Leadership . Is the problem with the men and women youre not getting good people . Why dont you speak up for these men and women . If in fact theyre letting off steam because youre overworking them, are they being overworked . Will this budget that toughs just gotten begin to relieve some of those serial days in which people dont get any days off . So would you describe that and would you tell us more about training and what training sessions are expected so that some of this misbehavior will be understood to be absolutely foreboden. Congresswoman, thank you. I have the same concerns you have. In fact, i want to hear more and more from these agents and these officers, what their issues are. Just in a nutshell, ill tell you that i walked by and around the perimeter of the white house frequently. This past sunday i went to the roll call midnight shift. The following morning went to the roll call and wanted to hear what are their concerns. And in terms of the you can see what their concerns are. The days off. Are people going to according to the panel, the agents were consistently working 12hour shifts under high stress, often with no days off. Is that going to change now that your budget is finally been released by the congress which has to take some of the responsibility for whats been happening as well. Again, you are exactly right. When i first came back here my number one initiative was to increase staffing. Weve got to increase staffing. To do that weve separated one of our directorates which is hr and training. We separated them apart to give each more specific training. Weve been working overtime to you have a new class for 2013. There was only one class. If you need more agents, theyll need more training. Yes. With this new appropriation is there going to be another class of agents trained, and will the agents who are there who used to get training, i understand every four weeks or so, will they have that recgimen of training again . Yes. Well exceed our goals this year. Six classes and six special agent classes that were scheduled. Well now go nine and eight classes. So we expect to hire a lot more people in fiscal year 15 and continue that into 16. That is a critical need for the service and that will also help with getting more people out to training. In fact, since september 19th, the uniform Division Training has increased 110 . Thats just a snapshot. Weve got to keep the momentum going. With the agent side of the house on the president s detail that training has increased 78 . Again not where we want to be but as we increase the staff well get more training for our people. I thank the geptntle woman. Good morning mr. Director. Ive got some questions. I guess this is sort of another gotcha hearing. We just have incident after incident. We have carta hana the fence jumper. And we have this most recent one. You testified that you cannot take action because on personnel as far as discipline because of title 5. But also chapter 102 of title 5 sets some requirements. Have you seen a draft that was prepared last year . Can you give the director a copy of this draft . It is deliberative draft 7 22 14. Its amendments to the hiring, managing and discipline of its workforce. This is amenities for secret service. So rather than just talk about more incidents, lets get down to the brass tacks of the issues you face. First is hiring. Right . You got to hire good people. You came and you said you need more people. I submit that you need better people and you need better qualifications. When i left the white house about a week ago, i followed a secret service car just by accident. I said whats that on the bumper . Its actually its actually soliciting for folks to work on the bumper of a police vehicle. This is the way we hire folks for the secret service. I didnt know i didnt know your predecessor, miss pearson, that well. She came from my local town. She called me after she was there for a while and she says, its very difficult to get this place under control. Ive got to have some ability to hire Better Qualified people. I didnt know that you didnt need a College Education for some of those positions. Is that correct . Thats correct. Yeah. She said that by law weve dumbed down the qualifications. First, you got to hire people. You dont hire them with an advertisement on a bumper of a vehicle. You want qualified personnel with the highest qualifications. Right . Secondly, youve got to be able to manage those personnel. And she asked for these things way back in fact, on july 27nd there was a meeting with government reform staff. Do you know where these recommendations are . I was told they went back to dhs. We have where these suggestions for improvement are. Does anyone know where they are . I with aant to know where they are. She knew what was wrong before she was railroaded out. Youll be railroaded out, too, if we dont make changes. But the fault is in the guidelines that you have to follow. She told me managing personnel administering them, you have a 20year i guess retirement, then you have to retirement on the Law Enforcement side. Thats the older plan was a 20year retirement but the fers is not 20years. In any event, when you get to the retirement it took two years to get people trained for s scs positions. Yes. The time youre able to administer, you hire the people getting the best qualified, then you want the best administration. Right . Zpl yes. So we have an impediment in that. She asked for that clang. Nothings been done. Then finally she said to hold people accountable. Secret Service Holding protectors accountable. Thats what this hearing is about. She asked for the ability to hire and fire an exempt agency under title 5. Do you agree with that . Yes. You do. Thats one of her recommendations. But we have to do that. Because we heard, oh there a he no command. Well, hell, you dont have the ability to command because your hands are tied by title 5. You cant hire and fire. You have to go through this layer. I chaired Civil Service and i know how difficult it is to get rid of folks. Even discipline folks. Most people are just mordved horizontally to some other position. Yes. Again, you have to have the ability to hire and fire. This proposal i submitted, which was last july and i read the recommendations of the little group that came up with stuff. Until you address this fundamental problem, that director, or whoever succeeds him, will not succeed in managing his personnel because when he cant hire people that are qualified two he cant manage or administer those folks, and three cant discipline and hire and fire people that need to be held accountable. Is that right . Thats basically . Basically, yes, sir. Okay. And finally, if a bullet hits the white house, a window or the building, is something done to address that . You talked about the fence. Yes. We have procedures now if there is any anything hits the white house, we have instituted procedures since 2011. Id like to know for for the record or behind the scenes about drones and how they can penetrate the perimeter. Thank you. Yield back. Now recognize mr. Cummings for five minutes. Director clancy, i want to get down to something you said, you said was unacceptable, and that is when you found out about this incident. You learned of these allegations on may 9th which was five days after the incident occurred. And that is a big concern for me and i know it is for this committee and you. First and foremost, theres no doubt that you should have been informed about this incident immediately. Is that right . Thats correct, yes, sir. You should have been informed about it the day of. Yes, thats correct. At our briefing last week you told us that no one in your Immediate Office had been aware of this incident. Is that correct . Thats correct. Last week you testified that the secret Service Personnel should have reported this incident up the chain. If i have this right, they should have reported as follows. From personnel on the ground to the deputy chief of the uniform division. To the special agent in charge of president ial protective division, to the assistant director of protective operations, and then to you. Is that correct . Thats correct. Now yesterday the secret service produced documents to the committee indicating that the deputy chief of the uniform division alfonso dyson, became aware of these incidents on the night of the incident. I guess the briefing sheet is what you sent to start the investigation in the instructor generals office. Is that right . Thats correct. And if i can correct the record. Because i know i met with you and other members in a closeddoor briefing and you had asked, how is that process started. And i said i think it is a phone call. And it was started with a phone call. But i found out subsequently that there is a followup letter which is what we provided to you. That followup letter with our preliminary findings the very first day on the 9th. So in the briefing sheet it says and i quote deputy chief dyson advised that he was familiar with the incident involving the agents and was briefed about the incident on the evening of march 4th, 2015. End of quote. Yes. So director if the deputy chief of the uniform division knew about the allegations, did he alert the special agent in charge of the president ial protective division . Did he . . I dont know, sir. Im going to tell you that i am infuriated that i have not been advised on march 4th, why i didnt hear any of that information. I dont know. But i will tell you that the deputy chief needed to raise that up through the chain of command and this is something that ive been battling since i first came back in a very brief time here. Ive been back about 30 days. We are working furiously to try to brake down these barriers where people feel they cant talk up the chain. I can tell you personally im going out, reaching out to people, going to these roll calls and individually. Our assistant director of investigation is going out into the field talking to people. Our assistant director of protective operations going out talking to people. Weve made all these avenues through hotlines and web pages to even anonymously get information up the chain. Why it didnt happen in this case, i dont know. If you are a he not comfortable going up through your chain of command, you have all these other avenues. Anonymously you can go and report incidents of misconduct or whatever you want to report. But youve got to make use of these outlets. Let me ask you this. How about the assistant director for protective operations. When did he learn about these allegations . Do you know . I dont know well, march 9th. March 9th. Because when i found out, i found out the morning of march 9th. I reached out to the assistant director of protective operations. He did not know at that point. I asked him to go find what he knew about it what he could find out about it. I understand there is an ongoing ig investigation but according to your own testimony you didnt learn about these allegations from anyone at the secret service. Thats correct. Im concerned about whether theres still a problem with the chain of command right now. Sounds like there is. Based on what you know today what is the highest ranked person who knew about this incident and failed to report it . To your knowledge. To my knowledge . Again, on march 9th is when i was given all the details that we had. We turned it over to the iog. Then i stepped out of it. In all candor right or wrong, i compartmentalized things and i didnt want to see it. The deputy chief is the last one that was thats how well on more than one time here this morning you said you had a meeting with your higherups and you told them this is youre not going to tolerate this. Did you ask him any of them, did you all know about this . No, i didnt. I was very blunt with what was my expectation whoa, whoa whoa. Rewind. These are your top people. Right . Zpl yes. Zpl yes. Would that be the eight assistants . Assistants. There would be more of that in this room. You never asked them . You didnt say ladies and gentlemen, who knew about this . I did not. Why not . At that point i honestly did not want to interfere with this oig investigation. I wanted no indication where i might be pressuring someone. No indication that weve reached out to people. Or people to leave that room and say the directors asking for more information. I wanted to give this oig complete ownership of this investigation. Just one last question mr. Chairman. Director at any time did you have a staff meeting where you would have expected i mean, you know, you and i have talked about this sacred trust in the secret service, these jobs of honor. Would you have expected ssh did you have any meeting where you would have expected someone who knew about this to Say Something to you . Absolutely. Absolutely. When i heard this on march 9th i was in disbelief. I didnt believe it. I called and said, look run this out. Especially over that time frame. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Zpl now recognize the gentleman from tennessee, mr. Duncan. Thank you mr. Chairman. Director clancy, all over this country theres been a growing belief for many years now that the federal government and many toplevel federal employees have become have been becoming more and more bureaucratics elitist, arrogant and there along with this, been a growing belief that weve ended up with a government thats of, by and for the bureaucrats instead of one thats of by and for the people. When you refuse to allow these four witnesses to come and of it t to us who are supposed to represent the people as best we can, when you refuse to allow these four witnesses to come and you refuse to release most of the video thats been requested. You should realize that this looks very bureaucratic elitest and arrogant. And it looks as though you feel youre working youre not really working for the people of this country. That youre working to protect the people of the secret service. And last week in the House Appropriations committee, chairman rogers said in a very strong, very emphatic way that he felt there should be terminations and firings for all these incidents that have happened. And i hope that you agree with that. I assume that you are Close Friends with mr. Connelly and mr. Ogilvie. But i hope that you feel that you have more of a duty to the people of this country than you have a duty to protect mr. Ogilvie and mr. Connelly and others who have been involved in these other incidents. What do you have to say about that . Sir youre absolutely correct and ive already made changes in our agency of people that i know and who served honorably but i wanted a fresh perspective. Friends of mine. I have moved them or offered them positions in other components in dhs. Im not opposed to moving people people that i know. It is all about the agency. In terms of well, thats one of the problems though. Too often federal employees who really mess up they arent really disciplined. Theyre not cut in pay. Theyre not fired, theyre not terminated. Theyre just moved to a nice desk job someplace else and ive already been told that ogilvie and connelly have been moved to some other desk job someplace and not much at alls been done to them. Im going to yield the balance of my time though to mr. Gowdy. I think he has another question or two that he wishes to ask. Thank you. Director, who has custody of the video that was retained and preserved . Technical security division. Who has the power to make a copy of that video and turn it over to mr. Cullmmings and mr. Chaffetz . Sir, i would in consultation with my Legal Counsel. I got to be honest with you. I dont know that for certain. Im relatively new to the position. Well, to the extent you do have the power or have influence over those who do have power, will you recommend that a copy of all video footage be made available to mr. Cummings and mr. Chaffetz . Congressman, ill certainly talk to our department and with our Legal Counsel you dont need lawyers for everything. I mean you got a bunch of them on this panel. Im telling you, if the only excuse they have for not turning it over is theres some theoretical potential investigation or prosecution . I promise mr. Cummings and mr. Chaffetz are not going to interfere with either one. I promise you that. So we can eliminate that concern now. Now, will you turn over all available video to mr. Cullmmings and mr. Chaffetz . Again, the video will be available at all times. I will go back to our department and agency and revisit this. Do you know if there was emphasis on emphasis on was video of the alleged officer misconduct . No, im not aware. You dont know whether any of the cameras were trained on the car that these two agents were in . The only video im aware of, congressman, is what we have provided as they entered the gate at south park. Well, do you have a policy of retention and preservation of any video that could be potentially part of a criminal investigation or officer misconduct . Is that part of your policy . Yes, sir. We retain video that is related to any incident on so if there were video of that, no one would have taped over it or destroyed it . The video would not have been destroyed. In someone saw an incident somewhere else in the complex, yes. How about taped over . Would it have been taped over . By practice, it is automatic. You have to my understanding is you have to selectively decide what you want to preserve. Otherwise wouldnt potential officer misconduct be one of those things that you wanted to preserve . Zpl. Without knowing the facts, i dont know what took place beyond that entry point. I yield to the chairman. Thank the gentleman. Gentlemans time has expired. Now recognize the gentleman from massachusetts, the Ranking Member of the subcommittee on National Security. Thank you mr. Chairman. You know im a little bit more than a little bit put out by the willful ignorance here. You know when you lets just back up a second. Secret service is an intelligence gathering organization. And then you dont ask questions. And you destroy evidence. I guess im trying to have faith. I really am. I offer no disrespect whatsoever. Py think youre an honorable man. But i tell you, this whole system you said at the tail end of your testimony that you had implemented a change to go to seven days retention of video. Is that correct . Thats correct. So we went from 72 hours now to seven days. Thats correct. With the intent to look at our Storage Capabilities to go beyond that. All right. Im actually going to if we have to do it legislatively, the fa kt the fact that the department of Homeland Security requires Logan Airport to retain their tsa tapes for 30 days if i have to do it legislatively im going to make a recommendation that we adopt legislation that requires that secret service