E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSProstitutes in Colombia who were paid for sex by Secret Service personnel last month days before President Barack Obama visited the South American country had no ties to drug cartels or terrorist organizations, a source with knowledge of the investigation tells NBC News.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the information was included in a 24-page written response from Secret Service officials to congressional committees investigating a recent prostitution scandal involving members of Obama’s advance security team.
As first reported earlier Wednesday by the Washington Post, the response indicated that bureau investigators have determined that nine of the 12 women who accompanied the Secret Service personnel to their rooms at the El Caribe hotel in Cartagena were paid for sex, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. The women were picked up at four different clubs, the source said.
Investigators still are trying to interview two other women involved in the incident, which occurred prior to the Summit of the Americas on April 14-15, the source said.
Watch the most-viewed videos on msnbc.com
Seven of the Secret Service personnel at the center of the probe have resigned, one has been terminated and one has retired, NBC News has reported previously. Three others have been cleared of serious misconduct but given administrative punishment.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and ranking Democratic Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., issued a joint statement in response to the letter received late Tuesday from U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan.
"We appreciate the Secret Services' detailed responses to our questions,” it said. "Director Sullivan's cooperation with our oversight efforts underscores his commitment to understand the extent of the problem and ensure that this unacceptable conduct does not occur again.”
Related stories:
Some Secret Service agents agree to lie detector tests in prostitution scandal
NBC: Prostitute's $50 fee for two agents triggered Secret Service scandal
Members of elite unit among those suspended in Colombia
The 12 Secret Service personnel at the center of the investigation were among 175 members of the service in Colombia during Obama’s visit. They were among 135 staying at the hotel El Caribe, the source said.
The source also confirmed that bureau investigators are looking into a separate report by a Seattle-based investigative reporter that Secret Service personnel may have engaged in similar misconduct in El Salvador prior to a visit by Obama in 2011.
According to the source, investigators looked through records from the trip, spoke to supervisors and gone through timelines, but so far have found no evidence of misconduct. They are also trying to talk to Chris Halsne, the reporter who wrote the story, but he was unwilling to divulge his sources, the source said.
NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Kelly O'Donnell contributed to this report.
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Judge: Prosecutor's rejection of gay juror 'shocking'
- George Zimmerman's old Myspace page includes slurs against Mexicans
- Chicago pays $45 million in 3 years to settle complaints against cops
- Maryland court finds pit bulls are 'inherently dangerous'
- NJ mom arrested after allegedly taking daughter, 5, tanning
Leave a Comment:
Some say this Prostitution Scandal is just the "tip of the iceberg"; however, I think we should avoid such phrases in this case. Everyone knows by now that the Secret Service never pays full price for their hookers, let alone tips. By comparison the Secret Service Agent in this funny YouTube video seems downright chivalrous:
Obama is on the campaign trail now with his secret service ....
So , girls get ready ....
You may not get paid what you want ....
But get ready anyway ....
Im betting these two, received good tips and disappeared to keep their agents out of trouble. Moral of the story always tip the call girl, never know when it will save your career..
I'd love to know (1) who's the genius that commissioned this study, and (2) who's the other genius who signed off on the findings.
Prostitutes not tied to the cartels...I guess that makes what the Secret Service Agents did ok!
Secret Service (SS) used the services of prostitutes then tried to stiff them. Real classy bunch of guys. Now comes the cover-up, Spin Doctors, and bad propaganda to rehabiliate the sullied image of the SS.
They should have quit while ahead instead of digging themselve deeper into the hole.
We should all now be comforted that the Secret Service only uses the best non-politically aligned prostitutes...............keep it in your pants guys when you're on a duty station.
It's unpatriotic to use foreign prostitutes...
home-grown prostitutes can also serve as the stimulus ....to the sagging US economy...
Hope they were not under cover for information about Terroist if so than who fault blowing their cover?
O they turned out clean me personally am glad they checked them out. Another step to make sure the President was safe. Good Job secret service.
How many of those hookers were cross dressers .... "LOL"
I hope the agents involved will be billed for the cost of this investigation.
...and they know this how? Fire them and hire new. When this happens in the private sector you don't get all of this ballyhoo...get it done!
let's all be quick to believe the secret service, after all they have been so truthful so far...
Sounds like CIA CYA to me.
Janet Napolitano issued a directive today that will forever stop Secret Service personnel from paying prostitutes for sex when on the nations business. The directive simply states:
"Effective immediately all prostitutes to be hired for sex by Secret Service personnel MUST be lookalikes of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security."
Signed this 2 day of May, 2012.
Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
That'll make em go limp.
Nice image NH. I'll go to bed tonight, but I probably won't be able to get to sleep.
Leno could have used that one.
I guess that makes it OK.
Completely. Also, I believe everything the Secret Service finds in its investigation. Because, you know, they're so trustworthy and credible.
Bailiff! Whack their pee-pees!
If the cheap arrogant &@$!@%$ would have just given the poor woman her $50.00 none of this would have ever come out for shame for shame. (two wrongs definitely don't make a right)
Well, at least the Secret Service screened the hookers before they set them up to meet Obama.
No, you got that wrong...its Obama (and most other politicians) who are the Prostitutes. Their customers are the lobbists!
Whew!! Good to know these were just hard (pun) working women trying to make a living. They should have gotten the full price and a tip!! After all prostitution IS the WORLDS OLDEST PROFESSION
They started out with just the tip. They didn't get the shaft until they asked for the full price.
Cover blown, we can no longer call them the Secret Service! Not if they go to other countries to get laid, while looking for some Public Service!
Does anyone believe anything from the Obama Administration? The economy is a mess and getting worse, not better. Hope and Change created Despair and Corruption. His Justice Department gave guns to the Cartels to kill Americans and Mexicans! Hispanics should be asking for his impeachment!
Fact much?
The truth is this isn't the first and it won't be last time there are shenanigans involving the Secret Service personnel and prostitutes in various countries around the globe. It's been going on for decades.
Secondly, no matter what the government says, I don't believe these prostitutes aren't related to drug cartels. There are litany of things that happen every day involving foreign, U.S. and state affairs where the government lies about it to the public, rather than tell it straight. This is just another one of them. They do anything to save their skin and or reduce any public blow back, including lying. It happens far more than people realize.
This article deserves a Pulitzer Prize for bland propaganda with no verifieable content or sourcing.
Just goes to show how STUPID the cartels ARE! THEY coulda had U.S. by the BALLS!
BOY! I guess the Secret Service will write this up as a STING OPERATION! Oh Boy, DID IT!
WE need more women in the Secret Service cause they only need ONE HEADSET!
I'm more DISGUSTED somebody PAID 120 million for THE SCREAM! SHOWS, How this country's RICHES are PRIORITIZED! DID they SEE THE LIGHT! I wouldn't BRAG about IT! THATs REAL PROSTITUTION!
WHY do people BLAME Obama! Cause its EASY! Lazy F()(Ks!
Why do people Blame this innocent Ultra Senior Supervisor and Ultra
HEAD administrator?
Come on are you that innocent yourself? You can't be that young!
If this took place in a normal military command (similar incidents
have) the chain of command of about 25 officers are FIRED and released from
duty w/o benefits – senior command generals are likewise fired.
The four US Army Officers caught in this has already caused at least 5
unrelated officers relieved.
There are only 3 or 4 supervisors above these PLAYBOY’s – why haven’t
they been relieved/ fired?
Pres. BO is one of the 4.
Buy the way there’s standing orders that US Military and State Security
personnel will not participate in paid for SEX acts since 2000.
The Secret Service only hires prostitutes with appropriate security clearances. This is about national security, after all.
It TOOK 18 mule team BORAX to DRAG US into OUR MESS's! and we always BLAME one JACKASS to get US OUT! LAZY F()(KS!