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Secret Service Has 'Explaining to Do' on WH Breach

CBN

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The armed man who recently jumped a White House fence posed a greater threat to presidential security than originally thought.

Security video of the incident shows Omar Gonzalez, a 42-year-old Iraq war veteran with PTSD, jumping the White House fence and racing across the lawn to the front door. Strangely, the door was unlocked.

Although members of the media were told he was quickly apprehended just inside, the Secret Service has now revealed that Gonzalez actually overpowered a guard and made it past the stairway leading to the first family's living quarters.

He then headed to the East Room, where he was finally tackled by an agent - a total of 168 feet inside the White House.

"He got deep enough that had the president or vice president been walking through some of the hallway, they could have been attacked by Mr. Gonzalez," Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, said.

Fortunately, the president and his family were not in the White House at the time.

Initially, the Secret Service said Gonzalez was unarmed. The next day, however, they revealed he had carried a three and half inch knife. Later, 800 rounds of ammunition, a machete, and two hatchets were found in his car.

The Sept. 19 incident apparently wasn't the first time in the Obama presidency where the Secret Service demonstrated lax security.

The Washington Post reports agents did not respond immediately when shots were fired at the White House in 2011. One of those bullets actually broke a glass window on the third floor of the Executive Mansion.

Rep. Issa suggests Secret Service Director Julia Pierson will have a lot of explaining to do when she testifies before Congress.

"The basics of the White House, locking the doors, having compartmental security, appears to have failed and it failed because of the human element headed by the Secret Service," he charged.

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