* Republican sends memo on inspector general probe
* Senator says finds 'discrepancies' in statements
* Scandal is biggest to hit Secret Service
WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A Republican senator on
Friday accused the head of the U.S. Secret Service of making
potentially misleading statements to Congress about a
prostitution scandal involving agency employees before a
presidential trip to Colombia in April.
Senator Ron Johnson, the senior Republican on the Homeland
Security subcommittee on oversight of government management,
issued a memo detailing his concerns about Secret Service
Director Mark Sullivan's statements to Congress on May 23.
"There are discrepancies between public statements and
information uncovered in the independent investigation led by
the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General
that suggest the administration misled or withheld information
from Congress," Johnson said in the 9-page memo to the full
Homeland Security Committee.
Johnson said he issued the memo after his staff reviewed the
inspector general's investigation report on the scandal, which
has not been publicly released. His memo came three weeks before
the Nov. 6 elections and appeared to irk others on the panel.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, an
independent, while not mentioning Johnson by name said: "This
unauthorized leak of sensitive, selective information from the
IG's report is unfair to the United States Secret Service and
its director, Mark Sullivan."
In the biggest scandal to ever hit the agency, about a dozen
Secret Service employees were accused of misconduct for bringing
women, some of them prostitutes, back to their hotel rooms ahead
of a visit by President Barack Obama to Cartagena, Colombia.
Sullivan told Congress the names of the foreign women had
been sent to U.S. intelligence agencies but no connections to
terrorist, human trafficking or drug cartel organizations were
found.
But the inspector general's investigation found that two of
the women got "hits" in the intelligence community database,
Johnson said in his memo. On further review one woman was found
not to match the one in the database, while the other was "still
of concern," Johnson said.
A Secret Service official said Sullivan had been briefed
prior to the congressional hearing that checks of the women's
names against national security and law enforcement databases in
the United States and Colombia, "had yielded no derogatory
information."
'MORE PREVALENT'
At that hearing, in closed-door briefings, as well as a
one-on-one meeting in his office in June, Johnson said he was
given assurances that events in Cartagena were "a singular
occurrence for the Secret Service."
But the inspector general's investigation revealed that
"solicitation of prostitutes may be more prevalent than Congress
was led to believe, and that there may be a culture of
acceptance" inside of the Secret Service, Johnson said.
During the inspector general's investigation, one Secret
Service agent involved in misconduct in Cartagena reported
having solicited prostitutes both in El Salvador and Panama in
2008 to 2009, Johnson said.
A Secret Service official said that agent had previously
told the Secret Service office of professional responsibility
that he had not had any prior contact with prostitutes.
"The investigation further uncovered allegations of similar
misconduct in China and Romania," Johnson's memo said. The
inspector general investigation has also found that at least 11
Secret Service personnel admitted to having knowledge of similar
misconduct occurring on other occasions, the memo said.
"Director Mark Sullivan and the Secret Service have
conducted a fair and thorough investigation resulting from the
Cartagena incident," Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan said
on Friday. "The agency response to those with oversight
responsibility has been timely and truthful ..."
The inspector general reviewed Secret Service reports of
contact with foreign nationals between Dec. 16, 2008 and June
15, 2012 and found that before the Cartagena incident there were
105 reports of contact with foreign nationals, while after the
incident 423 new reports of contact with foreign nationals were
filed, Johnson's memo said.
"The nature of these foreign contacts is unclear," it said.
Johnson also criticized Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano for inaction since receiving the report about phase
one of the inspector general's investigation on Sept. 26, which
did not include any recommendations.
"It seems to me that a Cabinet-level secretary wouldn't need
a recommendation to determine if action should be taken on the
troubling findings in that report," Johnson said in a statement.
"The Department's General Counsel received the OIG's Report
of Investigation regarding the conduct of U.S. Secret Service
personnel in Cartagena, Colombia. The report reviewed
allegations of personnel misconduct and found that 13 agents had
engaged in misconduct," Department of Homeland Security
spokesman Matthew Chandler said.
"The U.S. Secret Service had already taken appropriate
action against these employees" prior to the completion of the
inspector general's report of investigation, he said.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Paul Simao)
