According to news report ... Julia Pierson resigned under pressure as director of the Secret Service on Wednesday after failing to quell a bipartisan political furor over repeated breaches of White House security and losing the confidence of the president her agency is charged with protecting. Ms. Pierson’s support in the West Wing began crumbling late Tuesday, in large part because she did not tell the White House of a security failure in Atlanta last month when an armed man was allowed to ride in an elevator with President Obama at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Despite meeting with the president last week, Ms. Pierson informed him about the incident only minutes before it was reported in the news media on Tuesday evening, officials said. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said Ms. Pierson’s delay in telling the president was a crucial part of “recent and accumulating reports about the performance of the agency” that led Mr. Obama to conclude that the Secret Service needed new leadership. Julia Pierson before testifying in the House on Tuesday. CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES After Ms. Pierson appeared at a brutal congressional hearing on Tuesday, when she had to explain to a House panel how an armed intruder jumped the White House fence on Sept. 19 and made it as far into the mansion as the East Room, she woke Wednesday to mounting calls for her resignation and withering criticism, some of it from Democrats. By noon, Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House’s top Democrat, had both called for independent inquiries into the security missteps, including the Secret Service’s response to a 2011 incident in which a man shot seven high-powered bullets into the south facade of the White House. But Ms. Pierson was already on her way out. In a meeting Wednesday morning with Jeh C. Johnson, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security — which oversees the Secret Service — she offered her resignation, and he accepted it.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 04:02:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015