Intentional violation of the code. We just havent communicated as well. They just made a mistake. An innocent mistake . Was there any consequence . No. There was no discipline administered. With all due respect, my time is expired. Until you actually live by your own codes and you hold people responsible and accountable, youre going to continue to have this problem. There has to be consequences when people purposely and knowingly mislead the press and the congress. With respect, sir, again, from what ive heard, been briefed and have seen, i would not say its intentional. Theres a difference between misconduct and operational errors. And i think theres a very clear distinction. Did you not know immediately he was apprehended at the the doors or deep in the white house . Time of the gentleman has expired. He will be permitted to answer the question. You can can answer that question. Yes, sir, again. Some people how that information was relaid, again, not being there i dont know how that information was relaid to our Public Affairs office, but it wasnt relayed in the proper manner. We gave bad information. Its something we cannot do. We have to slow down with our communication. We know its critical to give accurate information. And thats what our goal is. But we failed on that day. I agree with you, sir. The gentleman from new york, mr. Jeffries is recognizeded. Thank you, mr. Chair, and thank you, mr. Clancy for your service to this country, to the secret service, and for your presence here today. Its my understanding that the number of threats to this particular president , barack obama in the the white house, has increased significantly since the president first took office in january of 2009. Is that correct . No, sir. I would say there are spikes. Threats rise and lower depending on world events. And so how would you characterize from a comparative standpoint the number of threats that this white house or this president has faced as compared to modern president s over the last 20 or so years . Yes, sir. Our protective Intelligence Department does metrics regarding just what youre referring to here. And we do compare it to previous administrations, previous president s. And the last one i looked at, it does look as if the president s threat level has gone up slightly. But thats not unnatural. It has gone up slightly. So the president s threat level has gone up to some degree. And at the same time over the last six years, weve seen Security Breach after Security Breach after Security Breach. I think that is a reason for us to be concerned, if not outrage ed as it relates to the state of the secret service right now. As it relateses to the concern cans that youve established upon your arrival, i think you mentioned three. Staffing, training and morale. Is that right . Thats correct, sir. And is it fair to say the staffing issues you confront relate to the fact that you dont have the budgetary resources necessary to operate at an optimal level . Sir, i think our Staffing Levels from a budget perspective are appropriate at this time. One of things we need to do to build our staffing is to better our hiring process. Ed in an Opening Statement, it takes about 12 months for us to get people hireding on. We have to do a better job of identifying good quality people early on in the process so we can streamline that process, maybe move that 12 months to 7 months, possibly shorter. As were experiencing now, first of all, theres still an incredible interest in the secret service. The last Job Announcement we had 45,000 applicants. Only 72 made it through the process and were hired. Now if i can hone in on that point in terms of interest 234 the secret service. Connect it to the problem that youve identified and members of this panel and other members of congress have identified, youve got the elite president ial protection unit, correct . Yes, sir. And that is generally viewed as sort of an optimal assignment within the secret service, is that fair to say . In my view, yes it is, sir. You demonstrated yourself in that time. We thank you for that. As it relates to the uniformeded division, theres a general perception among many observers to the secret service that that is viewed as a less than desirable assignment or on a cash system perhaps some may say, as it relates to secret service hierarchy. Is that fair . Is that fair to say . For the Uniformed Division . Yes. Thats a very challenging position. Yes, sir. Those officers at the white house and in the foreign missions, they have a very challenging mission. I have great admiration for what they do when you consider, as was mentioned earlier, the the number of people in the white house. We have over 300,000 people screened coming through that white house every day. And these officers are confronted with a variety of issues and i have great admiration for the work they do there. What can you do to sort of improve both the morale and the operational ability, the competence of the members of the uniform secret Service Division who play a very important role, and of course, with the most recent incident we saw in terms of if fence jumping episode, clearly did not perform at a level commensurate to what the american people, the president , and the first family deserve . Yes, sir. Our people are they desire more training. They have a passion to get out to our facility for more training. And weve got to get them out there for that additional training. Thats one thing that may help their morale. Additionally, i think weve got to do a better job of communicating and hearing their sures. And thats why we put more focus on the anonymity of the concerns sent. Because these officers want to be heard. And it sits on my directors staff. So twice a week, when i meet with the director staff, they will bring those issues to the table where im sitting. And as much as we want to allow people to communicate up, we have to communicate down as well. And that will help the morale of the uniformed officers, too. Training and better communication will be a good start for helping the uniformed officers. Thank you. Yield back. Thank you. Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania mr. Marino for his questions. Thank you. Director, its a pleasure to talk with you today. Its nice to have a fellow pennsylvanian as director of the secret service. I worked for the secret service for 18 years as state and federal prosecutor. And i have nothing but praise for the secret service. You have the best of the best, and i have personal experience there, so i thank the agents for their service. The president made the right choice putting you in this position. I can tell instantly from the way you answered several of these questions. The right choice of assigning u. S. Director. You have your hands full. Yes, sir. There are some changes that have to be made, but i have complete confidence in you that you will square these issues away, improve security, improve morale, et cetera. I do believe that im kind of old fashioned. I think secret service should be with treasury, not Homeland Security. I think there was a finer system of operation there. No disrespect to Homeland Security. They have their hands full in many other areas. And with that, im going to yield back, because many of my questions pertain to the second round. So thank you for being here. Yes, sir, thank you, sir. Thank the gentleman. If youll bear with me, ill recognize the the next person. Mr. Sicilini from rhode island. Excuse me. Ill recognize Ranking Member mr. Conyers. Thank you both. I apologize for my tardiness. And i too welcome mr. Clancy. I wanted to raise a little discussion about the ten people that have successfully climbed over the white house fence. And is there any thought yet about how were going to repair this problem that keeps happening . Replacement or a different design, or what are your thoughts as you sit here before the Judiciary Committee, sir . Yes, sir. Theres several levels to this, sir. The the first is from our own operational standpoint to address what happened on september 19th. We immediately instituted additional training and integrated training between the Tactical Units and our Uniformed Division officers, first with the fourhour block. Classroom work. And then additionally sixhour block out of our training facility, where we would do the integrated training, so we could do a much better job and not allow what happened on september 19th to occur again. But additionally, there are some other things that we are looking at to include adjusting to either the height of the fence or some modification to that fence. And again, weve worked very well with our partners at National Park services. Weve met with them already regarding this concern. And weve also met with the were meeting in the very near future with the National Capital planning commission. And the fine arts commission. And with those meetings, we think were going to do a were going to find some solutions to make it more difficult for people to get over that fence. Thank you. Now the secret service performs two huge missions. One, protecting the president , Vice President , their family and dignitary. But also of investigating crimes against our financial system. And some have raised a question whether secret service should maintain both missions and question whether the Investigative Mission reduces the effectiveness of the protective mission. Have you examined these issues yet . Yes, sir, thank you, sir. And let me just break it up. Uniformed division the officers at the white house complex are strictly there for protection. On the agency side of the house, we do have a robust investigative field office. Field offices throughout the country. We think that is critical to our mission. Our protective mission and overall mission. The work our agents do in the field allows them to build skills from working the streets, doing interviews, situational awareness, those skills carry over into the protective mode so youre much more attentive, you Pay Attention to your details. It helps you with your advance work. Theres a direct correlation between the investigative side of the house. And to include with the cyber investigations, where weve had great success, we use a lot of those people in our critical Protection Systems division, which we use on protective movements. We used them significantly with our National Special security events. So that we see the correlation between the physical security of our sites as well as the cyber securit security. Thank you. Let me ask you about the september 19th incident. It revealed numerous problems with radio systems, alarm systems, officer training, physical attributes o f the white house grounds and officer performance. Do coyou have any way of determining in your capacity as acting director whether we have facilities in training, to host wholescale drills, to test the equipment so that we can be confident that it will not fail us in the future . Sir, just as an example, with the training that weve instituted just recently, again, for retraining, we sent our officers out there. We built a mockup of the white house grounds. We have the proper distance from the north fence line to the north portico. But its a mockup at our facility. Ideally in the future, we would love to have a true replica of the white house. So that our dogs can feel comfortable working in the true environment of what the north grounds are like. So that would be a longterm goal to get a mockup of the white house at our training facility. Glad to hear you say that. I ask unanimous consent that my Opening Statement be in the record. Without objection. I thank the gentleman from michigan. The chair will now recognize the je nan from north carolina, the the former United States attorney. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director clancy, thank you for being here. I think its very good that someone with a long history in the secret service is there to address these problems. Like my friend, miss marina. I spent a long time working with the secret service and have nothing but respect. The secret service is always willing to jump into a task force and bring whatever resources they have to the table and how to multitask is always good. They bring a lot to the table and always pride themselves in having prepared cases and so forth. Picking up where mr. Mari in, a left off, it saddens me to hear the secret service is having such morale problems. Considering the elevated rate of statue in secret service and in talking to agents over the years, some think that the problems with mora wile started when secret service was taken out of treasury and lumped together with a lot of other Law Enforcement agencies, all great agencies, im not saying them. But you were in the the secret service when it was in the treasury department. Take a moment and just reflect on that. Do you think some of these problems started then, and if so, you know, what have you thought about ways to address morale problems that may have started when secret service left treasury . Yes, sir, when i was a younger agent, a younger manager in the secret service, we were under treasury. But i didnt have a lot of exposure to those decisions at that time. So my True Management experience has been with the department of Homeland Security. And to be candid, sir. The issues that weve had as of late are really a reflection on some of the things that weve done. And im really focused on weve got to fix our own operational procedures, our conduct, and our morale. Obviously concerned when i came back from the private sector and saw the reports on the morale issues, that was very concerning. So thats one of the areas, one of the top three areas, i think, we need to fix. And im committed to working oen ways to fix that morale. And as i said earlier, i think training is one thing were going to have to build up the training. If we can get our folks trained, theyre going to feel more confident in their actions every day. And the other is communication. Our folks want to be heard. They can see how we can be better. Theyve got good ideas out there. We want to hear their ideas. If its an idea we cannot implement, we need to get word back to them and explain why we cant implement the idea that we have. The key is communication. People want to be heard. My first day on the job, i met with our senior staff and said thats one o f the priorities weve got to have. Weve got to communicate with all of our people. All of our agents, our officers and protective staff. And make sure theyre being heard and respected. Good. One other followup question, and then ill yield back. Regarding the Security Guard who was armed and hadnt been cleared, were there any other Security Guards armed . Sir, as ive been briefed, there were other Armed Security at the the cdc. They were not on the perimeter. They were on the outside of the inner perimeter. Which is not uncommon on the the outside perimeter to have arms so there were Armed Security who had not been cleared on the outside of the perimeter. Were there any on the inside of the perimeter, like the individual that weve noted . As ive been briefed, sir, not on the inside of the perimeter, other than the elevator operator who was armed. Thank you, i yield back. Thank the gentleman from north carolina. The chair will now recognize mr. Cicilini. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you mr. Clancy for be with us today. As you understand, the protection of the president is a Critical National responsibility, and i know that we all recognize dm many ways the work of the secret service really, our able to defend our democracy is directly tied to our ability to protect the occupant of the white house, whoever he or she is at any time. So these issues are serious. And i think we all appreciate the seriousness with which you are approaching these new responsibilities and i thank you for being here to provide some testimony today. You made some reference to Staffing Levels having declined over the last several years while the workload of the agency has not. And so i would like to hear from you whether or not, recognizing there are training and personnel and scheduling and Communications Issues for that relate to each of the incidents were reviewing in particular, are there more general concerns that you have about resources, both at the staffing level and in terms of infrastructure, equipment, and the capacity that you have to integrate new equipment as it becomes available. Yes, sir, first with the Staffing Levels, we think we are appropriately funded for the Staffing Levels at this point. Our concern is getting people into our pipeline and getting them hired quicker. So we can build up our staff. From the infrastructure standpoint, there are some things that we will be looking for additional funding. Weve talked about the the fence here today. Once we get good renderings and get the approval, if we get the approval from our partners in the national region, that will be that will be required. Some additional funding for that. But also our communications we would like to update our communication systems. We saw that we had some failures on september 19th. So our communications need to be upgraded. And then, you know, the Vice President s residence, we have a lot of facilities we protect. All of those are under constant review. We want to update our alarms and cameras, and thats the main focus. Now, i was pleased to hearto additional training, to be sure that you have some expectations to make requests for additional facilities at your training facility. But in addition to that, it seems as if staffing policies also played a role in the in