Report: Records Implicate White House in Secret Service Hooker Scandal
According to the Washington Post, Secret Service agents weren't the only ones hiring hookers in Cartagena—a fact the White House reportedly tried to keep quiet.
Twelve Secret Service agents were sent home from the president's 2012 Colombia trip when they were implicated in the Colombian hookers-and-blow scandal.
But it turns out they weren't alone. According to the Post, a presidential advance-team member, Jonathan Dach—at the time, a 25-year-old Yale University law student—also brought a prostitute back to the hotel, a fact that the White House apparently resisted acknowledging.
Dach this year started working full time in the Obama administration on a federal contract as a policy adviser in the Office on Global Women's Issues at the State Department.
Dach's father, Leslie Dach, is a prominent Democratic donor who gave $23,900 to the party in 2008 to help elect Obama. In his previous job, as a top lobbyist for Wal-Mart, he partnered on high-profile projects with the White House, including Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign.
He, too, joined the Obama administration this year. In July, he was named a senior counselor with the Department of Health and Human Services, where part of his responsibilities include handling the next phase of the Affordable Care Act.
But according to the Post, both the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security determined that Dach definitely, no question-about-it brought a prostitute back to the hotel.
Many hotels in Colombia, for security reasons, maintain detailed records of additional overnight visitors. At the Hilton, prostitutes are required to show identification to ensure they are not underage. That identification is photocopied by the hotel and stored with the records of the guest staying in the room.
The Post reviewed copies of the hotel logs for Dach's stay, which showed that a woman was registered to Dach's room at 12:02 a.m. April 4 and included an attached photocopy of a woman's ID card. Through his attorney, Dach declined to discuss these details as well.
Although twelve Secret Service agents were sent home for the same offense, the Post reports inspector general's investigators were put on administrative leave when they raised questions about White House involvement.
Former and current Secret Service agents said they are angry at the White House's public insistence that none of its team members were involved and its private decision to not fully investigate one of its own — while their colleagues had their careers ruined or hampered.
[image via AP]