(Newser)
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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.
