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Secret Service director quits: Here's why Congress was extra-mad with her

Even a deeply partisan Congress rallied quickly around the view that it's time for Julia Person to go. Her responses at a hearing Tuesday failed to convince lawmakers that she was willing to deal with the lapses forthrightly.

Washington is normally a bitterly partisan place, but on Wednesday top lawmakers of both parties united behind a single idea: US Secret Service Director Julia Pierson needed to lose her job.

And for once gridlock was replaced with action. By afternoon Ms. Pierson had resigned after meeting with her direct boss, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.

鈥淐ongress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency,鈥� said Pierson, , who spoke briefly with her following her resignation. 鈥淭he media has made it clear that this is what they expected.鈥�

That鈥檚 something Pierson was right about. Lawmakers were highly critical of her following her disastrous appearance at a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. It seemed to be only a matter of time until she was replaced.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner had come within an inch of demanding Pierson be fired, saying in a statement that 鈥渢he president must make a swift determination of whether the agency is being well-served by its current leadership." Hint, hint.

Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi had called for an independent investigation of Secret Service missteps. She said she would back Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, if he thought Pierson had become a liability.

鈥淚f Mr. Cummings thinks she should go, I subscribe to his recommendation,鈥� said Representative Pelosi.

Representative Cummings, for his part, told MSNBC that he did 鈥渘ot feel comfortable with her in that position." He later told a radio host that Pierson should be dismissed. Other lawmakers were less circumspect. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) of Utah told Fox News that 鈥渋t鈥檚 time that she be fired ... or resign." 聽Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona said the recent Secret Service lapses are 鈥渁 scandal鈥� and that Pierson 鈥渘eeds to go."

In some ways this baying for Ms. Pierson鈥檚 job wasn鈥檛 fair. She was been head of the US Secret Service for a bit more than a year. That鈥檚 not much time to change the agency鈥檚 culture. She wasn鈥檛 even director at the time of some famous agency goofs, such as the 2009 admittance of two gate-crashers to a White House state dinner.

But in other ways the ruckus may have been deserved. Last week鈥檚 fence-jumper incident, in which Army veteran Omar Gonzalez made it all the way through the White House East Room before being tackled, was a grave Secret Service error. It happened on Pierson鈥檚 watch. Just as bad was a Sept. 16 incident, , in which an armed security guard who was also a convicted felon accompanied President Obama into an elevator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Plus, the Secret Service director did some things that made her own situation worse. Her appearance at a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was, by many accounts, a poor performance that may have led directly to her resignation. Pierson was wooden, unemotional about her agency鈥檚 mistakes, and did not respond to a number of questions about details, such as where Mr. Gonzalez was captured.

She did not talk about the breach of security at the CDC in Atlanta in open session. Afterward, it was apparent that lawmakers felt she was not being completely honest with them, and may have tried to actively avoid reporting some problems in an attempt to protect subordinates. That was bound to get some members of Congress pretty mad.

In the end, it鈥檚 possible that Pierson was pushed to quit. President Obama offered only lukewarm words of regret after the resignation was announced.

鈥淭he president concluded that new leadership of [the Secret Service] was required,鈥� said Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Now the administration needs to keep moving to truly reform the Secret Service, .

The first step would be to pull the Secret Service out of the Department of Homeland Security, where it currently resides, and restore its semi-autonomous status under the Department of the Treasury, according to Mr. Fournier.

The Secret Service was founded as an arm of the Treasury 鈥� it fought counterfeiters 鈥� and gained elite status among the nation鈥檚 law enforcement agencies. At DHS, it was just another cog in a large conglomerate.

鈥淎s we see at the Internal Revenue Service, the National Football League, and the many other acronymed entities, it鈥檚 easy to lose sight of your calling from inside an ossified institution,鈥� writes Fournier.