Today’s “Worst Administration Ever” story is a throwback to the Great Secret Service Sex Scandal of 2012, in which almost two dozen Secret Service personnel were fired after allegations surfaced that several agents had engaged in misconduct involving Colombian prostitutes.
Now, reports have surfaced refuting White House claims that no staff members had been involved in any wrongdoing.
As nearly two dozen Secret Service agents and members of the military were punished or fired following a 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that anyone from the White House was involved.But new details drawn from government documents and interviews show that senior White House aides were given information at the time suggesting that a prostitute was an overnight guest in the hotel room of a presidential advance-team member — yet that information was never thoroughly investigated or publicly acknowledged….The Secret Service shared its findings twice in the weeks after the scandal with top White House officials, including then-White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Each time, she and other presidential aides conducted an interview with the advance-team member and concluded that he had done nothing wrong.Meanwhile, the new details also show that a separate set of investigators in the inspector general’s office of the Department of Homeland Security — tasked by a Senate committee with digging more deeply into misconduct on the trip — found additional evidence from records and eyewitnesses who had accompanied the team member in Colombia.
According to WaPo, the team member in question was Jonathan Dach, who now is a full time employee with the State Department’s Office on Global Women’s Issues. Through a family attorney, Dach denies any “inappropriate conduct”:
Whether the White House volunteer, Jonathan Dach, was involved in wrongdoing in Cartagena, Colombia, remains unclear. Dach, then a 25-year-old Yale University law student, declined to be interviewed, but through his attorney he denied hiring a prostitute or bringing anyone to his hotel room. Dach has long made the same denials to White House officials.Dach this year started working full time in the Obama administration on a federal contract as a policy adviser in the Office on Global Women’s Issues at the State Department….Richard A. Sauber, who represents both Dachs, said that Jonathan Dach denies any involvement in the prostitution scandal and that no one in his family intervened with White House officials or federal investigators.“The underlying allegations about any inappropriate conduct by Jonathan Dach in Cartagena are utterly and completely false,” Sauber said. “In addition, neither he nor anyone acting on his behalf ever contacted the DHS IG’s office about its report.”
The White House pushback at the story was fast and furious:
Minutes after the story broke on the Post’s website, a top White House spokesperson was emailing reporters with attacks on it. Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said the story was old news, and that the White House had been cleared of an allegation it pressured inspectors to alter their findings in advance of the 2012 elections.
The internet struck quickly and without mercy:
I’m sure exploited women all over the world would like to give their thanks to the Obama Administration for keeping the real war on women alive and kicking.
Featured image source: YouTube
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