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Fresh Problems for Secret Service: Are Leaders Doing Enough?

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In this May 23, 2011 file photo, President Barack Obama pauses as he shakes hands with people in the crowd after speaking at College Green in Dublin, Ireland.  Mark Connolly, the second-in-command on President Barack Obama's security detail, far left.  The Homeland Security Department is investigating two senior Secret Service agents accused of crashing a car into a White House security barrier, an agency spokesman says. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

In this May 23, 2011 file photo, President Barack Obama pauses as he shakes hands with people in the crowd after speaking at College Green in Dublin, Ireland. Mark Connolly, the second-in-command on President Barack Obama’s security detail, far left. The Homeland Security Department is investigating two senior Secret Service agents accused of crashing a car into a White House security barrier, an agency spokesman says. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

JOSH LEDERMAN, Associated Press
ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The latest in a string of baffling missteps by the Secret Service prompted fresh questions Thursday about whether the Obama administration has done enough to root out deep-seated problems plaguing the agency — and President Barack Obama’s decision to put an insider in charge despite his administration’s own review that called for exactly the opposite.

The White House said Obama still has full confidence in recently appointed Director Joseph Clancy, despite a new investigation into two agents accused of driving into White House security barrier after drinking. While declining to discuss the investigation, Obama’s aides described Clancy as the right man to fix problems.

“Nobody has higher standards for the Secret Service than Director Clancy,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz.

Yet lawmakers charged with overseeing the agency were aghast and wondered how — after intense national scrutiny and a rotating cast of directors — the Secret Service still hasn’t corrected problems involving behavior of its agents. In a rare move, the top Republican and Democrat on the House’s oversight panel joined forces to say that while many of the agency’s top leaders have already been replaced, “this incident begs the question of whether that is enough.”

“Clearly this incident is a major wake-up call,” the Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said later in an interview.

The two senior agents — including Mark Connolly, the No. 2 on Obama’s security detail — had been with other agents drinking at a bar last week when they returned to the White House in a government car, a U.S. official said. The vehicle entered an area already closed off by the Secret Service, who were investigating a suspicious package and had put the White House on lockdown. Officers on the scene saw the agents’ car, traveling slowly, make contact with a barrier, the official said.

A surveillance video at the White House captured the entire incident, the official said. Congressional staffers were briefed Thursday on the video’s contents.

In a stroke of irony, the agents had been attending a retirement party for the Secret Service’s spokesman, Ed Donovan, whose job for many years involved answering questions from the press after other embarrassing incidents.

Obama knew both agents personally. The two have been reassigned to nonsupervisory, non-operational jobs, a second official said. The officials weren’t authorized to comment on an ongoing investigation and requested anonymity.

The Secret Service’s response to the incident, first disclosed by the Washington Post, has also come under scrutiny amid a report by that newspaper that a supervisor directed officers on-scene not to perform a field sobriety test on the two agents, and to let them go home. Cummings said that raised serious questions about whether Secret Service agents believe they can follow their own set of rules.

Cummings and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, the chairman of the oversight committee, sent a letter Thursday to Clancy asking him to brief them on the incident and provide the panel with any video footage, photographs or audio recordings.

“The bottom line is the Secret Service has to be overhauled,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “What happened the other day shows we have a ways to go and that the overhaul is needed soon and very deeply.”

Yet with Obama standing by Clancy, it remained unclear what additional steps could or would be taken to bring the struggling agency in line.

When former Director Mark Sullivan resigned in 2013, the year after a drinking-and-prostitution scandal in Colombia rocked the agency, Obama tapped longtime Secret Service agent Julia Pierson to take over amid hopes she would change the male-dominated culture. Less than two years later, Pierson resigned abruptly in the wake of security breaches.

First, a man with a knife who scaled the White House fence made it far inside the mansion before agents stopped him. Then, as lawmakers started asking questions, it came to light that the Secret Service earlier had improperly allowed Obama to share an elevator in Atlanta with an armed, private guard — and failed to tell him about it after the fact.

Amid a public uproar, the Obama administration commissioned an outside report by former senior government officials that concluded the agency was too insular — and recommended that Obama bring in an outsider to whip the agency into shape. Obama ignored that recommendation and brought in Clancy — a retired agent who once ran Obama’s security detail — as interim director, then named him to the full post in February.

The storied Secret Service, despite its reputation as the world’s leading protective agency, has a history of alcohol-related incidents.

In 2012, an officer was arrested after passing out drunk on a Miami street corner about 12 hours after a presidential visit. Two years later an agent was involved in a drunken incident during a trip to the Netherlands. That same year two agents in Florida were involved in a traffic accident that reportedly involved alcohol.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

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On Twitter, follow Josh Lederman at www.twitter.com/joshledermanAP and Alicia A. Caldwell at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Four Candidates, Including Incumbent Barbara Lee, Qualify for Oakland Mayor’s Race

POST NEWS GROUP — Four candidates, including incumbent Mayor Barbara Lee, filed their papers to run for office by last Friday’s deadline, and the City Clerk issued a list this week of those who are qualified to run.

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View of downtown Oakland, California and City Hall. iStock photo.

The four mayoral candidates who will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot are: 

Brenda Grisham.
Brenda Grisham.

Brenda Grisham. A business owner in East Oakland and public safety advocate, Grisham led the successful recall campaign against Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price. As part of her platform, she pledges to work with local, state, and federal partners to secure stricter gun control measures and investments in community violence intervention programs. 

Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee.

Barbara Lee. A former congressional representative and state Assembly member, Lee was elected by voters in a special election last year for a two-year term. Now running for a four-year term, she points out that her administration achieved major successes in addressing some of the city’s major challenges, including balancing the city budget, dramatically reducing crime, and making significant inroads into homelessness and illegal dumping.

Mindy Peshenuk
Mindy Peshenuk

Mindy Pechenuk. An educator and activist, Pechenuk is a registered Republican and supporter of Lyndon LaRouche, who has been described by observers as a conspiracy theorist and cult leader. She ran unsuccessfully for mayor in last year’s special election and for the at-large council seat in 2024. She seeks to end Oakland’s police commission and MACRO and invest in more police while launching a new local war on drugs.

Julius Robinson
Julius Robinson

Julius Robinson. While little information is available so far about Robinson, he was quoted in a KTVU story about Thao’s recall, stating that people in Oakland want to come together as a community but lack infrastructure and leadership. 

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Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of August 12 – 18, 2026

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COMMENTARY: Why Local School Tax Measure G1 Will Not Be on the November Ballot

POST NEWS GROUP — Measure G1 is the local tax measure that supports middle school teacher retention and the expansion of arts, music, and world language programs at both OUSD middle schools and charter middle schools. The current measure expires in 2029.

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iStock.

There has been considerable speculation recently about why Measure G1 will not appear on the November ballot and what that means for the Oakland Unified School District’s current budget.

I want to provide some clarity about what happened and, importantly, what did not happen.

Measure G1 is the local tax measure that supports middle school teacher retention and the expansion of arts, music, and world language programs at both OUSD middle schools and charter middle schools. The current measure expires in 2029.

Because these funds are important to our schools and to the continuity of these programs, the district initially intended to place a renewal initiative on the November ballot to provide greater early certainty about funding beyond the expiration of the current measure.

As part of that process, the Board scheduled a special meeting for the required public hearing on the ballot initiative. There has been some suggestion that this meeting was noticed only one day in advance. That is not accurate.

Public hearings of this nature are subject to specific notice requirements, and the meeting must be noticed at least two weeks before the hearing. In practice, the notice may appear even earlier depending on publication schedules. The notice for the Measure G1 public hearing was published in the Tribune on 7/24/2026 and 7/31/2026.

So, why wasn’t the Measure G1 paperwork ultimately filed?

After the Board approved placing the measure on the ballot, the next step required the Alameda County Superintendent of Schools to sign the necessary paperwork before it could be submitted to the Oakland City Clerk.

During that process, Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro raised concerns about potential litigation stemming from another court case unrelated to OUSD and about whether proceeding with the measure could expose the district or County to legal challenges. Superintendent Castro’s action is unprecedented and concerning. 

It is important to distinguish between the Board’s decision to pursue Measure G1 and the subsequent procedural and legal issues that arose. The Board did approve moving forward with the measure. The measure did not fail because the Board chose not to support it, nor was the public hearing improperly noticed.

The decision not to proceed with the November ballot was made in light of the County’s concerns about potential litigation and the County’s required approval process.

We also need to be clear about what this does, and does not, mean for OUSD’s current budget. The existing Measure G1 funds remain available through the expiration of the current measure in 2029. The immediate issue is the longer-term continuity of funding beyond that date, not the elimination of these resources from the current year’s budget.

Our responsibility as a Board is to protect the educational programs and services our students depend on while ensuring that our decisions comply with the law and protect the district from unnecessary legal and financial risk.

We will continue working to understand the County’s concerns, explore our options, and advocate for the resources our students deserve. Our middle school students, teachers, and school communities deserve stability, and continued investment in arts, music, world languages, and teacher retention—and that work remains a priority for Oakland Unified.

Jennifer Brouhard is a retired OUSD educator and is the current OUSD School Board President representing District 2.

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