Secret Service chief Mark Sullivan was grilled Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee about the alleged hiring of Colombian prostitutes by Secret Service agents and whether the April incident was part of a larger problem at the agency.
The alleged hiring of prostitutes suggests a cultural problem within the Secret Service, Sen. Susan Collins said Wednesday amid reports of new evidence of law enforcement misconduct during the president's trip to Colombia.
"This was not a one-time event," Collins, the senior Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said during the first Senate hearing on the matter. "The circumstances unfortunately suggest an issue of culture."
"If only one or two individuals out of the 160 male Secret Service personnel assigned to this mission had engaged in this type of serious misconduct, then I'd think this was an aberration," the Maine senator said. "But that's not the case; there were 12 individuals involved . . . 12. That's 8 percent of the male Secret Service personnel in-country, and 9 percent of those staying at the El Caribe Hotel."
Service Service chief Mark Sullivan, who was called to testify at the inquiry,apologized "for the conduct of these employees and the distraction it has caused." But Sullivan's assertion that the agency has a "zero tolerance" policy on such conduct did not convince the lawmakers, who brought more allegations to light.
"We can only know what the records of the Secret Service reveal," said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is leading the hearing. The records, however incomplete, show 64 instances of allegations or complaints of sexual misconduct made against Secret Service employees in the last five years, he said.
Lieberman cited three complaints of inappropriate relationships with a foreign national and one of "non-consensual intercourse," which he did not elaborate on. Sullivan said that complaint was investigated by outside law enforcement officers who decided not to prosecute.
A Columbian escort spoke publicly on the radio this week claiming to be the one at the center of the Secret Service prostitution scandal and revealing her version of events. NBC's Mark Potter reports.
Sullivan also told the committee an agent was fired in a 2008 Washington prostitution episode, after trying to hire an uncover police officer.
Wednesday's hearing was expected to expose new details in the scandal, which became public after a dispute over payment between a Secret Service agent and a prostitute at a Cartagena hotel on April 12. The Secret Service was in the coastal resort for a Latin American summit before Obama's arrival. Collins said several small groups of agency employees from two hotels went out separately to clubs, bars and brothels and they "all ended up in similar circumstances."
Sullivan was expected to face criticism from senators over his contention that the alleged hiring of prostitutes by agents during the president's trip was an aberration.
Sullivan's prepared opening testimony made only one oblique reference to the new allegations involving two DEA agents and a Secret Service agent who -- during a separate nightclub visit during the president's trip -- hired women to give them massages, according to sources who have been briefed on the episode, NBC News' Michael Isikoff reported.
Sullivan calls this "unrelated" to the allegations involving Secret Service agents who brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms at the El Caribe Hotel.
In his prepared testimony, Sullivan said he found no evidence to substantiate a report of similar conduct during a presidential trip to El Salvador, but that the agency has imposed strict new rules for its agents, incuding a prohibition on visits to "disreputable" establishments and a ban on bringing any foreign nationals to their hotel rooms.
But lawmakers plan to grill Sullivan closely on whether the alleged misconduct reflected broader "cultural" problems within the agency.
NBC News national investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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