National security

Report: Secret Service Losing Agents Faster Than It Can Replace Them

U.S. Secret Service agents are leaving the force faster than the agency is able to replace them, potentially forcing federal officials to pull from outside government organizations to fill the vacancies, two congressmen said Tuesday.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R, Utah) and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings (Md.) penned a letter to Secret Service director Joseph Clancy Tuesday expressing concern over the agency’s “historic attrition rates.”

The two recommended that the agency details qualified law enforcement officials or administrative, professional, and technical employees from other federal organizations.

The letter arrived nearly a year and a half after the oversight committee published a report finding the Secret Service in “crisis” while investigating the agency’s “ability to protect the White House and its occupants.” The probe was initiated after a fence jumper in 2014 was able to elude eight secret service officers to make it into the White House.