Secret Service Agents Fight Dismissal

Director to testify that sex scandal didn't threaten security
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 23, 2012 3:57 AM CDT
Updated May 23, 2012 5:32 AM CDT
Secret Service Agents Fighting Dismissal
Dania Londono Suarez, the Colombian prostitute at the center of the scandal, speaks to a Spanish radio station.   (AP Photo/Cadena SER)

Four of the Secret Service agents forced out of their jobs over the Colombian sex scandal have decided that they're not going down without a fight, the Washington Post finds. The agents claim that they are being made scapegoats for behavior the agency has long tolerated. And so they're challenging their dismissals, torpedoing the agency's hopes of a quick resolution to the embarrassing episode, which has spread to several DEA agents.

The agents admit to bringing women back to their hotel rooms, but say either that sex happened without money changing hands, or that they asked the women to leave after they asked for cash. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, who testifies before a congressional hearing today, has written in prepared remarks that agents could not have inadvertently revealed sensitive information. "At the time the misconduct occurred, none of the individuals involved in the misconduct had received any specific protective information, sensitive security documents, firearms, radios, or other security-related equipment in their hotel rooms," he says. (More Secret Service stories.)

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