Secret Service Scandal: Agents Under Investigation For White House Car Crash

Questions about personal misconduct are dogging the Secret Service again. Two top Secret Service agents are under investigation after allegedly crashing a government car into White House barricades. The men were driving back from a former colleague’s retirement party, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The two agents reportedly drove to a White House entry point on March 4 that had been closed earlier to investigate a report of a suspicious package. Although the grounds were closed, the agents flashed their badges to the guards on duty, drove straight through the security tape and hit the barracks, witnesses told the Washington Post.

The barracks had recently been placed in that section of the grounds and were only to remain temporarily. No one was hurt in the crash and it is not known whether any damage was made to the vehicle. The agents allegedly did not take a sobriety test so it remains unclear whether or not their driving could have been impaired by alcohol.

The Post identified one of the agents under investigation as Mark Connolly, a top member of President Barack Obama’s security detail, and the other as George Ogilvie, a supervisor in the Washington Field office. Newly appointed Secret Service director Joseph P. Clancy decided that given the agents’ high profile, it would be best if the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office conducted the investigation, according to the Post.

The current allegations of agents’ misconduct come after a string of embarrassing failures and public intoxication incidents for the Secret Service. Last March, three agents were accused of drinking too much before a presidential visit in the Netherlands, and another was accused of drinking that led to a traffic accident in Miami. He passed the first sobriety test, according to Fox News. Two year before that, 13 agents were implicated in a scandal involving alcohol and prostitutes in Cartagena, Columbia.

In September, a man armed with a knife was able to breach the White House gate and make it all the way inside to the East Room before he was apprehended.

When Clancy was appointed last month, he said he would crack down on the agencies fumbles and “regain the trust of the American people.” Last week, the agency arrested two people in two days whom they accused of attempting to breach White House security.