Norton Speaks with Secret Service Director Clancy Regarding Ejection from Lafayette Park of Kids and Parents Holding Candlelight Vigil for Cancer; Meeting Scheduled

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior Member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, today had a productive phone conversation with U.S. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy during which she expressed her deep concern and disappointment that the Secret Service ejected hundreds of children with cancer and their parents from Lafayette Park as they began their permitted candlelight vigil scheduled for 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. on Saturday evening to raise awareness for childhood cancer and cancer research. Clancy had personally apologized to parents for his agency's response and said he had been in touch with the event's organizer to offer to work on setting up a date to hold another vigil. Norton said Clancy made no excuses for the incident, and he said that the error was the Secret Service's. Clancy told Norton that the Secret Service would engage in an after-action review of the incident and reevaluate its protocols for Lafayette Park. Norton told Clancy she wanted to meet with him to understand what the after-action review had indicated and how the new protocols would operate, but that she wanted to delay that meeting until after this week's visits by Pope Francis and Chinese President Xi Jingping. Secret Service officials earlier had said they closed the park due to possible movements of President Obama, but Clancy did not offer that excuse during his conversation with Norton. Norton informed Clancy that she knew the President had been scheduled to travel that evening to a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner where Norton was in attendance, and as usual, the President was last on the program, arriving after 9:00 p.m., only in time to take pictures with each Congressional Black Caucus Member before immediately going on stage. Norton's view is that had there been good communication among the White House, the Secret Service, and the vigil organizers, the vigil could have been over by the time the President left to go to the Washington Convention Center.

Norton also told Clancy that she appreciated that after she met in July with Secret Service and National Park Service (NPS) officials about closures of the Pennsylvania Avenue plaza in front of the White House and Lafayette Park to bike and pedestrian access, Secret Service and NPS are now designing designated bike lanes to run through Lafayette Park. She would like to see comparable action regarding First Amendment activities in Lafayette Park and areas in front of the White House.

"I think Director Clancy understood that ejecting those children and their parents, who were holding a candlelight vigil to draw attention to the cancer that children are suffering, was inexcusable," Norton said. "He knows of my long-time concern with Americans being able to gather in front of the White House. After suffering through blistering criticism from our Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Secret Service may have misconstrued the Committee's message to be security matters but nothing else. On the contrary, the Secret Service has a challenge that they are clearly still trying to get right. They must ensure there is no opening for compromising the safety of the President and his family, while at the same time bearing in mind that they are operating in a free and open society and must ensure that the public is not banned from public spaces, including the areas in front of the White House and Lafayette Park. This is an extraordinary balance to achieve, but that is their mission. I will be closely monitoring how the Secret Service handles that balance when Chinese President Xi Jingping visits the White House on Friday, with inevitable protests planned in a country like ours. I look forward to a more detailed conversation on the reformed protocols, but I do not want anything to take time from the unprecedented missions the Secret Service has in the coming week."