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More US agents quit in prostitution scandal

Xinhua, April 25, 2012

• The U.S. Secret Service on Tuesday announced the fate of five remaining agents implicated in a scandal involving agency personnel and prostitutes during a presidential visit to Colombia.

  According to a statement from the agency's assistant director Paul Morrissey, two of the agents have chosen to resign, while two others have been cleared of misconduct and will face appropriate administrative action.

  Morrissey said one other had his security clearance stripped, and can now appeal that decision. If the appeal is unsuccessful, he will lose his job because all agency personnel must have a security clearance.

  Eleven agents were alleged to have engaged in misconduct in Cartagena, where President Barack Obama attended a weekend summit. According to U.S. media reports, the allegations related to activity involving the agents before Obama's arrival on April 13, and the allegations involved prostitutes.

  Six of the implicated agents were forced to leave last week in the wake of an internal investigation into the scandal.

  In addition to Secret Service agents, a dozen military personnel were also implicated in the scandal and are being investigated. Leon Panetta, the U.S. defense secretary currently visiting Brazil, told reporters that in an unrelated incident, three Marines on a U.S. embassy security team and one embassy staff member were punished for allegedly pushing a prostitute out of a car in Brasilia late last year after a dispute over payment.

  Obama on Tuesday called the Secret Service agents caught in the prostitution scandal "a couple of knuckleheads" who did not reflect the overall professionalism of the agency, during the taping of an appearance for Jimmy Fallon's late night show on NBC, according to the White House.

  "The Secret Service," Obama told Fallon on the campus of the University of North Carolina before heading for Colorado. "They protect me, they protect our girls. A couple of knuckleheads shouldn't detract from what they do. What they were thinking, I don't know. That's why they're not there anymore."

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