Add this to the lengthy, and still growing, list of flubs the Secret Service reportedly made while guarding the President: the agency allowed a man posing as a member of Congress to go backstage with Obama at an event last month.
Bloomberg reported that the unidentified man accessed the backstage area during or right after Obama’s speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner on Sept. 27, citing an anonymous White House official.
The man, who said he was Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-NJ), left the area without incident once a member of the White House staff determined that he was not in fact Payne, according to the official. The official couldn’t tell Bloomberg how close the man got to the President and the First Lady, who was also in attendance.
Agency spokesman Brian Leary told Bloomberg that the agency did its job in this case.
“This guy went through security, fully screened,” he said.
My God, why didn’t they just introduce him to Charles Manson in a dark alley somewhere?
Man posing as a lawmaker? Couldn’t that describe most members of this past Congress, the least productive in modern history?
I mean, fully screened? How does that work? Seems as though the modern Secret Service is “unclear on the concept.”
…If I were Prez, I’d be hiding out in a bunker somewhere until they hire some people who actually know what they are doing. My every fear of the legacy of the Bush presidency has been realized. Incompetence everywhere.
Heckuva job, Secret Serviceman!
I’ve spent a lifetime in the technical end of entertainment and have done many political events because politics is essentially, as the old joke goes, show business for ugly people.
Its been my experience that the highest level of security is, of course, the presidential level. But there are lots of porous parts in the security bubble. Especially in a large arena or stadium, the crew knows all the shortcuts and secret passages for getting around. So they are liable to show up unvetted at any moment. I was never challenged once until Obama became president.
This included the time I walked past Mrs Clinton with a box labeled explosives (special effects) on the loading ramp where her limo was waiting. Two agents came down to check me out and I simply said, “I work here”
They said fine and I walked past her and into the building. She had lingered in the building for two hours after her scheduled departure.
It is my experience the Obama has the most intense security I have ever witnessed. But that having been said, human error always enters the mix and always will.
I guess that fully screened and totally screened are two different levels of Secret Service security planning.