Free Republic

A Secret Service official’s allegedly deliberate decision to embarrass Rep. Jason Chaffetz could “give pause” to other lawmakers who have applied for federal jobs, cautioned former House Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

Let’s not shy away from what the Secret Service actually was up to in the matter of its illegal spying on Representative Jason Chaffetz: conspiracy to commit blackmail against a member of Congress. Representative Chaffetz has been investigating the scandal-plagued protective agency — the habitual drunkenness and whoring of its agents, among other things — when Secret Service personnel improperly accessed his protected records in a hunt for dirt. The aim of this was made clear by assistant director Ed Lowery, who wrote to assistant director Faron Paramore: “Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out.” Critics...

A top Secret Service agent who has regularly served on President Obama’s protective detail had his gun stolen out of his car at his house after leaving it there overnight and was never disciplined for it, according to two sources with detailed knowledge of the incident.Internal Secret Service records show that the agency reported that the agent in question lost a semi-automatic handgun in 2009, but he was never punished for it, the two sources said.At the time of the gun theft, the agent was assigned to the Secret Service’s inspection division, which collaborates with the Office of Professional Responsibility...

Behind the shocking revelations of incompetence and unprofessionalism that rocked the Secret Service this week is a longtime reporter who has been diligently uncovering the agency's secrets for years. Carol Leonnig, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who has worked at The Washington Post for nearly 15 years, has broken almost every single story on the agency, a series of shocking reports that on Wednesday resulted in the abrupt resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson. (Pierson called the resignation “painful.”) In less than a week, Leonnig uncovered three scandals that pushed the agency’s first female leader out the door. First,...