JOE CLANCY, THE NEW SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: FANTASTIC CHOICE!
My Facebook post sums up my feelings:
"Yes! JOE CLANCY, a great American and one of the best Secret Service agents ever (AND a friend of a friend!), is now SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR, replacing the inept Julia Pierson (although I am sure she is a nice lady). Joe attended West Point and graduated from Villanova University and is one tough guy you do NOT want to mess with. No exaggeration- I am a huge critic of their performance on 11/22/63, yet guys like Joe Clancy are fantastic; Clint Eastwood and John Wayne plus!"
This selection means the Secret Service MEANS business- Joe is THE model of what an agent should be in every facet. Former agent Dan Emmett is a friend of Joe's and his book tells of Joe Clancy's pedigree and talent. I am very happy the agency chose Joe to send everyone a message- NO MORE OF THIS GARBAGE:
November 22, 1963: NINE agents, including Clint Hill and three others on the Secret Service follow-up vehicle, went drinking and carousing in the early morning hours, having a detrimental effect on President Kennedy's protection. The President was assassinated a short time later in what was and is THE biggest scandal in the Service's history. Hill was not reprimanded but promoted (twice-SAIC of WHD and Assistant Director), awarded a medal, retired early with full government pension, and has gone on to fame and fortune as the author of 4 books with his young girlfriend co-author (as well as a former agent on Kennedy's detail). The protection of Kennedy was horrid- JFK was literally left a sitting duck during that dark day 50 years ago.
November 2009: A Washington couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi,
crash Obama’s first state dinner. The Secret Service later acknowledges that officers never checked whether they were on the guest list. A photo emerges showing that they shook hands with the president. Sullivan, the director, says that he is “deeply concerned and embarrassed” by the breach. The Salahis parlay their fame into an undistinguished career in reality TV.
November 2011: A man with a semiautomatic rifle parks in front of the White House and fires at the building, with Sasha Obama inside and Malia Obama on her way home. A Secret Service supervisor, mistaking the shots for car backfire, orders officers to stand down. The service does not figure out that shots hit the building for four days, and only then because a housekeeper noticed broken glass. The president and first lady are infuriated,
The Post reports years later.
April 2012: Eight Secret Service agents doing advance work for a presidential trip to a summit in Colombia lose their jobs after allegations that some
took prostitutes from a strip club back to their hotel rooms. A Justice Department investigation finds that two Drug Enforcement Administration agents
arranged one encounter between a prostitute and a Secret Service officer. Obama later says: “When we travel, we have to observe the highest standards.”
May 2013: A Secret Service supervisor
leaves a bullet in a woman’s room at the Hay-Adams hotel, which overlooks the White House, and allegedly tries to force his way into the room to retrieve it. An investigation finds that the supervisor and a colleague sent sexually suggestive emails to a woman subordinate. The supervisor loses his job, and the colleague is reassigned. A Secret Service spokesman says: “Periodically we have isolated incidents of misconduct, just like every organization does.”
March 2014: Three Secret Service agents responsible for protecting Obama in Amsterdam are placed on leave after a night of drinking, in violation of Secret Service rules. One of the agents is passed out drunk in a hallway,
The Post reports. The newspaper reports that the three are part of what is known as the counter assault team, a last line of defense responsible for fighting off assailants if the president or his motorcade comes under attack.
Sept. 16, 2014: In perhaps the most chilling of the Secret Service lapses, a security contractor with a gun and an assault record gets on an elevator with the president during a trip to Atlanta. The Post, citing people familiar with the incident, reports that the contractor used his cellphone to take video of Obama and
did not stop when Secret Service agents told him to. The Secret Service only learns that the man has a gun when he is fired on the spot and turns it over. Obama was not told, The Post reports.
Sept. 19, 2014: An Iraq war veteran with a knife jumps the White House fence, dashes through the North Portico doors and makes it deep inside the building, into the East Room, before he is tackled, and only then by an off-duty Secret Service agent. The Secret Service first says only that the man was apprehended after getting in the door. A congressman tells The Post that a
security alarm was disabled because staff nearby found it too noisy.
