Chaffetz, now chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was turned down for the role, but the agency maintained his application on file – and much of what it contained was sensitive in nature.
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Forty-one secret service employees are being disciplined after retrieving data and violating privacy laws a year ago. Secret Service employees a year ago accessed confidential files as Chaffetz was holding hearings on the problems that contained an old application he made to be hired as an agent that was rejected.
On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that 41 Secret Service employees have been disciplined in connection with a leak meant to embarrass the Republican congressman tasked with overseeing the agency.
A March 31, 2015 email from Secret Service Assistant Director Edward Lowery read that there was “some information that [Chaffetz] might find embarrassing needs to get out”.
This is the latest public embarrassment for the Secret Service, which has undergone a leadership crisis in recent years and is attempting to mend a culture of lax discipline, poor performance and covering up mistakes.
He said there was no evidence that the director or deputy director of the service deserved to be reprimanded.
Later on the same day, another publication in The Washington Post said that the House Oversight Committee asked DHS to investigate allegations that its employees had “circulated potentially unflattering information” about Chaffetz, the committee’s chairman.
Chaffetz unsuccessfully applied to join the Secret Service in 2003.
That employee resigned, Johnson said Thursday, who said the report made it clear that “the majority of these instances were in violation of the Privacy Act, Secret Service policy, and DHS policy”.
Chaffetz said in a statement that “this should have never happened and should not happen again”.
Johnson said he was “appalled by the episode”, which he said “brought real discredit to the Secret Service”.
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A report by U.S. Homeland Security said the data was accessed after Chaffetz organized an investigation into security issues – like agents drinking at work, the service’s prostitution scandal in Colombia and not properly defending against trespassers.
