Secret Service Scandal: Some Agents Were Too Drunk To Sleep With Prostitutes

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With eight Secret Service agents out of the agency in the wake of the Colombian prostitution scandal, some additional details are emerging about the night in Cartagena that cost several agents their jobs as well as previous behavior by Secret Service employees during foreign trips.

Some of the agents caught up in the Colombian prostitution scandal “have said there was no sexual activity because the men were so drunk that they fell asleep immediately after bringing the women to their rooms,” according to the Washington Post.

The paper also reports that members of Bill Clinton’s protective detail went to a strip club during his 2009 visit to Buenos Aires.

“Of course it has happened before” one agent not implicated in the Colombian prostitution scandal told the Post. “This is not the first time. It really only blew up in this case because the [U.S. Embassy] was alerted.”

The New York Times reports that the agency’s policy about Secret Service agents picking up women during trips to foreign countries wasn’t clear.

“They said, ‘We teach all our agents that if they go to Amsterdam, they cannot smoke marijuana,'” an official who was briefed by the Secret Service told the newspaper. “But they couldn’t tell us whether there was anything explicit in their rules and regulations that said anything about whether one of their personnel could spend the night with a woman in a foreign country. They said they would have to get back to us on that, and they haven’t.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, meanwhile, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning that the agency had received no complaints about similar activity. Napolitano said there was no risk to the president but said the conduct was inexcusable.

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