Can’t have any unauthorized folks wandering around.
The Secret Service is an “insular” agency that needs a new director hired from the outside, according to former government officials tasked with examining the embattled agency after a man with a knife stormed the White House.
An executive summary of the review released Thursday by the Homeland Security Department also concluded that the Secret Service needs more uniformed officers and plain clothes agents, better fencing at the White House and more training for officers.
“The next director will have to make difficult choices, identifying clear priorities for the organization and holding management accountable for any failure to achieve those priorities,” the group wrote after interviewing 50 Secret Service employees. “Only a director from outside the (Secret) Service, removed from organizational traditions and personal relationships, will be able to do the honest top-to-bottom reassessment this will require.”
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement that the recommendations are “astute, thorough and fair.”
Many of the proposed changes have been recommended before, including some that date to the Warren Commission Report, which detailed the government investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Johnson said Thursday the recommendations can’t fall by the wayside this time.