Two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents “facilitated a sexual encounter” between a prostitute and a U.S. Secret Service agent days before President Barack Obama visited Colombia for a summit meeting in April 2012, according to a Justice Department investigation obtained exclusively by NBC News.

A summary of the findings of the investigation, included in a Dec. 20 letter from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General to Sens. Joseph Lieberman and Susan Collins, indicated that a third DEA agent present on the night of the incident was not involved in procuring the prostitute for the Secret Service agent.

“While DEA agent #3 was present for a dinner that took place earlier that evening with the USSS agent and the other two DEA agents, he was not present in the residence when the sexual encounter took place and played no role in facilitating it,” the summary said.

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All three DEA special agents admitted that they had paid for sexual services of a prostitute,  the investigation also found, and “used their DEA Blackberry devices to arrange such activities.” In addition, the report says the agents tried to destroy incriminating information or initially lied to investigators about the incidents. All three agents have high-security clearances.

The summary concluded that the agents’ actions did not warrant criminal prosecution.  It said the U.S. Attorney’s Office also “declined to initiate legal proceedings.” It said the case had been referred to the DEA for “action it determines to be appropriate.”

In a letter sent Wednesday to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, Collins, R-Maine, called the findings “troubling” and the conclusion that law enforcement officials obstructed the OIG investigation “deeply troubling.” She also asked Leonhart to explain why  – nearly four months after the Office of the Inspector General referred the matter to the DEA -- “It is my understanding that those administrative actions are still pending.”

In a statement, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said, "The Drug Enforcement Administration takes these matters very seriously. Any allegations of misconduct or wrongdoing by DEA personnel are thoroughly investigated and then reviewed by DEA's Board of Professional Conduct for any disciplinary action warranted. This matter is currently under review by the Board of Professional Conduct."

A DEA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, first said that while senior officials learned of the OIG’s findings in September, the agency was not allowed to act until the OIG concluded and presented its findings on Dec. 20. Later, the official acknowledged that that was not correct and that the OIG had officially referred its findings on Sept. 17.  

Sources briefed on the scandal have told NBC News that approximately a dozen members of the Secret Service security detail  hit the clubs of Cartagena on the evening of April 11, 2012, for a night of drinking that ended with them bringing women back to their hotel rooms.

Some of the women received money, and others did not ask for any, but in one case, an agent refused to pay, and the woman summoned a police officer. That led to an angry encounter that resulted in the debauchery becoming public.

The scandal led to the resignation or retirement of nine of 12 implicated Secret Service employees. Three others were cleared of serious misconduct but still could be disciplined.

The Pentagon also launched an investigation of a dozen military members in connection with the scandal. No disciplinary action has been announced as a result of that investigation.

Lisa Myers is NBC News' senior investigative correspondent; Mike Brunker is an NBC News investigations editor.

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Prostitutes 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.

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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. 

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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.” 

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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.

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Some of the Secret Service agents under investigation in the Colombian prostitution scandal have agreed to take polygraph tests, a U.S. official told NBC News on Wednesday.

Eleven Secret Service agents were recalled from Colombia last week and have been stripped of their security clearances after reports emerged alleging that some of them had taken prostitutes to their hotel rooms before President Barack Obama arrived for the Latin American summit.

The U.S. official said the agents had been "offered" the opportunity to submit to polygraph tests and that some had accepted. The official didn't say how many had agreed.

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Ed Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, wouldn't confirm the information, saying only that the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility was using every investigative tool at its disposal.

NBC News: Prostitute's $50 fee for two agents triggered Secret Service scandal

Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan has told lawmakers that the 11 agents and 10 U.S. military personnel also implicated in the scandal are giving investigators conflicting stories, making it difficult to pin down the truth, several lawmakers told NBC News.

The Colombian government is separately investigating whether underage girls were part of the arrangements, but Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, told NBC News that Sullivan believes the youngest woman involved was about 20 or 21 years old.

NBC News reported this week that some of the agents had copies of the president's schedule in their rooms, raising the possibility of a security breach. But Sullivan said none of the prostitutes ever had access to secure information, according to Grassley.

"I think that he feels that protocol was followed," Grassley told NBC News.

Grassley said Judiciary Committee staff members would meet with agency representatives later this week for a more complete briefing. He said the committee would conduct its own investigation only if members concluded that the Secret Service inquiry "was not doing the job."

Regardless, Grassley said, "I think you'll find their heads are going to roll." He added that he was worried that there could be a culture of misbehavior at the Secret Service, a concern that was echoed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has also been briefed on the case.

Collins told NBC News that her "instinct" is that this wasn't an isolated incident. She said that she pressed Sullivan and that he had told her the agency was "scrubbing the files" for possible previous incidents.

The Defense Department is separately investigating the 10 military members who have been implicated. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that "we let the boss down" in Colombia.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to brief leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the next couple of days, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told NBC News on Wednesday.

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The Colombian prostitute who triggered the scandal that has rocked the Secret Service got angry with two agents who refused to pay her full price for servicing the two of them, leading to a financial dispute over between $40 and $60, according to a government source who has been briefed on the investigation.

Two agents from the service's elite Counter Assault Team, in Cartagena, Colombia, in advance of President Barack Obama's arrival for the Summit of the Americas over the weekend, had procured the women's services at a local strip club called the Pley Club on the evening of April 11. All the Secret Service agents and officers implicated in the scandal are believed to have gone to the club that evening and brought back women, a U.S. official told NBC News.

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The controversy arose after one of the women went back to a hotel room with two agents. The woman wanted to be paid for serving both agents, the source who has been briefed on the probe told NBC News. Instead, the agents would only agree to split her price, prompting the woman to complain to local police who were stationed in the lobby of the Hotel Caribe, the source said.

The police then went up to the agents' room and began banging on the door, which the agents at first refused to open, the source said. There are conflicting reports over how the payment dispute was resolved. But two government sources told NBC News the police contacted the U.S. Embassy over the dispute and Embassy officials then arrived at the scene.

All those with booked rooms at the hotel had to pay a fee of $25 for bringing any guests to their  rooms -- and the guests were required to leave some form of identification at the front desk. A quick scan of the hotel register by a U.S. Embassy official established that 11 Secret Service agents had brought back women to their rooms that evening. When Embassy officials notified Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, he immediately ordered all the agents to fly home, the sources said.

The Secret Service members -- including agents and uniformed officers -- were stripped of their security clearances on Monday.

Included in that group were two high-level Secret Service supervisors, three counter assault officers whose job is to repel attacks and three sniper-team members, who take to rooftops to secure areas where the president might visit, NBC News reported.

U.S. officials have described the agents' conduct as a potential security breach especially because all the agents involved had access to the president's day-by-day, minute-by-minute schedule. But one official familiar with the security arrangements said that there were no specific security threats during the president's trip. Although agents upon arrival were briefed about current activities by leftist FARC guerrillas and local drug cartels, they were told neither had made any specific threats to the president.

The only specific security concern mentioned was that agents and officers were told to bar a left-wing journalist from events at the summit and were given a flier with the journalist's photograph to keep him out, the law enforcement source said.

The Secret Service sent agents to Colombia to interview the prostitutes who hooked up with the Americans to figure out if the women are under age, involved with terrorism or trafficking in illegal drugs, a lawmaker told NBC News' Luke Russert on Tuesday.

 “They have all their IDs and are conducting an extensive background check to make sure they aren't affiliated with any narcotrafficking or terrorist group or that they could be minors,” Homeland Security chairman Rep. Peter King told Russert. “So far there is no security breach."

King, who was briefed on the Colombia investigation by Sullivan, confirmed that there were 11 agents and 11 women.

"The investigation could take a while simply because of the amount of women involved,” King said. “Some are saying they were prostitutes and others say they weren't."

U.S. military officials told NBC News on Tuesday that 10 American servicemen also were under investigation. According to the officials that includes five Army soldiers, two Navy sailors, two Marines and one Air Force airman.

One military official says it appears that at least two of the service members were found with prostitutes in their hotel rooms, the same Hotel Caribe where the Secret Service detail stayed.

It's not clear whether any of the military members were in any way connected to the allegations involving members of the Secret Service at a Cartagena strip club.

It's also not yet clear whether any of the 10 will face criminal charges.

House and Senate lawmakers are also looking into the allegations. King told The Associated Press that his committee is devoting four investigators to the probe.

Meanwhile, one former Secret Service agent, Dan Bongino who is a Republican candidate for Congress in Maryland, told NBC News that in his 12 years at the agency he never saw anything like what is alleged to have taken place in Colombia.

“I’m not saying it’s never happened, but I never saw it.” Bongino said. He denied there was a culture of partying inside the agency.

Top US military officer: 'We let the boss down' over prostitute scandal

A decade ago, however, U.S. News and World Report published an investigative report detailing criminal activity and extreme partying as well as oversight problems. In one reported incident, members of Vice President Dick Cheney’s security detail got into a brawl outside a bar on a trip to the San Diego area.

As the agency sought to rebuild its image, other high-profile incidents with presidential protection brought more scrutiny.

In 2008, an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at President George W. Bush during a Baghdad visit.

And in November 2009 three people crashed a White House state dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Michaele and Tareq Salahi and Carlos Allen were able to get past Secret Security agents at the door and enter the party.

The Salahis even met Obama and had their picture taken with Vice President Joe Biden. In a January 2010 congressional hearing on the matter, the Salahis, who have since divorced, refused to testify, invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The prostitution scandal, however, has brought far more intense focus on the Secret Service and behavior by its agents and officers.

"This really is the biggest scandal in the history of the Secret Service," Ron Kessler, author of "In the President's Secret Service," told NBC News earlier this week. He said the agency's problems are deeply rooted.

"There's a culture in the Secret Service that's fostered by the management of just nodding, winking, favoritism," he said. "What the agency needs is an outside director who can come in, clean house, change the standards." 

Michael Isikoff is NBC News' national investigative correspondent; Jim Miklaszewski is NBC News' chief Pentagon correspondent. NBC News Correspondent Luke Russert and msnbc.com reporter Jeff Black also contributed to this report.

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