The Slatest

The Secret Service Agent Who Partied Too Hard in the Netherlands

Members of the Secret Service watch as US President Barack Obama tours the Empresas Del Bosque, Inc. farm February 14, 2014 in Los Banos, California

File photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

The Washington Post with news of the latest embarrassing incident for the Secret Service:

Three Secret Service agents responsible for protecting President Obama in Amsterdam this week were sent home and put on administrative leave Sunday after going out for a night of drinking, according to three people familiar with the incident. One of the agents was found drunk and passed out in a hotel hallway, the people said.

The hotel staff alerted the U.S. Embassy in the Netherlands after finding the unconscious agent Sunday morning, a day before Obama arrived in the country, according to two of the people. The embassy then alerted Secret Service managers on the presidential trip, which included the agency’s director, Julia Pierson.

As the paper explains, the alleged behavior would appear to violate new rules—adopted by the service in the wake of a booze-and-prostitute-filled scandal in Colombia back in 2012—that forbid the drinking of alcohol in the 10 hours leading up to an assignment. The three men are said to be members of the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, which means they likely would have had an early Sunday meeting to prep for Obama’s arrival the following day.

The Secret Service hasn’t provided any specifics, saying only that the agents were benched for “disciplinary reasons.” Still, this incident appears to fall well short of the debauchery of Cartagena (although that’s obviously not saying much). “It wasn’t like a big, crazy party,” was how one unnamed source put it to the Associated Press, adding that the two agents who didn’t pass out in the hallway were sent home less for their partying and more for failing to intervene with their more inebriated colleague.

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