The secret service director, Joseph Clancy, is set to deny that two of his agents crashed into White House property earlier this month, according to excerpts of his planned testimony shared with news agencies ahead of a Thursday Senate hearing.
The two secret service agents, including one who is said to be a top member of the president’s security detail, allegedly drove into a White House barricade after drinking at a late-night party on 4 March.
But Clancy is expected to tell senators: “There was no crash.”
“The video shows the vehicle entering the White House complex at a speed of approximately 1-2mph, and pushing aside a plastic barrel,” Clancy plans to say. “There was no damage to the vehicle.”
Clancy downplayed the incident at a House hearing on Tuesday, but lawmakers tasked with investigating what occurred have raised questions about the agency’s policy of maintaining footage of the White House for only 72 hours.
The secret service spokesman, Robert Hoback, confirmed the 72-hour policy to CNN, but said that it was not iron-clad. “In the event of an operational security incident at the White House complex, specific video footage is maintained for investigative and protective intelligence purposes,” Hoback said.
The House oversight and government reform committee is investigating the alleged barricade crash. Its chairman, the Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah, said he had seen two videos of the incident, including one that did not provide much detail.
He said he thought some videos might have been deleted and criticized the 72-hour video policy, saying: “This is not your local 7-11. This is the White House.”
The agents involved in the barricade incident have been reassigned, joining a batch of secret service employees penalized for misconduct in recent years.
In April 2012, 13 employees were suspected of soliciting prostitutes in Colombia. Then in March 2014, three agents had to be sent home from the Netherlands after a night of drinking during which one agent passed out in the hallway and remained there until the morning.
Clancy was made permanent chief in February and has been tasked with cleaning up the agency. Months before he took over, an army veteran jumped the White House fence in September 2014 and was not stopped until he had entered the building.
Clancy said at the Tuesday hearing that the agency had a problem with alcohol dependency. He also detailed a plan to spend $8m on a replica White House for agent training.
“We feel that’s important,” Clancy said. “Right now we train on a parking lot, basically. We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance from the fence to the White House.
“We don’t have the bushes, we don’t have the fountains, we don’t have a realistic look of the White House. Even our canines, they’re responding on hard surfaces rather than grass.”
