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Norton Statement at White House Breach Hearing Calls for 21st-Century Makeover of Secret Service

September 30, 2014

Secret Service Director promises to work with Norton on access

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, today released Norton's opening statement at today's Committee hearing, entitled "White House Perimeter Breach: New Concerns about the Secret Service." In her statement, Norton cited her long-standing support and respect for the Secret Service, and the work they do to protect the White House and the First Family, but called for an "outside investigation to ensure that the agency has the appropriate structures, resources and expert backup" to do its job. Citing shots into the family residence in 2011 and the recent breach into the White House interior, Norton said, "The time is ripe for a 21st-century makeover of the Secret Service." She expressed concern over the "rush to quick fixes" such as blocking public access to areas around the White House "without a thorough investigation." Yesterday, Norton toured the perimeter of the White House to see for herself whether public access is being safeguarded or if the first target for fixing White House security was the public. Last week, Norton sent a letter requesting a meeting with U.S. Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, who later phoned her. Norton told her that if changes that alter public access to the White House perimeter prove necessary, they "should be in line with current public access to the areas surrounding the White House and maintain the current views of this historic and national landmark."

During questioning at the hearing, Norton, because of her concern about public access, asked Pierson whether she had considered a higher wrought-iron fence, perhaps curved forward to make fence-jumping difficult. Pierson said she will consider Norton's suggestion concerning the fence and looked forward to working with her. In response to the sequester and other budget cuts, Pierson said that she has had to bring in agents from other areas to guard the White House. She said the agency was down 550 people.

Following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Secret Service closed the entire area around the White House to public access. However, Norton worked with the White House and the National Park Service to widen the road on E Street at the back of the White House, and maintained the access across E Street, a major thoroughfare for the city and the region. However, the road was summarily closed after 9/11 and the Secret Service has since found no way to reopen this road.

Norton's opening statement, as prepared for delivery, follows:

Opening Statement of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

"White House Perimeter Breach: New Concerns about the Secret Service"

September 30, 2014

I have had deep respect for the Secret Service from the time I was a child growing up in the District of Columbia. I recognize Director Pierson for her 30 years of service, rising through the ranks to become the first woman to serve as the U.S. Secret Service Director.

Recent unprecedented events call for an unprecedented response. First, there has been an increasing number of White House fence jumpers, including the most recent this month, who was able to get deep into the interior of the White House. Before that, in 2011, multiple shots were fired into the living quarters of the First Family, discovered only four days later not by a Secret Service investigation, but by happenstance by White House staff. Beyond these failures in its core mission to protect the White House and the First Family is an unsettling failure to disclose, perhaps even to understand, what has occurred and to promptly investigate. Together, this combination of failures suggests strongly that the time is ripe for a 21st-century makeover of the Secret Service.

Moreover, these stunning events have occurred during a period when the United States and, by definition, the White House, even the President, are being targeted by domestic and international terrorists. According to threat assessments, this President has had three times as many threats as his predecessor.

Just as troubling have been indications of unwarranted secrecy in the Secret Service. The Secret Service is not a secret society. If there is a willing avoidance of needed transparency, that in itself would pose a danger to the White House. For example, when noise is heard that some believe could be gunfire directed at the White House, others believe is automobile backfire, and still others think is gang gunfire, isn't it the job of the Secret Service to presume a gun has been fired at the White House and to do an immediate investigation? When line officers close to the sound have to become whistleblowers, has the suppression of needed information itself become a threat to the White House? Worse, do such failures show that some in the Secret Service are in denial of the danger, posing perhaps the greatest risk to the White House?

Particularly troubling in light of such unanswered questions would be a rush to quick fixes such as suppression of public access to the area around the White House without a thorough investigation. In light of the seriousness of recent breaches, an investigation in the first instance by the Department of Homeland Security should go well beyond the details of these events. They are merely the most recent raw data for a top to bottom investigation of Secret Service operations at the White House. This is not a question of personnel. We must learn whether today's Secret Service as structured, for example, could stop five or six fence jumpers intent on harm to the White House and the President, not just a mere mentally ill war veteran, who even alone might have succeeded. All options should be on the table for the needed 21st-century study of Secret Service operations in the age of terrorism.

The heroism of the Secret Service is beyond debate. Indeed, the White House intruder was brought down by an agent. However, the White House and the President have been thrust into a new era of danger. The Secret Service should welcome an outside investigation to ensure it has the appropriate resources and expert backup to do its job.