Politics

Congress Acts To Reign In ‘Agents Gone Wild’

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Casey Harper Contributor
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Congress is finally using protection after several embarrassing stories about very sexually active federal law enforcement agencies.

The Department of Justice issued a memo Friday to all justice department employees telling them not to solicit prostitutes even if they are in a country where it is legal, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley is saying it isn’t enough.

Grassley is calling for a zero-tolerance policy on soliciting prostitutes.

“There is no place in the federal government for employees who purchase sex,” Grassley said in a statement Monday. “This memo itself says that such activity ‘creates a greater demand for human trafficking,’ but fails to impose a sufficiently serious policy that would deter employees from engaging in this practice.  The memo is a good first step, but more needs to be done.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte will hold a hearing Wednesday entitled “Analyzing Misconduct in Federal Law Enforcement” to get to the bottom of all the problems surrounding the Justice Department, particularly it’s employees high libido.

“The majority of federal law enforcement agents serve our nation honorably and bravely,” Goodlatte said in a statement. “However, in recent years there have been some episodes of agents gone wild, which raise serious concerns about the culture at federal law enforcement agencies, most notably at the Secret Service and Drug Enforcement Administration.”

In April 2012, several Secret Service agents in Cartagena, Colombia fell into hot water for soliciting prostitutes. In March, The DOJ Inspector General released a report including allegations of sexual misconduct at the DOJ, including allegations that Drug Enforcement Administration agents were having “sex parties” with prostitutes linked to drug cartels.

Now, the judiciary committees in both chambers of Congress are taking up the issue.

“From the ATF, to more recently the Secret Service and DEA, I am extremely concerned by the utter lack of discretion shown by some agents,” Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner said in a statement.

The DOJ memo states, that “department employees who violate these prohibitions will be subject to suspension or termination. Supervisors and managers are subject to discipline for failing to report suspected violations.”

The hearing will feature testimony from Mark Hughes, the Secret Service’s chief integrity officer; Herman Whaley, deputy chief inspector for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Professional Responsibility; John Roth, inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security; and Michael Horowitz, inspector general for the Department of Justice.

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