Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman on Friday chided a leading Republican on his panel for divulging details of an unpublished investigation into the Secret Service’s prostitution scandal this spring.
In a memo to the full committee Friday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., laid out several points that he says are detailed in a report written by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.
The memo said the first phase of that report was completed late last month and that subcommittee staff reviewed it at the inspector general’s office. Staffers were not allowed to keep a copy of the report, though, and the document has not been made public.
Lieberman blasted Johnson’s memo, calling it an “unauthorized leak of sensitive, selective information from the IG’s report” and saying Johnson’s assessment is unfair to the Secret Service and agency Director Mark Sullivan.
“Both have served our nation honorably and ably for a long time and deserve the benefit of a presumption of innocence unless real evidence leads to a different conclusion,” Lieberman, I-Conn., said in a written statement. “I will await the inspector general’s finished report before making any judgments.”
Lieberman and the committee’s ranking Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, requested in May that the inspector general’s office carry out its own investigation rather than only reviewing the Secret Service’s probe into allegations that agents brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms during an April trip to Cartagena, Colombia, prior to President Obama’s arrival in the country for a summit.
Johnson, who serves as ranking Republican on the Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee, questioned in his memo why Sullivan, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have said they have not seen evidence indicating any member of the White House advance team was engaged in improper conduct or behavior on the trip. The inspector general, Johnson said, found hotel records that suggest female foreign nationals signed in as guests to rooms registered to a White House Communications Agency employee and a member of the White House staff.
The memo laid out concerns that the inspector general has not been able to interview foreign nationals or access foreign records during its investigation because the Justice Department has denied the office’s request for a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty since there are no criminal proceedings involved.
Without that treaty, Johnson said, the office can’t access hotel records from 14 of the 15 hotels where U.S. personnel stayed in Cartagena and can’t interview the prostitutes, hotel staff or employees of local establishments there.
Johnson took issue with the fact that the Secret Service was allowed to interview foreign nationals as part of its investigation while the inspector general’s office has not had that ability.
“It is unclear why an organization led by a political appointee should be granted this access while the independent Office of the Inspector General is denied it,” the memo stated. “Without the ability to interview foreign nationals and access hotel records, it is impossible to determine if names associated with White House personnel are recorded as having checked in overnight female guests during their stay in Colombia.”
Rep. Bill Cassidy has his blood drawn by Alesha Barbour during a free hepatitis screening in the Rayburn House Office Building hosted by the Congressional Viral Hepatitis Caucus to recognize "National Viral Hepatitis Testing Day."
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