Those Secret Service Agents Almost Ran Over 'Bomb'

The Secret Service agents involved in a crash at the White House last week didn't just add another embarrassing gaffe to the agency's loooong list. The stunt disrupted an active bomb investigation, the Washington Post reports. Sources and police documents note the allegedly intoxicated agents, identified by the Post as Mark Connolly and George Ogilvie, drove through police tape and "directly next to" a suspicious package a woman had left on the ground; she had claimed it was an "[expletive] bomb" before she hit an agent with her car as she drove away. (The package turned out to be a book wrapped in a shirt; the woman has been located.) New Secret Service chief Joe Clancy says he learned about the disturbed probe on Monday, five days after the March 4 incident, raising more concerns about the state of the troubled agency.

Though the Homeland Security Department will investigate the crash, two members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have asked Clancy to release more information on the "extremely serious" incident, which "raises important questions about what additional steps should be taken to reform the agency and whether the problems at the USSS run deeper than the recently replaced top-tier of management." Clancy has moved Connolly and Ogilvie to "non-supervisory, non-operational" positions—an odd move as agents under investigation are usually put on administrative leave. The Post points out this interesting tidbit: Ogilvie is a Secret Service spokesman who previously spoke on the agency's "zero-tolerance policy" for misconduct. (More Secret Service stories.)