Secret Service director takes responsibility for White House
Source: White House

U.S. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson appears before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday.

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson took a political bullet Tuesday, saying she bears “full responsibility” for the shocking security lapse that allowed a fence jumper to get deep inside the White House.

“It's unacceptable and I will make sure that it does not happen again,” Preston told angry members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Iraq War veteran Omar Gonzalez, who was armed with a knife, breached at least ‘five rings’ of security in making it all the way to the entrance of the Green Room of the White House in the Sept. 19 incident.

Members of the Republican-led committee were searing in their criticism of the Secret Service's leadership.

And members of both parties told Pierson, who became Secret Service Director in 2013, that they lacked confidence in her. although they stopped short of demanding her ouster.

“The White House complex is supposed to be one of the most secure facilities in the country, if not the world,” Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said in his prepared remarks. “So, how on earth did this happen?”

“Whether deficient procedures, insufficient training, personnel shortages, or low morale contributed to the incident, this can never happen again,” he said.



News broke Monday that the fence jumper made it deep inside the White House and wasn't in fact apprehended at the entrance to the executive mansion.

Pierson disclosed that at least two uniformed Secret Service officers recognized Gonzalez just before he scaled the fence from an earlier encounter, but they never approached him or reported him to superiors.

They remembered him from an Aug. 25 incident, when he was stopped near the White House fence and was found with a hatchet, Pierson said. But because he "had not violated any laws, he had to be released" at that time, she testified.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who chairs the panel's Homeland Security Subcommittee, bashed the Secret Service for issuing a press release that praised its "tremendous restraint" in not shooting Gonzalez in the Sept. 19 incident. That message projected "weakness" and invited future attacks, he said.

"The message should be overwhelming force," he said. "If they take action that is lethal, I will have their back."

Pierson responded that the Secret Service "did use restraint in making a very difficult decision." She said the problem was that the agency's security plan for the building was not properly executed.

While vowing a full review of how Gonzalez penetrated the building, Pierson defended the agency, which she claimed is 550 agents below its intended personnel level due to budget cuts.


In the last five years, the agency has apprehended 16 people who scaled the White House fence, including six this year alone, she said.

Lawmakers also cited the ability of Michaele and Tareq Salahi to crash a 2009 White House State Dinner; incidents in Colombia and the Netherlands in which agents drunkenly consorted with prostitutes; and the failure of the Secret Service to realize for several days in 2011 that bullets fired by a gunman hit the White House, including the living quarters.   

The panel’s senior Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said he was especially worried that Secret Service agents said they were “hesitant to raise security concerns with supervisors” after the 2011 incident.

Pierson confirmed that Gonzalez ran through the North Portico’s front doors, into the East Room and near the doors to the Green Room before being apprehended. He passed stairs leading to the Obama family’s residence a floor above.

The First Family was not in the mansion at the time; President Obama and his daughters had left minutes earlier for Camp David.

"I'm worried that over the last several years, security has gotten worse ― not better," Chaffetz said on Monday.


“I’ve got deep concerns because the President is not as safe as we need him to be."

In the hours after the incident, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said Gonzalez had been apprehended just inside the front doors of the White House, a statement which later proved to be false.

The agency also said that night that the Army veteran had been unarmed ― an assertion that was revealed to be false the next day, when officials acknowledged Gonzalez had a knife with him when he was apprehended.

The Secret Service declined to comment in advance of the hearing on the new details of the embarrassing security breach.

Senate Judiciary Committee staffers who were briefed about the investigation by the administration a week after the incident were never told how far Gonzalez made it into the building, according to a congressional official who wasn't authorized to discuss the investigation and requested anonymity. The official said the committee later was told that the suspect had, indeed, made it far beyond the front door.

Pierson's predecessor, Mark J. Sullivan, apologized to lawmakers in 2012 after details emerged of a night of debauchery involving 13 Secret Service agents and officers in advance of the president's arrival at a summit in Colombia. Sullivan retired about 10 months later.