US secret service officials accused of misconduct in 17 countries

The US Secret Service officials are being accused of recently engaging in sexual misconduct and other indiscretions in a total of 17 countries, Fox News reported Friday. According to a report Friday in The Washington Post the claims were made by whistleblowers to a Senate committee. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., top Republican on that Homeland Security subcommittee, told the Post that the accounts contradict claims made by Secret Service leaders that the agency does not allow such behavior. The shocking allegations follow the April 2012 incident where a number of agents were caught drinking and seeing prostitutes while on assignment in Colombia. The Post also reported this week that two supervisors were removed from President Obama’s detail and are under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct. The paper reported that two senior supervisors at the agency, Ignacio Zamora, Jr., and Timothy Barraclough, were found to have sent sexually suggestive emails to a female subordinate. On Friday, the paper reported that in one of the many incidents abroad, a whistleblower said dozens of agents were waiting on a military plane to leave Thailand in 2009, en route to South Korea, but a supervisor stayed behind to find a missing agent. The agent reportedly was at a Thai brothel, intoxicated, and was later flown back at additional expense on a commercial flight.