Report: Secret Service is ‘in crisis’

The Secret Service is “an agency in crisis” with multiple security lapses and staffing problems, according to a congressional report obtained by The Washington Post.

{mosads}The findings of a bipartisan investigation released Thursday reveal the protective force has suffered six previously undisclosed breaches since 2013, the Post reports.

“The agency’s recent public failures are not a series of isolated events, but the product of an insular culture that has historically been resistant to change,” said the report, which was compiled by Democratic and Republican staffers for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“[The Secret Service] cannot repair itself without first restoring the trust of its employees and increasing personnel dramatically,” the report continued.

It reveals that a man posing as a member of Congress spoke with President Obama last fall without getting properly screened first, the Post reported.

Five days later, it added, a woman walked unexamined into a gala dinner also attended by the commander in chief.

The report also found that two people entered the White House grounds last year without scrutiny from Secret Service agents, the Post reported, and that the agency’s “staffing crisis” is “perhaps the greatest threat” to the Secret Service’s success.