Secret Service Director Julia Pierson had lost the trust of her agency after numerous security breaches and had to resign, says former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, who worked the agency's presidential detail under Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
"It was necessary. The most important thing … is trust and she had lost the trust of the rank and file agents and officers out the and the Secret Service that actually do the work," Bongino said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"It gives me no joy in saying that, but if you can't trust your management to have your back in that line of work, then it's a bad day for you.
"The interim director they appointed I know very well. [I] worked for him for a long time. Joe Clancy, is fantastic. [He's] a really, really terrific agent who is going to turn the operation around."
Pierson stepped down following revelations that a disturbed, knife-wielding intruder had jumped over the White House fence and entered the building. It was also revealed that an armed, unauthorized man was allowed to ride an elevator with President Barack Obama.
"This was a failure of multiple layers of very complicated security planning and not just one…. They all seemed to fail at the same time," he said.
He said past fence jumpers had not made it more than 10 feet on the ground before being apprehended.
Bongino also dismissed the suggestion by some that the intruder should have been shot dead the moment he set foot on White House ground.
"The Secret Service can only use deadly force if there's [the] threat of a serious personal injury or death to someone else," he said.
"We don't shoot trespassers at the White House, especially trespassers with severe psychological disorders that jump the fence, who are war veterans.
"We just don't do it. We had non-lethal measures … those non-lethal measures failed. The dogs, there are a number of other things, I don't want to get into the specifics, failed as well."
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