Secret Service probe expands to past trip

WASHINGTON -- Expanding the prostitution investigation, the Secret Service acknowledged yesterday it is checking whether its employees hired strippers and prostitutes in advance of the president's visit last year to El Salvador.

The disclosure came not long after the Homeland Security secretary assured skeptical senators that the recent prostitution scandal in Colombia appeared to be an isolated incident.

A spokesman for the Secret Service, Edwin Donovan, said the agency was investigating allegations raised in news reports about unprofessional behavior that have emerged in the aftermath of the Colombia incident.

The latest, by Seattle television station KIRO-TV, quoted anonymous sources as saying Secret Service employees received sexual favors from strippers at a club in San Salvador and took prostitutes to their hotel rooms ahead of Barack Obama's visit to the city in March 2011.

Prostitution is legal in both Colombia and El Salvador.

Separately, The Washington Post this week cited unnamed "confidants" of the Secret Service officers implicated in Colombia saying senior managers had tolerated similar behavior during previous official trips. The Post described a visit to Buenos Aires in 2009 by former President Bill Clinton, whose protective detail it said included agents and uniformed officers. During that trip, the Post said, members of the detail went out for a late night of partying at strip clubs.

In a confidential message to senators, also yesterday, the Secret Service said its Office of Professional Responsibility had not received complaints about officer behavior in El Salvador but would investigate.

In the message, the agency sought to cast doubt on the KIRO report, noting that it does not routinely send K-9 or explosive-detection units as part of its advance teams; KIRO said the advance team included those elements.