The Secret Service agents suspected of driving under the influence when their car hit a White House barrier apparently disrupted an active bomb investigation,
The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The agents, who struck an orange security barrier with their vehicle on March 4, may also have driven over a package that was tossed out of a car by a woman who was screaming it was a "bomb" near a White House gate, the Post said, citing records and police reports.
The initial episode has drawn an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and sparked an outcry from lawmakers amid concerns that the Secret Service has not been brought under control by its new leaders, the Post said.
Lawmakers hope to discern whether a Secret Service supervisor ordered officers to let the two senior agents go home without undergoing sobriety tests. Those agents had returned around 11 p.m. from a work party at a bar in nearby Chinatown, about eight blocks away, plowing through police tape near where the alleged explosive device lay, law enforcement told the Post.
"The fact that this event involved senior-level agents is not only embarrassing but exhibits a clear lack of judgment in a potentially dangerous situation," noted House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, and Elijah Cummings a Maryland Democrat,
according to The Associated Press.
President Barack Obama pledged support for the Secret Service on Thursday,
according to CBS News, acknowledging that he knows the agents involved and is "disappointed" in their conduct, sources said.
Noted CBS in reporting by correspondent Major Garrett: "The White House is irked that the Secret Service's new director Joe Clancy waited as long as he did to inform it about the agency's latest case of misconduct… Clancy had already made the decision to refer the matter to the Homeland Security Department Inspector General's office when he first informed the White House."