White House surveillance tapes of a March 4 incident in which two Secret Service supervisory agents, believed to be "inebriated," drove a government car into a security barricade and a bomb investigation site likely have been destroyed.
Testifying in a closed-door hearing of the House Oversight Committee, Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy gave congressmen two tapes of the incident, but said that additional surveillance tapes may have been destroyed under a Secret Service policy which mandates erasing tapes 72 hours after they have been recorded,
CNN reported.
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CNN: "We inquired if there were additional tapes and angles, and the director informed us that there may not be because it's their policy to erase them 72 hours after they record, which is just unfathomable. I can't think of any good reason to do that.
"This is not your local 7-11. This is the White House."
The agents involved were allowed to go home without submitting to a breathalyzer test, despite requests from the service's Uniformed Division that the tests be performed, the
Washington Examiner reported.
However, Clancy told the committee he had initially been told the agents were "inebriated,"
Fox News reported.
The agency has come under fire over several incidents, including agents hiring prostitutes during a visit to Colombia, the service allowing an armed security guard with a felony record to ride in an elevator with President Obama during a visit to Atlanta, and an intruder who scaled the White House fence and made it into the foyer through an unlocked front door before being tackled,
The Washington Post reported.
The revelations led to the resignation of Director Julia Pierson late last year and her replacement by Clancy.
Chaffetz told CNN the committee will send a letter to Clancy requesting all tapes and physical evidence from the latest incident. One tape shows the agents drove close to a suspected bomb under investigation, which turned out to be a book. "They almost ran over a potential bomb," Chaffetz told CNN.
When told that Washington Metropolitan Police took over an hour to respond to the incident, he told CNN: "They're going to get a nasty-gram from Congress."
Clancy confirmed to the committee members that it was five days before he was informed of the incident, well after the tapes would have been destroyed.
He said he turned the incident investigation over to the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general rather than investigating it personally, an action which Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Kentucky, termed "hogwash," Fox News said.
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