarded by Deputy Chief Dyson to Mr. Connolly himself? 

Mr. ROTH. I think it was to let Mr. Connolly know that, in fact, 

word was getting out of the incident and that he had the necessity 

to self-report. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And how did Mr. Connolly respond to that 

email? 

Mr. ROTH. During that night when Mr. Connolly was driving 

home, he called Deputy Chief Dyson and expressed his concerns 

with regard to the fact that this was getting out. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So if Deputy Chief Dyson denied that he 

was aware that the email was about the vehicle containing Mr. 

Connolly, would you find that denial credible? 

Mr. ROTH. Not knowing any other facts, it certainly would raise 

some additional questions I’d have to ask Deputy Chief Dyson. The 

evidence that we have derived indicates that Mr. Connolly and 

Deputy Chief Dyson had a conversation as Connolly was driving 

home expressing concerns about that email itself. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So for him to suggest that he had no idea 

that Connolly was in the car, that couldn’t possibly be true, could 

it? 

Mr. ROTH. Our interview of Deputy Chief Dyson, I believe he indicated that it sounded like Connolly was in the car as they were 

having that discussion. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Did your investigators ask any questions 

about the video cameras being directed away from the area where 

Braun was questioning Connolly and Ogilvie? That was something 

that our whistleblowers, and there are concerns that the video cameras were actually moved away so that they could not see that 

interaction. 

Mr. ROTH. I was not aware of any of that. What we did find with 

regard to the video preservation was, as you know, there’s only a 

72-hour preservation of the video unless it is somehow burned to 

removable media. 

What we found in the course of our investigation was the actual, 

what I would call the barrel incident, Ogilvie driving and striking 

the barrel and moving the barrel out of the way, was, in fact, 

burned onto removable media at the request of the Uniformed Division folks who were on the scene and who wanted to figure out exactly how it was that that barrel was moved. We, of course, had 


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no other video, so there was nothing else to review other than that 

snippet that had gotten burned that night. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And that’s one of our deep concerns long 

term, is just that, A, why the policy, when you require an airport 

to retain video for 30 days and yet they only retain this for hours? 

There were a couple different potential crimes going on. You did 

have two people that were trying to detain this woman from driving away. They claimed to be injured and assaulted. That video is 

not necessarily all captured from start to finish. The bungling of 

how we were going to apprehend this person who had left a potential bomb. 

Let me ask you, were there any officers in the JOC that night 

who outranked Braun, do you know? 

Mr. ROTH. That outranked Braun? 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yeah. 

Mr. ROTH. There was an assistant to the SAIC, I think in the 

Presidential Protection Division, who was there, so in other words, 

an investigative agent, I think, in a GS–14 level. I’m assuming that 

that outranks Braun, but I’m not 100 percent sure. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. One of the concerns is about when Director 

Clancy knew. You know, this thing was evidently spreading like 

wildfire, there’s emails, there’s telephone discussions, there are 

people who are asking to have videotape preserved because they 

were upset and irate about what was going on. You had former 

agents, you had retired agents, you had a newspaper reporter, you 

had members of Congress all heard about this before Director 

Clancy. Is that possible? 

Mr. ROTH. Apparently that’s what the facts show. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So who’s responsible? Where did it stop? 

Where did it not continue up the chain of command so that Director Clancy knew about it? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, I think there are several points of failure. I 

mean, certainly one of the points of failure is with Connolly and 

Ogilvie, who had, according to Secret Service policy, a duty to report their own misconduct up the chain. So the SAIC of the Presidential Protection Division, in fact, should have been informed by 

Connolly, and the SAIC of the Washington Field Office should have 

been informed by Ogilvie, but were not. So that’s one point of failure. 

I think the other point of failure is with the supervisors, the 

leadership in the Uniformed Division. Both the chief and the deputy chief could have and should have reported it up. Each of them 

when we interviewed them said: Well, the reason that we didn’t do 

it is because Connolly believe—or Connolly told us that he was 

going to self-report, so I didn’t want to do it, I’d rather have Connolly do it. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But, technically, both should have happened, right? They should have self-reported and they should have 

reported it. They knew that misconduct had happened. 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So why didn’t they do it? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, I think it was a failure on those individuals’ 

parts to do what it is that they were supposed to do. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Anybody else should have reported? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. ROTH. Those are the four individuals that I believed had primary responsibility. Obviously there were individuals, for example, 

in the JOC, the Joint Operations Center, who understood what 

went on, including the 1811, the special agent supervisor who was 

at the JOC that evening, who could have reported it up, probably 

should have reported it up. There are the Uniformed Division individuals themselves who could have reported it as well. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And my concern is that they did not preserve all the video that was germane to both the leaving of the 

package, the fleeing of the person, and the incident itself. 

With that, I yield back and now recognize the ranking member, 

Mr. Cummings. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Picking up exactly where the chairman left off, 

Mr. Roth, I notice that at the beginning of your report you mentioned that you’re deferring specific conclusions about potential systemic issues facing the Secret Service until you have completed 

your investigation into at least five or six other incidents. Is that 

correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct, sir. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And what form do you think that’s going to take? 

It seems like we have a culture of secrecy, a culture of complacency, a culture of fear of retaliation. I mean, what do you see, 

where are you going with that? 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. You follow me? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes, I do. And the way I see our office is where we 

add value is having that independent fact-finding ability, to be able 

to go in and gather documents and interview individuals who are, 

in fact, compelled under DHS rules to talk to us. 

So what we intend to do is very similar to what we did with the 

Bush residence alarm report that was issued a few weeks ago. We 

are going to find a lot of facts and we are going to see exactly what 

it is that we find. We are going to use the disinfectant of sunlight. 

We are going to publish reports. We are going to report them both 

to the Secretary, to the Director of the Secret Service, and obviously the committees to whom we report. 

We think that at the end of those fact-findings, some of the conclusions or some of the sort of themes will become apparent. But, 

for example, we’ll do—or we are in the process of doing an investigation into the 24 incident at the CDC where the President was 

in close proximity to an armed security guard, unknownst to the 

Secret Service. 

We will write a factual report about exactly what happened, 

where there were points of failure within that, and publish that, 

again, to this committee, as well as the other committees of jurisdiction, to the Secretary, and to the Director. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. So it sounds similar to when the DOJ comes into 

a police department and is looking at patterns of practice. I mean, 

is that similar, do you think? 

Mr. ROTH. I think that’s a pretty good analogy. The only difference is that we are going to do this serially. In other words, we 

are not going to wait until the end. We are going to produce these, 

because we think it’s important to get the information out as quickly as we possibly can. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, I want to ask you about the agency’s policies regarding alcohol, which your report calls, ‘‘vague and insufficient.’’ 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. First let me quickly walk through some details 

about the retirement party. 

According to your report, the party started at about 5:30 and 

lasted until 7:30. Your report says there was an open bar. Afterwards, Mr. Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie stayed at the bar with two 

other colleagues, and, according to your report, Mr. Ogilvie opened 

a new bar tab at 7:44 p.m. And closed it 3 hours later. Is that 

right? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. As part of your investigation, you obtained the 

actual bar tab, did you not? 

Mr. ROTH. We did. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I would like to put it up on the screen. Your 

report says they purchased, ‘‘eight glasses of Scotch, two vodka 

drinks, one glass of wine, and three glasses of beer.’’ They were on 

a roll. 

Looking at this tab, the first three items are beers, then a glass 

of wine, then eight—eight—Johnny Walker Reds, and then two 

vodka drinks. So 14 alcoholic drinks in all. Is that right? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. The agents claimed that they did not have all of 

these drinks. Mr. Ogilvie told your investigators that five glasses 

of Scotch, the glass of wine, and the three beers were, ‘‘given away 

to others.’’ but he could not remember to whom. Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Okay. But at a minimum Mr. Ogilvie admitted 

to drinking two Scotches and one beer, Mr. Connolly admitted to 

drinking two beers, and both Mr. Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie also admitted that they drove their government vehicles that same 

evening on their way home. Is that right? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. As of March 4, the Secret Service had a policy 

that prohibited officers from operating government vehicles, ‘‘while 

under the influence of intoxicants,’’ but your report says that this 

policy applied only to Uniformed Division officers, not to agents 

like Mr. Connolly or Mr. Ogilvie. This seems a bit ridiculous to me, 

but do you know why that was the case? 

Mr. ROTH. We don’t. And what we found with a lot of these policies is they were put in, in sort of a piecemeal and patchwork fashion. But we don’t have a good explanation as to why it only applied 

to the Uniformed Division but not to the special agents. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Now, the Secret Service is also part of the Department of Homeland Security, which has its own policy prohibiting all employees from drinking alcohol within 8 hours of operating a government vehicle. So even if we take the agents at their 

word in terms of how much they drank that night, it seems they 

violated existing DHS policy, but your report says that you found, 

‘‘no evidence that anyone in the Secret Service was aware of this 

policy.’’ Is that right? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. CUMMINGS. That’s a problem. 

Mr. ROTH. Yes. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I don’t see how we can have the elite of the 

elite and they don’t even know what their own rules are. 

After the incident on March 4, the Secret Service issued a new 

rule prohibiting all employees from drinking any alcohol within 10 

hours of driving a government vehicle. So this new rule is even 

more strict than the DHS policy. Is that right? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Do you know if the Secret Service is taking steps 

to educate their employees about this new policy and are they conducting training in that regard? 

Mr. ROTH. We did not look at that in this investigation, but that 

is something that we are certainly interested in. 

Mr. CUMMINGS. Well, I’m sure that’s something that this committee will take up. 

My last thing just, Mr. Roth, there are clearly significant problems relating to alcohol at the agency. We’ve seen that in the past 

incidents as well. But it also appears that the agency’s vague policies just made worse the problem. So I hope today’s hearing is part 

of a broader effort to reform the agency’s policies, to make absolutely clear to employees what is expected of them, and to revitalize the agency so it can perform its critical mission and once 

again become the elite of the elite. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, just as a matter of personal privilege. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Connolly is not related to me, nor do I like 

Scotch. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Duly noted. 

We’ll now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. DeSantis, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Roth, in your report you said that the incident should be considered in light of the Secret Service’s reputation for punishing or 

ignoring those who would further investigate or report such violation. And that interests me, because before your tenure the DHS 

Office of Inspector General released a 2013 report which did not 

find evidence in the Secret Service that misconduct or inappropriate behavior is widespread or that leadership has fostered an 

environment that tolerates inappropriate conduct. 

So given your tenure, given this report, what are your thoughts 

about the 2013 DHS report? Is that an accurate reflection of what’s 

going on in the culture of the Secret Service right now? 

Mr. ROTH. Certainly not right now, it is not, I mean. But one of 

the things about the report that you reference, the 2013 report, is 

that there are fascinating findings within it. For example, they did 

a survey, an electronic survey in which 138 electronic survey respondents personally observed excessive alcohol consumption and 

86 percent of them indicated that they did not report such behavior. The report also indicated that of the 2,500-and-some electronic 

survey respondents, 44 percent of them felt that they could not reVerDate Sep 11 2014 11:19 Oct 29, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\95421.TXT APRIL

AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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port misconduct without fear of retaliation if they, in fact, reported 

that. 

So within that report itself there are some very, very disturbing 

trends. And I think, given the nature of what it is that we’ve seen 

since then, I believe that there is a serious problem within the Secret Service. 

Mr. DESANTIS. And that report also found that 36 percent of the 

respondents did not believe that senior managers are held accountable within the agency. Do you think that that is still the case 

today? 

Mr. ROTH. We haven’t done any work on that, but it would not 

surprise me if it is still that case. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Is there any indication that the process for discipline within the Secret Service has improved since the 2013 report? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, it certainly has improved since Cartagena. The 

Secret Service has taken steps to—they have an Office of Integrity 

now, for example. That is the one that imposes discipline. As a result of our 2013 inspection, we made a number of different recommendations, including the table of penalties, which they now 

have adopted. So I think the Secret Service is moving in the right 

direction in this area after Cartagena. 

Mr. DESANTIS. It’s safe to say, though, that the conclusions 

reached in the 2013 report, that there’s a conflict between the conclusions you reached in your report. 

Mr. ROTH. I would agree with that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So the question is then, how to correct what has 

led to the cultural problems that your report identifies. And then 

I agree with you that, I think, underlying the 2013 report you saw 

evidence of that from the people who responded to the survey. So 

as people who are doing oversight, I mean, what do we need to be 

doing or what does the agency need to be doing, in your judgment? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, candidly, I think Director Clancy is moving in 

the right direction. As I said, they’ve indicated they’ve put together 

a table of penalties, they have an Office of Integrity. I think they’re 

doing increasing training on this. I think they’ve treated violations 

of this very seriously. For example, the auto accident in Florida involving some of the Uniformed Division that was alcohol related, 

I think the discipline that was imposed there was appropriate. 

So I won’t expect that a problem that took years to create will 

be fixed overnight, but I do think they are moving in the right direction. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Amongst your experience with the other components of DHS, do they all have similar issues with alcohol or is the 

Secret Service unique in that regard? 

Mr. ROTH. We haven’t taken a specific look at other law enforcement agencies to the degree that we have with the Secret Service. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But you have not had a lot of alcohol-related 

incidences brought to your attention that you’ve had to investigate? 

Is that fair? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s fair. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Do any of the other DHS components have a similar reputation where somebody who is trying to do the right thing 

could end up getting punished or marginalized? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. ROTH. Again, we haven’t looked at that, so it’s very difficult 

for me to opine on that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But you can say that that is not a problem that’s 

been presented to you in the other components during your tenure, 

correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct, it hasn’t been brought to my attention 

that that’s the case. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Great. 

Well, let me thank you for the report. I thought it was done timely and I think it had a lot of good information in it. So thanks for 

doing that. And obviously we want to see with some of the other 

incidents, we are looking forward to those results as well. So thank 

you. 

And I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize Ms. Norton from the District of Columbia, 5 minutes. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for this 

hearing. You’ve been pretty busy, Mr. Chairman, today. 

And, Mr. Roth, we appreciate your report. You of course see some 

congressional impatience. That impatience, I suppose this committee is paid to be impatient, particularly, though, in light of the 

repetitive incidents. 

So I’m trying to be as objective as I can and to put this in perspective. I can do that because I ran an agency that was a whole 

lot more troubled at the time than the Secret Service, a huge backlog and the rest, and if someone had said to me, you know, within 

a couple of months get it in order, I would have been in bad shape. 

It took me a little time to get rid of that backlog. So I’m trying to 

keep in mind what it is Mr. Clancy found and what he perhaps has 

done. 

Now, I note that I asked staff to find out, you know, when was 

he appointed exactly. He is actually a long-term employee of the 

Secret Service. He was acting from October. The March 4 incident 

occurred in I consider his acting time, but he was official as of February 19. 

Now, as of the March 4 incident, Director Clancy apparently had 

not issued the order that was issued after that incident involving 

the two agents, required to report through their chain of command 

any activities, et cetera. 

And my concern with that is whether or not this indicates—it 

seems to me that in light of his efforts, having been with the agency, for example, even during the time when there was no reporting 

of the bullets that had penetrated the White House, I was concerned that the first thing he did was not to say: Look, let me know 

before the press knows and before anybody knows. It bothered me 

that, as short a time as that may seem, that he certainly was 

aware. 

So my question goes to whether or not, in light of this order after 

the March 4 incident, you believe there is sufficient clarity so that 

that might seem pretty clear as to what is required. For example, 

I don’t know, and do agents know about drinking off duty? Does 

there need to be greater clarification beyond reporting now up the 

chain of command of what is required of an agent on and off duty? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
42 

These agents have been under huge duress, according to the special panel. ‘‘For years the Service has taken on additional missions 

in both protective and investigative roles, but has not matched its 

request for additional resources of those expended.’’ And they reported that they had been on 12-hour days and with fewer and 

fewer days off. 

So, again, if you step back and look at it, they have obviously 

been subject to the sequester and the rest of it. And the panel said 

that they needed, at best, 200 officers and 85 agents and that they 

were down 500. 

So essentially you have some overworked, overburdened agents. 

So you would imagine that if people even that high in the chain 

of command had been overworked that way, that they might go out 

and drink too much. 

So is there any clarification? If you’re an officer of something like 

the Secret Service and you are off duty, but subject perhaps to 

being called on duty, but bearing in mind that everybody’s entitled 

to a private life, is there enough clarification about what is required on and off duty so that we can be assured that there will 

not be another incident like this? 

Mr. ROTH. I think you raise a good point and a good concern, and 

it’s certainly one that we wrestled with, with regard to what does 

it mean to be on duty, because most of these special agents are 

subject to recall at any time. Does that mean they can never consume alcohol? It would seem to be an irrational policy if that’s the 

case. But I agree that there probably is room for clarification with 

regard to that. 

Ms. NORTON. All right, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I would ask that, because I think this is a very 

murky area, that we ask Director Clancy to bring some clarification. For example, certain number of hours perhaps before being 

required to report for duty, et cetera, I have no idea, but some clarification might be fair in light of what they should expect. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I wholeheartedly agree, because what you 

see at Homeland Security issued by Secretary Johnson is different 

than what the individual agencies within his Department have in 

front of them. And there should be a uniform standard across the 

board, and there’s not. And I think that is one of the fixes that we 

need to work with the agency. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, maybe even a higher standard for Secret 

Service agents. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Amen. 

All right. Let’s now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Walker, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just sort of pick up what we were discussing when it 

comes to off duty/on duty in the aspect of driving government vehicles. So the question I’d like to start with is, did you determine 

whether any other attendees, Mr. Roth, at the party drove government-owned vehicles after consuming the alcohol? 

Mr. ROTH. We did not. We interviewed some of the individuals 

who were at the sort of farewell party in which alcohol was served. 

Some of them had alcohol and then, for example, went back to the 

office to continue to work. But we did not really press it. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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And my point with regard to that is that the DHS policy was 

really unknown to the Secret Service. No one within the Secret 

Service understood it. We did not see any attempts by the Department itself to promote this policy. The policy was in the manual for 

essentially maintenance of cars, government cars. It was not a 

place in which you would naturally look to see a policy like that. 

So it was difficult for us to blame somebody for violating a policy 

that, one, they didn’t know about, and, two, no one made an effort 

to tell them about. 

Mr. WALKER. Granted. And I understand being ignorant of certain aspects in ethics and so forth as we continue to learn even as 

a new Member of Congress. 

However, let me ask this. Were any of the party attendees of the 

Secret Service part of the executive staff? And if so, should not they 

be held some kind of liable to understand what the rules are? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes. I agree with that. Subsequent to this, of course, 

as has been noted, the Secret Service put a new policy in place, a 

very bright line policy in place that says you cannot step into or 

operate a government vehicle if in the last 10 hours you’ve had any 

alcohol whatsoever. So certainly the behavior that took place at the 

party is now prohibited. So there is clarity. 

Mr. WALKER. There’s no ambiguity. I mean, you’ve, I guess, 

proved the fact that they did know of at least that policy part of 

it. Is that correct? I mean, most Secret Service agents, if you’ve 

been drinking, probably not a good idea to get back into your government-owned vehicle. 

Mr. ROTH. Well, what we found was that there was a lot of uncertainty as to what the policy was. It was to not drive drunk, obviously. But the question of when you’re impaired, in other words, is 

it okay to have a drink and then drive? And I think at a previous 

hearing Director Clancy, in fact, talked about that. If you’re not 

able to control your actions, it’s not a legal limit, but it could be 

something less. You may not be intoxicated by a legal limit, but 

some could say that you don’t have the proper abilities. So some 

sort of impairment. But that was such a vague sort of standard 

that it’s functionally unenforceable. 

Mr. WALKER. It is, but you did mention, I believe, just a second 

ago that some Secret Service employees returned to work after consuming the alcoholic beverages. Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mr. WALKER. Okay. And what has been done or what has been 

said, what has been reprimanded? Give me a little bit of background what happened after that was found out. 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. I mean, our policy is that we find the facts and 

conduct the investigation, and then we give everything that we 

have to the Secret Service, because we are not in the discipline 

business—— 

Mr. WALKER. I understand that. 

Mr. ROTH. —we are in the fact-finding business. 

Mr. WALKER. You’re just fact-finding. Are you aware of anything 

that’s been done to those employees who were drinking and then 

came back to work? 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. ROTH. No. We have transmitted our information last week. 

So we haven’t heard anything back. I mean, typically we won’t, by 

the way. 

Mr. WALKER. We talked a little bit about the culture of the Secret Service. And I appreciate some of the words that you’ve talked 

about as far as you feel like there’s been a little bit of improvement 

or change or a 30,000-foot expectation of raising the bar a little bit. 

But this kind of contradicts that mindset that there’s still that frat 

party mentality that what applies to everybody else doesn’t apply 

to us. I don’t want to speculate or create some kind of hypothesis 

here, but is that a fair statement, that there are still things, work 

needs to be done inside the Secret Service to get the level—the bar 

raised? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes. I share your concern with exactly that. We don’t 

know the degree of the problem, but it certainly seems like there 

are some issues here. 

Mr. WALKER. I will tell you this on a personal note, Mr. Roth. 

I’ve seen you here, as well as my other committee on Homeland Security. You always do exemplary work. And I appreciate and I 

think the Americans appreciate your thoroughness. 

Mr. ROTH. Thank you. 

Mr. WALKER. Thank you very much. 

With that, I yield back, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mr. Clay of Missouri for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CLAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Roth, I want to ask about an email exchange that your investigators obtained between the two agents who had been drinking in the bar, Mr. Connolly and Mr. Ogilvie. 

First, let me walk through some facts. The incident happened on 

the night of March 4. Your report found that Mr. Connolly and Mr. 

Ogilvie should have reported this incident, but neither did so. Is 

that right? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CLAY. Based on their failure to report, it seems like they 

were hoping this whole thing would just blow over. 

Two days later, on March 6, Mr. Connolly had his chance to come 

clean. He had a meeting with his superior, the Special Agent in 

Charge, Robert Buster, but according to your report, he never mentioned anything involving this incident. Your report says this, and 

‘‘Connolly met with his supervisor, SAIC Buster, on March the 6th, 

and discussed the UD officers’ handling of the confrontation with 

the suspect in the suspicious package incident. Connolly did not 

mention the incident involving him and Ogilvie.’’ 

So at this meeting on March 6, Mr. Connolly basically decided 

that he would just keep his mouth shut and not tell his supervisor 

what happened. Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CLAY. And he also would have learned at that meeting that 

nobody else had reported the incident either. 

And so here is what I want to ask you about. The very next day, 

on March 7, Mr. Ogilvie and Mr. Connolly had an email exchange. 

I’d like to put it up on the screen. 

Okay. This is an email exchange. 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
45 

Mr. Ogilvie at 8:24 said: ‘‘All good.’’ 

Mr. Connolly at 8:30: ‘‘Muy bueno.’’ 

And then at 8:50: ‘‘You are’’—from Mr. Ogilvie—‘‘You are an 

angel.’’ 

Mr. Roth, I don’t know what was in their heads, but certainly 

one interpretation of this exchange is that Mr. Ogilvie was asking: 

Hey, are we going to get in trouble for this or are we all good? 

Then Mr. Connolly, who just met with his boss the day before and 

determined that nobody else had reported the incident, assured 

him that everything would be fine. 

Mr. Roth, your investigators interviewed Mr. Ogilvie. According 

to their interview notes, Mr. Ogilvie admitted that the context of 

this email was to check in with Mr. Connolly about the March 4 

incident. Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CLAY. In contrast, Mr. Connolly told your investigators that 

this email had nothing to do with the March 4 incident. He claimed 

that he had no idea what this email was about, no clue. He told 

your investigators, ‘‘He did not know what the intent was behind 

it. It was open-ended. And he did not know if it was in reference 

to March 4 or the busy day that he was having.’’ 

Mr. Roth, I have one last question for you. Do you buy that? 

Mr. ROTH. No, I don’t. I believe that this was communication between the two to make sure or see whether or not the word had 

leaked out with regard to the incident that had happened 2 days 

prior. 

Mr. CLAY. What usually happens when a witness like that is 

being so dishonest? Are there any followup to a person’s dishonesty? I guess this was a deposition or just a questioning? 

Mr. ROTH. It was an interview that took place as part of an investigation that we were doing. He has the obligation, obviously, to 

be—to tell the truth. And I think there are penalties as a result 

of not telling the truth. 

Mr. CLAY. All right. Well, thank you so much for your responses. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. Now recognize Mr. Hice from 

Georgia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have already stated, 

Mr. Roth, that it was a failure on the part of Dyson and Simpson 

not to report the incident. And their excuse was that they thought 

this would be self-reported. Do you believe that allowing individuals to self-report is acceptable? 

Mr. ROTH. No, I do not. I think, particularly in the supervisory 

chain, that they had an independent duty to report this, either to 

me or to the Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility, or 

up the chain. I would note that the Uniformed Division chief said 

he didn’t think it was his job to report misconduct that happened 

by special agents. 

Mr. HICE. So is this a policy problem or a communication problem? 

Mr. ROTH. I think this is a communication problem. 

Mr. HICE. So what does the policy say? 

Mr. ROTH. The policy says that individuals have a responsibility 

to report suspicions of violation of law or regulation, either to the 


AKING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Inspector General or, for example, here to the Office of Professional 

Responsibility. 

Mr. HICE. Does the policy state that individuals must self-report? 

Mr. ROTH. There is a Secret Service policy that requires individuals to self-report, yes. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. But you don’t believe that that is effective? 

Mr. ROTH. I think it is effective if you have the integrity to do 

so. Obviously, if—— 

Mr. HICE. But you just said that it’s not an acceptable practice, 

and yet it’s policy. So can we expect that policy to change? 

Mr. ROTH. I think that’s a question that you should direct to the 

Secret Service. 

Mr. HICE. Do you believe that Dyson and Simpson should be 

punished? 

Mr. ROTH. We are not in the business of determining what the 

appropriate punishment should be. 

Mr. HICE. I am asking do you believe they should be? 

Mr. ROTH. I think their behavior was troubling. 

Mr. HICE. Do you believe they should be punished? 

Mr. ROTH. I think there ought to be consequences for these kinds 

of actions, yes. 

Mr. HICE. All right. Do you believe that any personnel, be it with 

DHS or Secret Service or whatever, should be able to retire in 

order to avoid punishment for misconduct? 

Mr. ROTH. Again, that gets into areas of personnel law that I am 

simply—— 

Mr. HICE. But I am asking your opinion. 

Mr. ROTH. Personally, I have been in the government for 29 

years. I have a pension. It’s vested. That is my property. I would 

like to think I could rely on that. 

Mr. HICE. But in order to avoid punishment for misconduct—we 

are seeing an awful lot of this these days, and it’s quite disgusting 

to me personally and to a lot of people that I talk to. It’s a way 

of dodging consequences for personal behavior. It enables people to 

behave any way they want to, and when they get caught with their 

hand in the cookie jar, they just retire with no consequences. And 

you believe that’s okay? 

Mr. ROTH. I certainly understand the frustration with this. I 

mean the maximum consequence that could be faced here would be 

termination from the service, leaving the service, which is functionally what retirement will do. 

Mr. HICE. Without punishment, though, for misconduct. Somewhere along the way we have got to deal with the problem of misconduct. And at this point, there seems to be nothing. And if anyone’s caught, they just retire and there is no consequences. And 

that’s an entirely unacceptable policy when all is said and done. At 

some point, misconduct has to be dealt with, because we are seeing, 

it seems like on a regular basis, Secret Service high profile cases 

of misconduct. And there is a root cause somewhere for this culture 

that allows for misconduct. What do you believe the root cause is? 

Mr. ROTH. I think it is a lack of accountability. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. So how do we correct it? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, again, I think what the Secret Service has 

done—and again, this is probably better addressed to the Secret 


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Service—is institute a series of reforms, for example a table of penalties, a more uniform way of administering discipline, better communication, those kinds of things. 

Mr. HICE. There is actually a reputation, and I know you know 

this, from the report that there is punishment for those who report—— 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mr. HICE. — misconduct. Have you ever considered rewarding 

people for reporting misconduct? 

Mr. ROTH. Financially? 

Mr. HICE. In any way. I mean would that help bring accountability? 

Mr. ROTH. I think that’s something that’s worthy of some discussion. Certainly one of the things that we tried to do, for example, 

what I did when I came onboard is I sent an email to all 7,000 

email addresses in the Secret Service indicating that we were interested in finding sort of misconduct, waste, fraud within the Secret Service, reminding them of protections they have within sort 

of the Whistleblower Protection Act as well as the Inspector Generals Act. You know, as a result of that, we have gotten some work, 

some reports. The report on the Bush residence that had an alarm 

that had been out for 13 months was as a result of a whistleblower. 

Somebody came forward and said, look, this is an unacceptable 

thing. You should see what’s happened here. And we were able to 

investigate it, we were able to write a report, we brought it to light, 

and we fixed the problem. So what I am hopeful of is that as we 

move down the road, people will understand that, in fact, they do 

have some redress, that, you know, reporting something up the 

chain won’t simply be ignored, but they will actually fix the problem. But it is going to take some time. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman 

from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Roth, for 

your good work here. You did a bang up job on this investigation. 

You got to the bottom of it. And we appreciate it. I want to talk 

to you a bit about the videotape procedure there at the White 

House. Now, we had a chance, a bunch of the members, Chairman 

Chaffetz and I and the ranking member, Mr. Cummings, went over 

to the command post for the Secret Service. And they had a full 

spectrum situation there where they have maybe a dozen different 

cameras and different angles, and they have got a pretty good view 

of the White House. 

The problem is that in this case, let’s just take this case with, 

you know, the most recent incident where the woman got out of the 

car and left the bomb in the driveway, that tape was only retained 

I think for 72 hours. And they did not—they did not tell Director 

Clancy for 5 days. So by the time they told him about what had 

happened, most of the tapes had already been destroyed—well, 

they hadn’t been destroyed, they had been taped over. They retape 

over. That’s every 72 hours. 

We also had an incident back in November of 2011 where you 

had an individual, I believe his name was Ortega, Oscar Ortega 

Hernandez, who took a semi-automatic rifle and shot up the White 


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House, and yet the Secret Service completely missed it, Capitol Police missed it. A housekeeper happened to find some shell fragments and then reported it and then the FBI did an investigation. 

But meanwhile, those tapes were destroyed. Those tapes were 

destroyed. And—but for the fact that this fellow, after he left had 

a car accident down by the 14th Street Bridge, we would not have 

known about that. We would not have been able to connect that incident to the shots fired at the White House. 

So, what I am getting at is the airports, everybody uses a 30-day 

cycle on these tapes. The technology today allows us to do that. 

And I know you had some inquiry into the reasons why they collapsed that time. Why would the Secret Service want to tape over 

the tapes when we have had these repeated incidents where a 

longer preservation of those tapes, say for 30 days, would help us 

to make the White House more secure? 

The second example I gave, the President’s mother-in-law and 

his two daughters were in Washington at the time. One of the 

daughters was home. You know, we are talking about pretty severe 

consequences here, and we are sort of whistling through the graveyard here in allowing this practice to go on. So what I would like 

to try to do is to change the protocol, the security protocol at the 

White House to start doing things in a way that makes the President and his family safer. Because obviously you have got people 

jumping over the fence, running through the White House, you 

have got helicopters landing, and drones, you got people shooting 

up the White House. I am starting to lose faith. I am starting to 

lose faith in the Secret Service. I really am. And the level of seriousness that we have in protecting our President and his family. 

This is pretty basic stuff. So after having inquired about the taping 

practices at the White House, can you tell me if you have any recommendations that they might adopt to accomplish our goal here 

of protecting the President? 

Mr. ROTH. What we found was actually even worse than what 

you described because for the longest time it was only a 24-hour 

retention policy. 

Mr. LYNCH. Correct. 

Mr. ROTH. And they only changed that after the incident in 

which there were these functionally gate crashers at the State dinner in 2011. Then they moved it to 72 hours. The system, as I am 

sure you know, is a combination of digital and analog. It was stood 

up in 2007. And really, you know, in some ways this is very similar 

to what we saw in the Bush residence, where they had installed 

an alarm system after—this was the senior Bush—left office, and 

they never replaced it. So it was a 20-year-old alarm system that 

was protecting, you know, a former President. They didn’t have a 

system in place to be able to update these kinds of things. There 

was not, you know, for example even like a ticket system where if 

you needed something repaired there would be a record that, in 

fact, you requested these kinds of repairs. 

So a lot of their fundamental business practices simply have not 

kept up with the 21st century. I think the good news is that with 

regard to the White House video system, there are updates that are 

going to occur in the near future. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Any timeline on that? 


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Mr. ROTH. I do. I am not sure that’s public information. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I will yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. We are getting 

close to a vote series, so we want to keep hustling here. We are 

going to recognize Mr. Hice from Georgia for 5 minutes. Mr. Carter. 

I am sorry, my bad. Mr. Carter for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Roth, thank you for 

being here. I want to get at something that is bothering me 

throughout these series of hearings that we have had on this. And 

it seems to be the culture, if you will, of the Secret Service about 

reporting. We have been told, and it has been alleged, that the 

watch commander actually said that he did not want to report this, 

he didn’t want to ask for a field sobriety test because it would have 

been a career killer. Is that true? 

Mr. ROTH. That is what one of the Uniformed Division officers 

told us, yes, that the watch commander said. The watch commander subsequently denied that, for what it’s worth. 

Mr. CARTER. When he says a career killer, is he referring to his 

career for reporting it or is he referring to their career if they had 

been found guilty? I am not sure—— 

Mr. ROTH. The sense we got was that was one of the motivations 

for the watch commander not to do any further inquiries, because 

he thought there may be retaliation against him. In other words, 

it would be a career killer for him. Certainly consistent with some 

of the things that we found in the 2013 report with regard to a 

high percentage of people failing to report misconduct, believing 

that either nobody would listen, or you would, in fact, be affirmatively retaliated against. 

Mr. CARTER. Tell me what the policy is. What is the policy at the 

Secret Service when someone does—recognizes or when someone is 

faced with this situation. Are they, you are required to report, or 

is it you better just keep it quiet? 

Mr. ROTH. It is certainly not the latter. And in fact, it is the DHS 

policy, it is DHS-wide, that they are required to report it to either 

the Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility or to the Inspector General. 

Mr. CARTER. And if you don’t report it, what is the punishment? 

Mr. ROTH. I am not aware at this point what that is. 

Mr. CARTER. It would appear to me that that’s an important component. 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. Correct. As I said, the Inspector General’s office isn’t involved in specific discipline cases. That’s the Secret 

Service’s responsibility. So what we do is we engage in this factfinding and then hand it over to the Secret Service to do exactly 

what you suggest. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. I am still a little disappointed, not in you, but 

just in that—it would appear to me that that would be cut and dry. 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. 

Mr. CARTER. Let me ask you about the two agents who were involved. When they arrived at that White House complex, the officers that stopped them asked them where are you coming from. 

Mr. ROTH. Right. 

Mr. CARTER. And their answer was? 

Mr. ROTH. Secret Service headquarters. 


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Mr. CARTER. And that turns out to be a blatant lie. 

Mr. ROTH. That is not, in fact, true, correct. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Then what is the consequences of that? Look, 

we teach our children there are consequences to actions. This was 

an action. What is the consequence? 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. There is a Secret Service table of penalties that 

talks about the range of consequences for specific things. And I can 

go through the specific ones with regard to give you an example. 

Mr. CARTER. I appreciate that, and I understand what you are 

trying to do. But let me ask you this: What is going to happen to 

them? 

Mr. ROTH. There is a process that’s in place that the Office of Integrity for the Secret Service runs, which is the deputy of the Office 

of Integrity will write up, I assume take a look at our report and 

supporting materials that we have produced, and determine whether or not discipline is warranted. If he does, he will write up what 

is functionally a charging letter and give that to the individuals 

who are involved here, Connolly and Ogilvie. 

They have due process rights under the law. They have the ability to appeal it to the Integrity officer, as well as, if the consequences are severe enough, to the Merit Systems Protection 

Board. 

Mr. CARTER. Within those written laws, is one of the options to 

go ahead and retire? 

Mr. ROTH. I am not sure. I mean, certainly, you can only discipline people who are Federal employees. If somebody leaves the 

Federal service, then there is no discipline to impose because the 

most discipline you can impose is to throw them out of the Federal 

service. 

Mr. CARTER. Does it go on their permanent record? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes, it would. 

Mr. CARTER. Is that shared with a prospective employer in the 

future? If one of them goes to get—you know, in the private sector, 

do you tell them, okay, this is what happened? Or do you just tell 

them, no, they were employed here from this day to this day? 

Mr. ROTH. I am not 100 percent sure. I think in the instance of 

these two individuals, I think a Google search is going to take care 

of that. 

Mr. CARTER. Obviously in this. 

Mr. ROTH. Right. But I am not sure. That’s an area of employment that I that I just don’t have. 

Mr. CARTER. I understand. But my point is, the concern that I 

have is just with the general culture that exists in the Secret Service at this time. 

Mr. ROTH. I certainly share that concern. 

Mr. CARTER. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Glad to see Mr. Carter coming in under 

time. I appreciate it. I will now recognize the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Cartwright, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Chairman 

Chaffetz, I want to thank you particularly for mentioning the valor 

that is routinely shown by agents of this Secret Service, in particular and especially a young man that you mentioned from Scranton, Pennsylvania, in my district. Today, the U.S. Secret Service is 


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proud to note that its own Sergeant Technician, William Uher, 

from Scranton was presented by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson the 

Secretary’s award for valor, which is awarded for displays of exceptional courage. Of course as the chairman mentioned, young Mr. 

Uher actually pulled an accident victim from the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, an accident, pulled a victim from a burning vehicle. And it was later determined that that victim would have been 

unable to extricate himself without William Uher’s help. 

So we are exceptionally proud of William Uher in Pennsylvania 

today. We are also proud for him coming in 30th in the Scranton 

half marathon last month, covering 13.1 miles in less than an 

hour-and-a-half. I wish I could do that. 

Mr. Roth, we are here to talk about failures of the Secret Service, 

though. And it’s a dour duty that you have to talk about some of 

the downsides of things that we’ve seen in the Secret Service. Your 

report concludes, ‘‘Both Connolly and Ogilvie had a duty to report 

the incident to their superiors, but did not do so.’’ Is there a policy 

requiring them to self-report incidents of this nature? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes, there is. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Can you explain the policy? 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. And I am simply reading from the manual that 

the Secret Service has. And it says, ‘‘Any incident in which an employee of the Secret Service is involved which may be the cause of 

publicity or inquiry from others must be immediately reported to 

the employee’s supervisor. The range of incidents which might 

occur is so great it is not possible to enumerate them. Each employee must judge when, in his or her opinion, the matter may or 

could be given publicity in the newspaper or other media, or may 

be the subject of inquiry.’’ And it goes on. But that gives the gist. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. Now, you found that other officials 

within the agency knew about the incident and failed to alert senior leadership. In particular, you found, ‘‘Both Uniformed Division 

Deputy Chief Dyson and Uniformed Division Chief Kevin Simpson 

were notified that night that two agents had been drinking and 

had driven into an evacuated area, and each could have reported 

the incident.’’ Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. And why didn’t they report the incident? 

Mr. ROTH. We asked them that question. Their answers were 

twofold, or at least for Deputy Chief Dyson it was that he had spoken to Connolly twice, and Connolly had said that he would selfreport. Dyson believed that it was better for Connolly to self-report 

than for him to report. With regard to the chief, he said, one, that 

he believed Connolly would report, and two, he said it was not his 

job to report misconduct on the behalf of agents, but rather just 

misconduct on behalf of Uniformed Division officers. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Who should Deputy Chief Dyson and Chief 

Simpson have reported to? 

Mr. ROTH. The Special Agent in Charge of the Presidential Protection Division, or the Office of Professional Responsibility, or the 

Inspector General. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. All right. Now, according to your report, Chief 

Simpson is the most senior Secret Service official who was aware 

that Mr. Connolly had been drinking when he and Mr. Ogilvie 


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drove into the evacuated area. What was his explanation for Chief 

Simpson failing to report this information to anyone else? 

Mr. ROTH. Again, what he said was he did not report the incident 

because he did not believe it was his job to do so, and assumed that 

Connolly was going to self-report. 

Mr. CARTWRIGHT. Well, I don’t think there is any acceptable reason for failing to report a clear incident of misconduct of this nature. The Secret Service has to make it clear that reporting misconduct is not optional. Employees are required to report potential 

misconduct right up the chain of command. Mr. Roth, I thank you 

for your important work on this matter. And I yield back, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We will now recognize Mr. 

Meadows of North Carolina for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. 

Roth, for your work. Please thank your staff as well. It was timely, 

quick. I appreciate your frank and direct answers. I especially appreciate that because that’s not always the case. And so I want to 

give credit where credit is due. I do want to follow up a little bit 

on some of the questions that have been asked with regard to the 

policy, the alcohol policy that is either known or unknown. And I 

think in your testimony you said that really most people are not 

aware of the DHS policy. Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. At the time they were not aware. Since this incident, 

there have been steps to—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Because that doesn’t seem to jibe with what whistleblowers have told us, and the fact that you can find it on your 

Web site, maybe you have to look for it a little bit, but I mean it’s 

pretty—so why would they not know about that? Is it just willful 

ignorance, or is it the eighth floor not stressing the policy, or what? 

Why would they not know that? 

Mr. ROTH. You know, it’s a matter of, I think, both publicizing 

it and educating individuals about it. But, for example, we interviewed Ogilvie’s direct supervisor, who didn’t know what the policy 

was. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me go a little bit further then, because there 

is a policy that everyone is aware of, and I believe it’s called the 

10-hour rule. 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So we have this receipt that would indicate that 

there were a number of people that were drinking and possibly reporting. Would they not have been violating if they reported that 

10-hour rule? 

Mr. ROTH. We looked at that issue, specifically with Ogilvie and 

Connolly. The bar tab was closed out at 10:47, roughly. They entered the E Street gate slightly before 11 p.m. So they had finished 

drinking before 11 p.m. Their duty hours started at 9 a.m. the next 

day. So they may have—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. What about others? Obviously, it was a pretty big 

party. 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. What we found, though, or at least by the 

preponderance of the evidence, that the four individuals who were 

there were the last to leave. So there wasn’t anybody else left. 


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Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So it sounds like you have been pretty 

thorough, but we need to reemphasize that. Let me tell you the 

reason why I ask. 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Because on the way here I got two calls from random agents that I couldn’t name because they are afraid to divulge 

who they are, but literally within an hour of this hearing, letting 

me know of all kinds of problems, of the expectation of Secret Service agents to actually put liquor in the rooms of supervisors as they 

travel. That if they don’t do that, it’s frowned upon. GS–15s that 

have been caught inappropriate with females, and yet still, you 

know, leaving ammo or guns behind. I mean, I am hearing all 

kinds of things. And if I am a Member of Congress hearing this, 

are you hearing the same kinds of things? Or should we report 

them to you so that you can investigate? Because it’s troubling. We 

have got this culture of, you know, from the most elite protective 

service in the world, and yet it seems like I am getting calls almost 

daily from different people. That’s a problem. 

Mr. ROTH. By all means, you should encourage them to contact 

us. We are going to take this stuff seriously, as we have with this 

incident, as we have, for example, with the Bush residence incident, the other look-backs that we are doing on these security 

issues that we are continuing to look at. And I really think that 

the only way that the culture is going to change is if we can demonstrate, we can prove that, in fact, we are going to take these 

things seriously and do something about it. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So I have your commitment here today that you 

not only are going to take this incident, but you are going to look 

forward. And if we give you additional things, or if other agents 

give you a number of other potential things to look at, you will take 

them seriously and that you are 100 percent committed to rooting 

out the problems that we have within the agency. Is that correct? 

Mr. ROTH. Absolutely. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Absolutely. Good. I know we are about to have 

votes, so I am going to yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. We will now recognize Mrs. 

Watson Coleman of New Jersey for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Mr. Roth. I want to ask you a question. The Secret 

Service division or component is a component of DHS, right? 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So do you think that it makes better 

sense that there are department-wide policies regarding such important things as opposed to component-wide policies? 

Mr. ROTH. It’s not an issue that I have really looked at or 

thought about. I mean, there is certainly a facial validity to have 

a uniformity across all of DHS, which there clearly is not right 

now. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. We hear that in the other committee 

that I am on. According to your memorandum of understanding between the Secret Service and your office, certain categories of misconduct must be referred to you. 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 


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Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So did what happen on March 4 constitute something of that level? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes, it did. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. And in your estimation, who should 

have reported it? How many people? At what level? You know, 

what are those titles? This doesn’t fall on one person’s responsibility, right? 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. Correct. And the duty to report it to us, to 

the Office of Inspector General, is the Office of Professional Responsibility within Secret Service. So in other words, if they get a 

complaint that, you know, talks about somebody who is a GS–15 

or above and other sort of categories of incidents, they have a duty 

to report it to us. So once they hear of something, they must report 

it to us, and then we make some decisions as to whether we will 

take it or not. Independent of that, of course, is the duty that all 

DHS employees have of reporting suspicions of wrongdoing. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So I may have missed some of this, because some of it is getting a little bit confusing for me. This entity 

that should have reported to you is professional—— 

Mr. ROTH. Office of Professional Responsibility. It’s the internal 

affairs group within the Secret Service. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. How soon after the March 4 incident did 

it know of it? 

Mr. ROTH. They knew about it on March 9. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. On March 9. And you were informed of 

it on? 

Mr. ROTH. March 9. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. By them? 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. And Mr. Clancy was informed of this on 

March 9 also? 

Mr. ROTH. Correct. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Clancy did not start an investigation of his own at the same time that you all were going to take 

this on? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s correct. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Is that the usual operating procedure, 

where if you are going to do it, the agency is not going to conduct? 

Mr. ROTH. Exactly. Only one group can conduct an investigation. 

Otherwise, you have people tripping all over each other. So once 

there is a decision made, for example, for us to take it, then everybody has to step back and allow us to do our investigation. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. So if we were going to focus in on who 

or what level we believe is the biggest problem here, other than the 

self-reporting up the chain of command, where would that be? 

Mr. ROTH. Sure. I think the point of failure was the senior management within the Uniformed Division who knew of it and did not 

report it to, for example, Director Clancy or to the Office of Professional Responsibility. 

Mr. ROTH. Is that the watch commander? 

Mr. ROTH. No. The watch commander reported it up his chain of 

command to, for example, to the deputy chief of the Uniformed Division. Additionally, there was a Special Agent in the JOC, the 


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Joint Operations Center, who was aware of what went on. She certainly could have and probably had a duty to report that as well. 

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I am going to close also, because I know 

that we are running late. But I want to associate myself with 

something that Mr. Hice said. I agree with him that you cannot— 

I don’t care how long you work in a public service, it can be 5 

years, it could be 15 years or 20 years, but if you are found to have 

done something that is as egregious as we think this is, you ought 

not be able to just walk away with your—the benefits that you had 

associated with being a good public servant. There needs to be 

some consequences. You ought not to just be allowed to walk away 

and say I retire because you can. 

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

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Russell for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. 

Roth, for your tireless investigations and trying to make our Department of Homeland Security better. It is appreciated. There is 

a lot of discussion back and forth on this incident about vague Secret Service policy regarding drinking alcohol and driving. I guess 

my take on it is a little more simple. Would driving through a 

marked potential crime scene be acceptable performance off duty, 

either sober or inebriated? 

Mr. ROTH. Neither, sir. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Would entering the White House complex buzzed 

or inebriated be considered acceptable off-duty behavior? 

Mr. ROTH. No. 

Mr. RUSSELL. The second in command who was involved with 

this incident, what kind of public confidence does it instill when 

that occurs that we can protect the President of the United States? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, I share your concern, particularly given the fact 

that he was responsible for all the operations within the White 

House complex. 

Mr. RUSSELL. What kind of example do you think that that sets 

to the agents and also the seriousness of the duties that ought to 

be performed, whether on duty or off, knowing that any of them at 

any moment could be called upon to protect the leader of the free 

world? 

Mr. ROTH. And that is something we wrestled with with regard 

to the fact that Special Agents are, in fact, subject to recall at a 

moment’s notice. In fact, that’s one of the reasons they have government cars that they can drive home at night is because at any 

moment, they could be called out. 

To give you a good example of that is the two Philadelphia 

agents who at 2 in the morning had to sort of respond to the home 

of the woman who had dropped the package. They didn’t know that 

evening that they were going to get that call and have to drive in 

the pouring rain to this woman’s house. So it’s very, very troubling. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Given that sense of duty, and also the arduous selection process to elevate an agent to this level of duty, this is the 

highest performance level that Secret Service agents can perform, 

what discipline has Agent Connolly or Agent Ogilvie received? And 

if none, what charges are pending? 


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Mr. ROTH. The way the process works is there is an investigation 

that’s done, which is now completed. As of last week, we transmitted all of our materials to the Secret Service to their Office of 

Professional Responsibility and their Office of Integrity, which then 

manages that program. And what happens, as I understand it, is 

that there would be the deputy within the Office of Integrity who 

would then assess the materials and basically write a charging document, if that’s the right word, proposing certain discipline. 

Mr. RUSSELL. When I was a commander in the military, often on 

an IG investigation we would receive recommendations of courses 

of action. What would you recommend? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, they have a table of penalties. 

Mr. RUSSELL. I have read through it. What would you recommend, sir? 

Mr. ROTH. Well, I think this is very, very serious conduct. I think 

the fact that it has caused me to expend all these resources, it has 

caused the director of the Secret Service to distract himself from 

his important business to have to testify before here, appropriately 

so, I think it is very, very detrimental to the effective functioning 

of the Secret Service. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, I think all of America would agree. And 

should the American public, in light of this, have more confidence 

or less in our government’s ability to protect our President? 

Mr. ROTH. I am hoping that this process will create a situation 

in which people will have more confidence that we are able to acknowledge our problems and fix our problems. If it doesn’t get resolved, then I would say there would be less confidence. 

Mr. RUSSELL. And so we had a similar answer after Cartagena, 

after drones, after barricades, after, after, after, after. We are talking about the President of the United States. At what point do you 

see, and what is your estimation—you have been handling investigations a long time—are they taking this serious, and will they 

make the necessary changes that the American public demands? 

Mr. ROTH. I have had a number of conversations with Director 

Clancy about this. I think he is committed to doing it. I will have 

to say that they didn’t get into this situation overnight, and they 

are not going to get out of it overnight. But do I think he is making 

the right moves? I absolutely do. 

Mr. RUSSELL. Well, I hope so. And I think that the Director can 

exhibit that leadership and even reach down into organizations 

that are going awry. And my hope is that the Director would do 

that, and also that we would see a shape up rather quickly, because should we have the President harmed, all of America would 

not be able to forgive itself. Thank you, sir, for your testimony 

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

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I thank the gentleman. I am going to now 

recognize myself for 5 more minutes. You mentioned that there 

were others that had been drinking that evening that went back 

to—where did they go? Did they go to the White House or did they 

go to the operations center? 

Mr. ROTH. I think they would have gone back to Secret Service 

headquarters, but I am not 100 percent sure, as I sit here, exactly 

who that would have been. But I do recall in some of the interviews 


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the fact that what happened is they would have a beer and a sandwich, say good-bye, and then go back to work. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. But this incident of this night we are talking about, some of the people in addition to Ogilvie and Connolly 

went back to work. Correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s my understanding. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. How many people? Do you know? 

Mr. ROTH. I don’t have that information. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And that’s the concern. This isn’t just one 

person making a rookie mistake. You have two people here, Mr. 

Connolly with 27 years of experience, Mr. Ogilvie with 19 years of 

experience, some 46 years of experience. Are you telling me that 

they didn’t know that it’s wrong to drink? Look, it’s not right to 

drink alcohol and work the french fry machine at McDonald’s. It 

is certainly not right to drink and go into the White House, or the 

White House compound, or drive a vehicle when you are there to 

protect the President and the First Family. These people have 

guns. They have trust. They have people that they have to—they 

can blow past and say look, I am your supervisor, you are letting 

me through. And that’s what is happening here. 

And then when you did have that poor officer, you got officers 

there that are trying to do the right thing, and it is your testimony 

that these very senior people, with badges, guns, and alcohol on 

their breath told them, oh, I just came from headquarters. They 

didn’t mention that they had come from the bar, did they? 

Mr. ROTH. No. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Was that a lie? 

Mr. ROTH. It would appear to be that way, yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. So it is a lie? 

Mr. ROTH. Yes. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. That’s the problem is they are lying to 

themselves, because they did take a government vehicle. They 

should know after 46 years of experience that the reason they are 

doing it on taxpayer dollars is that they are there to respond at a 

moment’s notice. We never know when something is going to happen. And this is the senior-most—she is these are the senior-most 

people in charge of protecting the White House. They are always 

supposed to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. That’s why they 

took government vehicles. They were taking advantage of the situation and making taxpayers pay for their little rides there to the 

bar. You know, that bar is so low. The only thing that is raising 

on the bar is their bar tab. And it has to change. 

I appreciate the good work in ferreting this out. How long has 

Homeland Security and the Secret Service had your report? When 

did they get your first draft? 

Mr. ROTH. They received my first draft—or this draft, May 6. We 

supplied the underlying materials either in the middle or late last 

week. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. And yet there has been no consequence yet. 

We get reports that maybe one person is going to retire. Who 

knows when that is going to be. What discretion does Secretary 

Clancy have in revoking their security clearance? 

Mr. ROTH. I don’t have that information. 


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Chairman CHAFFETZ. But he could revoke their security clearance immediately, correct? 

Mr. ROTH. I am not sure what the process is for revocation of security clearances. I know that there is a process that’s involved, 

but I don’t know what it is. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. They could be put on nonpaid leave. Correct? 

Mr. ROTH. That’s my understanding. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. Do you think this is an aggravated situation? 

Mr. ROTH. My understanding is that nonpaid leave—unfortunately, Congressman, you are getting into areas of employment law 

that are simply beyond my competence. And I apologize for that. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. No, no, I think that’s a fair situation. But 

as Mr. Russell just aptly pointed out, even if they weren’t drunk 

and they interrupted a potential bomb scene, that’s totally unacceptable. If they lied to somebody who also works for the Secret 

Service, that is unacceptable behavior. And if you look at what 

happened in the email chain, trying to protect themselves and 

making sure that the word didn’t get out, there is plenty of evidence. 

This is a pivotal moment for the Secret Service. This is the time 

when we find out what Director Clancy and Secretary Johnson, if 

they have the guts to do what needs to be done. Because in my 

opinion, these people should be fired. Today they should lose and 

have their security clearances revoked. That should have happened 

a long time ago. And those that didn’t report this, I have got a list 

here of people who, at some degree or another, have, at least according to your report, violated policy that could lead to their potential removal. That’s Marc Connolly, George Ogilvie, Kevin Simpson, Alfonso Dyson, and perhaps and probably, Michael Braun. 

At the very least, those people, they need to be taken to the 

woodshed, and they should lose their security clearances, they 

should lose their job, and if I was the President of the United 

States, I would never want to see them again. I don’t want to see 

them there. We got thousands of people, like the gentleman who 

was recognized for his valor, that should be protecting the President of the United States. But if you are going to go consume alcohol and then show up at the White House, disturb a crime scene, 

get out of here. Go home. Go find another job. Because you know 

what, you wouldn’t be able to work at my McDonald’s. You 

wouldn’t even be able to run the french fry machine, because you 

are not going to drink and show up to work, and you are not going 

to do that if you work for the Secret Service. 

That’s what is happening. And they can continue to investigate 

and look at—your report is very conclusive. It was independent in 

its nature. And it’s time for this Director and this Secretary to take 

some definitive, conclusive action and fix the problem and send a 

message to the rest of the workforce, we are not going to put up 

with anybody who is showing up to work drunk, inebriated, lying, 

trying to cover up, not reporting. I mean, how many things went 

wrong here today? But that’s my opinion. I will yield to the ranking 

member, Mr. Cummings. 


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Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank you, Mr. Roth. For anybody who 

just tuned in, I didn’t want them to think that he was talking to 

you. You have done a great job. Really. And we really do appreciate 

your staff. And I know you had to pull together a lot of people in 

a little bit of time. But we really do appreciate it. And I agree with 

the chairman. Somebody asked me just a few minutes ago, how are 

we going to straighten this out? And I said we are going to have 

to keep the pressure up. But we cannot keep the pressure up without the kind of information that you all have provided us. And I 

am sure that—and I am hopeful that, Mr. Chairman, that when 

Mr. Clancy comes before us, he will have a report letting us know 

what disciplinary actions he has taken. But again, I want to thank 

you. We really do appreciate everything you have done. We also appreciate you working with us. From the very beginning, you have 

just been great, and your staff. So thank you. 

Chairman CHAFFETZ. I totally concur. My frustration is not with 

you, Mr. Roth, or the Inspector General’s office. Without that information, we would still be left in the dark. And what you and your 

staff have done, good hard work, good investigative work, we are 

very appreciative on both sides of the aisle. And we do appreciate 

it. It’s now our responsibility to hold the administration accountable and make sure that they fix the problem so we can stop having hearings like these. But we do wish you Godspeed. Thank you 

for this work, and look forward to the other reports that you are 

still working on. This committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:43 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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