On the recordJuly 27, 2015
I certainly appreciate my good friend from Georgia for yielding to me to speak on this Secret Service reform bill and on the work of the chairman of the committee, Mr. Goodlatte from Virginia, on this bill. Our Oversight and Government Reform Committee held several hearings on Secret Service reform, and much of the content, I am pleased to say, is reflected in H.R. 1656. There, of course, have been an increasing number of fence jumpers in recent years, but it took a stunning penetration to the very interior of the White House by Omar Gonzalez last year to make it clear that the reform of the Secret Service was urgent. At hearings, we learned that there had never been--not once--a top- to-bottom review of the Secret Service in its more than 100 years of existence. This was, clearly, urgently needed; so Secretary Jeh Johnson appointed the first independent review panel. What it found was, across the board, weakness and flaws in the United States Secret Service. Although its mission has expanded greatly over the years, today, the Secret Service simply does not reflect the post-9/11 experience, much less that of today's ISIL and domestic terrorism. The fence jumpers had already shown that the Secret Service could not be expected to meet its zero failure mission. Today's bill shows that Congress takes the reform of the Secret Service very seriously.…
