Colombia prostitute scandal engulfing the Secret Service widened Friday as the agency announced that three more employees would resign in connection to the alleged misconduct, bringing the overall number of employees to lose their jobs to six. The agency also said that the total number of agents implicated had risen by one to 12.
On the political front, the White House hit back at Republican critics like Sarah Palin, accusing them of improperly trying to use the embarrassing controversy as a political weapon against President Barack Obama.
"In addition to the previously announced personnel actions, three additional employees have chosen to resign," Assistant Director Paul S. Morrissey of the U.S. Secret Service Office of Government and Public Affairs said in a statement emailed to reporters.
"As a result of the ongoing investigation in Cartagena, a twelfth employee has been implicated. He has been placed on administrative leave and his security clearance has been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
Six of the Secret Service members have lost their jobs. One has been partially cleared and five remain on administrative leave.
The Secret Service has confirmed that one of the 12 implicated in the scandal had stayed at a different hotel in Cartagena than the others. He stayed at the Hilton, where Obama later would stay. The others stayed at the Hotel Caribe.
The agent is being investigated for improprieties in a separate incident that may have happened on April 9, days before the president arrived for a summit with other Western Hemisphere leaders that ended April 15 — and while the hotel was still open to the general public.
Lieberman, who also appeared on CBS’ ”Face the Nation” on Sunday, said his panel hopes to learn more about the activities of that 12th agent.
“Now we don’t know at this point what that 12th agent is being charged with and why he’s been put on administrative leave. But now you’re into the hotel where the president of the United States was going to stay. And it just gets more troubling,” Lieberman said.
Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod said the allegations are disturbing, but that the misdeeds of a few individuals should not tarnish the overall work and reputation of the protective service.
Axelrod told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he always felt the agents were willing to go to great lengths to protect the president and the people around him. He called the conduct in Colombia “really disappointing.”
“I think we will get to the bottom of it,” said Axelrod, who worked at the White House before leaving last year to work full time in Obama’s re-election campaign office in Chicago.
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