Secret Service Sends 'Drunk' Agents Home

Three Secret Service agents apparently unable to resist the lure of a Saturday night out in one of Europe's top party cities were sent home in disgrace before President Obama's arrival in Amsterdam this week, insiders tell the Washington Post. Hotel staff alerted the US Embassy after finding one of the agents drunk and passed out in a hallway early Sunday, the sources say. All three agents were members of the Counter Assault Team that protects the president, and one was a team leader.

A Secret Service spokesman confirms that the agency "did send three employees home for disciplinary reasons" and they are now on administrative leave. Obama arrived in Amsterdam Monday and the agents would have been required to attend briefings on Sunday. The incident is a fresh embarrassment for the agency, which brought in tough new rules after a probe of its Colombia sex scandal revealed misbehavior in no fewer than 17 countries, the BBC notes. (More Amsterdam stories.)