Lawmakers rebuke Secret Service chief over White House security lapse

Angry lawmakers rebuked the Secret Service director Tuesday as new details emerged about the agency’s failure to stop a White House intruder, including that automatic locks were installed on the front door only after the breach.

For a second straight day, new revelations undermined the initial Secret Service account about the man, later identified as Omar Gonzalez, who the agency had said was stopped just inside the entrance of what is supposedly one of the most secure buildings in the world. The door was unlocked.

In fact, Gonzalez knocked back an agent trying to lock the door and the two wrestled through a hallway and into the East Room before another agent tackled Gonzalez and he was finally handcuffed, Secret Service Director Julia A. Pierson told the House oversight committee at a hearing.

“The more I learn, the worse it is, and that scares me,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said afterward. “Misleading people to say that he … didn’t make it very far into the White House, that’s just unacceptable. What they put out there was factually untrue, misleading and inaccurate.”

Pierson said she bore the blame for the security lapse and promised a full investigation, citing a failure to follow protocol that’s designed to keep the president safe.

“It’s self-evident that mistakes were made,” she said. “We must identify what the facts are, learn from the facts, assess and make changes … to ensure that this never happens again.”

The Secret Service has long been considered an elite protection service beyond reproach, but its reputation has wavered in recent years and has come under renewed scrutiny in the days since the Sept. 19 intrusion. Authorities say Gonzalez scaled a 7-foot-6 fence and sprinted across the lawn into the building, a breach that punctured several layers of Secret Service protection.

New reports that the agent who tackled Gonzalez was off-duty are only “partially true,” Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) said after the hearing. Investigators were still piecing together details, but Connolly said he was told the agent was at the end of his shift. The agent was assigned to protect President Obama’s daughters, who had left via helicopter minutes earlier, the Washington Post reported, citing two unidentified people it said were familiar with what happened.

During the hearing, an unusually bipartisan array of lawmakers harped on a wayward Secret Service culture that threatens its core mission of protecting the president and his family. They pointed to a 2012 prostitution scandal involving agents in Colombia and other allegations of misbehavior, and they hammered Pierson over operational details, such as whether agents are permitted to use personal smartphones while on duty, implying that they were distracted and undisciplined.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, highlighted agency whistle-blowers who had gone to Congress with concerns rather than report them to their supervisors. He questioned whether low morale was behind that.

“What that tells me is that they don’t trust each other. There’s a problem of trust within an agency … that really needs to have trust within it,” Cummings said.

Pierson, who stoically responded to questions often posed in raised voices, was brought in as a reformer a year after the prostitution scandal. This is her first major test.

Cummings warned her that the “jury is still out” on her tenure, although no lawmaker went so far as to call for her firing.

Pierson acknowledged missteps of her own, telling lawmakers she had read an agency statement before it was distributed on the night of the breach that said Gonzalez was unarmed. He was later found to have a pocketknife with a 3.5-inch blade, which Pierson said she considered a weapon.

Representatives pressed her on Gonzalez’s prior run-ins with law enforcement, including an arrest in Virginia in July on suspicion of reckless driving. Police discovered 11 weapons, including firearms, and a map of Washington with a line drawn to the White House. Gonzalez was released on bond, but his weapons were not returned.

“I hate to even imagine what Gonzalez would have done if he had burst into the White House with a gun rather than a knife,” Cummings said.

Pierson defended the Secret Service’s handling of the Virginia arrest, saying that Gonzalez told investigators the map was intended for sightseeing and that he did not show signs of mental illness.

Gonzalez was also stopped at the White House fence in August after acting suspiciously and carrying a small ax. Pierson said he was not arrested because he had not violated any laws. She said the investigation would determine why agents didn’t take further action.

Gonzalez, 42, a troubled Iraq war veteran from Copperas Cove, Texas, was indicted on several felonies Tuesday in the White House intrusion.

Agents have said Obama receives three times as many threats as previous presidents. Pierson’s office has evaluated more than 300 people as potential threats this year, she said.

Lawmakers also demanded answers about the agency’s response to a 2011 attack when a man fired shots at the White House with a high-powered rifle.

In that case, damage to the building from bullets was discovered by an usher, not an agent, and it took the Secret Service three to four days to report that the White House had been fired upon.

Pierson, who was the agency’s chief of staff at the time, emphasized that she intended to look forward rather than backward.

“I can’t speak for what has happened in the past,” she said. “What I can tell you is we’re moving forward into the future.”

Still, committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Vista) called for an investigation, and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, announced he would sponsor legislation calling for an independent commission to review the agency.

matt.hansen2@latimes.com