House Speaker John A. Boehner urged President Obama on Wednesday to consider firing U.S. Secret Service Director Julia A. Pierson, and called for a blue ribbon commission Wednesday to investigate the agency after its latest security lapse.
In a statement, Mr. Boehner said Ms. Pierson’s testimony a day earlier to the House oversight committee raised still more questions, and said those can’t be answered by her or the agency itself, and must face outside scrutiny.
“The more we discover, the clearer it becomes that the Secret Service is beset by a culture of complacency and incompetence. As such, the president must make a swift determination on whether the agency is being well-served by its current leadership,” Mr. Boehner said.
He also joined in House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul’s call for an independent review of the agency.
Earlier in the day, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the top-ranking female politician in the country, said she supported calls for Ms. Pierson to be ousted.
Ms. Pierson was tapped to lead the Secret Service to clean up after a 2012 scandal which revealed agents hired prostitutes while on the job in Cartagena, Colombia.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.