Secret Service agents investigated over White House crash

Two senior agents from the secret service are being investigated after crashing into a barrier outside the White House following a late-night party.

As reported by the Washington Post, the incident occurred last week and one of the agents involved, Mark Connolly, was (at the time) second-in-command of President Obama’s security detail.

Earlier in the evening they had been at a nearby bar attending a retirement party for secret service spokesman, Edwin Donovan. They drove back to the White House and tried to drive through the gates with their overhead lights flashing and waving their badges out of the windows.

Police at the gates were inspecting a “package” at the time and had taped the area off. The car broke through the tape and then hit a barrier.

The police officers on duty at the time were apparently poised to arrest the agents and breathalyse them but a supervisor ordered them to let the pair go.

Even if well within the drink drive limit, agents are not allowed to drive a government vehicle after consuming any amount of alcohol, while use of the lights is only authorised for security reasons and the pair disrupted an on-going investigation.

The Department of Homeland Security has launched an inquiry and the two men have been moved to “non-supervisory, non-operational assignments”.

This is not the first scandal to hit the secret service. In 2012, 10agents resigned or were removed from their posts after some agents took local prostitutes back to their hotel rooms while in Colombia preparing for a presidential visit.

Famously, in 1963, President John F Kennedy’s security detail stayed up drinking into the early hours the day before the fateful drive through Dallas.