The House committee investigating allegations of Secret Service misconduct during a bomb threat investigation is requesting that Washington’s police chief brief lawmakers on the department’s role in responding to bomb threats.
The House Oversight Committee is looking into allegations that, earlier this month, Secret Service agents drove through an active bomb threat investigation after they had been drinking.
“We understand that the (Secret Service) contacted the Metropolitan Police Department to request the assistance of a bomb squad, as is practice,” according to the letter sent by the Oversight Committee Thursday evening and obtained by CNN.
The bipartisan letter asked MPD to provide documents outlining how Secret Service and MPD work together to respond to bomb threats.
In a closed-door meeting earlier this week, agency Director Joe Clancy told lawmakers that MPD took more than an hour to respond to the White House bomb threat, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told CNN.
“I didn’t realize that they were the responding agency and how pathetically slow they were. That’s just inexcusable,” Chaffetz told CNN on Wednesday, adding that MPD chief Cathy Lanier should expect a “nasty-gram from Congress.”
“MPD will be responding to the document request in the Congressman’s letter, and will be providing the Committee with a detailed timeline on our response to the incident,” spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump told CNN in an e-mail.