WHITE HOUSE STAFF MAY BE IMPLICATED IN COLOMBIA PROSTITUTION SCANDAL
Federal law enforcement personnel and a congressional committee are anxiously awaiting an overdue inspector general’s report that they believe may reveal the involvement of two White House advance team members in the Secret Service prostitution scandal in Colombia earlier this year.
While much of the attention in the case has focused on the actions of Secret Service personnel, multiple law enforcement and congressional sources tell FoxNews.com that investigators also discovered two White House advance team members checked in prostitutes as overnight guests at a Cartagena hotel in the days before President Obama’s April 13 visit.
“Three U.S. delegation members that stayed at the Hilton brought prostitutes back as overnight guests. One of them was ours (Secret Service) and the other two were White House staffers,” a high-ranking Secret Service official told FoxNews.com. “We knew very early that White House staffers were involved.”
Twelve of the 13 agents investigated for alleged misconduct in Cartagena stayed at another hotel, the El Caribe. Only one of those charged with misconduct had a room at the Hilton, where President Obama and the White House advance team also stayed.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in April, just days after Obama’s visit, that there was no indication any White House advance team members were involved in the prostitution scandal.
But whether there will be any reference to the White House staffers in the upcoming report, from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, remains to be seen. The report has yet to be delivered, though DHS OIG officials said Tuesday it would be submitted in the coming days. Acting DHS Inspector General Charles K. Edwards initially told a congressional panel in May he was aiming to present it by July 2.
The delay has sparked speculation the report was being altered or manipulated to conceal or minimize the roles of some of those involved, multiple Secret Service officials with senior leadership positions told FoxNews.com. Meanwhile, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, of the Senate Homeland Security Committee sent Edwards a letter on Sept. 14 asking for information about the status of the report.
A congressional source told FoxNews.com the Senate committee staff is particularly eager to see the report because it “includes information that two members of the White House advance team had prostitutes overnight.”
