White House Fence Jumper Was In The Area For 16 Minutes Before Detection



 

“Secret Service did a fantastic job last night,” Mr. Trump said the next day.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah and the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote in a letter on Friday to the Secret Service that the committee received “additional information” about the episode, including indications that Mr. Tran “may have moved around on the White House grounds undetected for a considerable amount of time.”

The Secret Service said in a statement late Friday that Mr. Tran, after climbing several gates as high as eight feet, was inside the grounds for about 16 minutes before he was apprehended at 11:38 p.m. The agency said it is conducting an investigation.

New York Times first reported on the new details in the case.

Mr. Chaffetz also said that the committee had received information indicating that the Secret Service “ignored” alarms that Mr. Tran tripped and that he may have attempted to get into the White House itself.

“If true, these allegations raise questions about whether the agency’s security protocols are adequate,” Mr. Chaffetz said, stressing “longstanding concerns” about security episodes at facilities protected by the Secret Service.

Last week’s fence-jumping recalled an embarrassing episode for the Secret Service in September 2014, when an intruder with a knife, Omar J. Gonzalez, managed to run through the ceremonial East Room of the White House before he was apprehended.

The Secret Service was criticized for playing down the severity of the episode until a fuller account emerged in an investigation by a House subcommittee led by Mr. Chaffetz.

That episode, along with a series of other safety lapses revealed at the time, led to intense congressional criticism, a shake-up of the Secret Service’s top management and the addition of spikes atop the White House fencing to deter climbers. Plans were recently approved for a taller, stronger fence.

A 2015 report by the House Oversight Committee called the Secret Service “an agency in crisis” and found that over a 10-year period, there had been 143 security breaches and attempted security breaches at secured facilities.




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