World
The head of the US Secret Service, tasked with guarding US President Barack Obama, has resigned following several high-profile security lapses. The BBC reports:
Julia Pierson offered her resignation to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday. A day earlier, she faced angry questions in Congress about a major breach of White House security.
News of another incident involving an armed man allowed in a lift with Mr Obama compounded calls for her to go.
"Today Julia Pierson, the Director of the United States Secret Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it," Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson wrote in a statement. "I salute her 30 years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the Nation."
Mr Obama also expressed his appreciation to Ms Pierson for her long history of public service, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Wednesday.
Ms Pierson offered her resignation because "she believed it was in the best interests of the agency to which she has dedicated her career", Mr Earnest added.
In an interview with Bloomberg News after her resignation was announced, Ms Pierson said she knew Congress had "lost confidence in my ability to run the agency''. Joseph Clancy, in charge of the presidential protective division of the agency, will take over as acting interim director.
High-ranking members of the US Congress had been calling for Ms Pierson's resignation in the wake of her testimony before a House oversight committee on Tuesday.
The resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson and the launch of a top-to-bottom review of the agency Wednesday are an acknowledgment by President Obama of what he has long denied: that the force charged with protecting him is in deep turmoil and struggling to fulfill its sacred mission. The Washington Post writes:
The 6,700-member agency, long an elite class of skilled professionals who prized their jobs, now suffers from diminished luster and historically high turnover rates.
Officers in charge of protecting the White House say they have grown resentful at being belittled by their bosses and routinely forced to work on off-days.
Some agents who have sworn to take a bullet for the president and his family have little faith in the wisdom or direction of their senior-most leaders.
Those chronic woes have been amplified in recent days by revelations of a string of humiliating security lapses that have raised concerns about the president’s safety and prompted the agency’s biggest crisis since President Ronald Reagan was shot outside the Washington Hilton three decades ago.
