FOXNews.com: Pentagon may expand internal probe amid Secret Service prostitution scandal

FOXNews.com FOX News Channel - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Pentagon may expand internal probe amid Secret Service prostitution scandal Apr 16th 2012, 18:22 The Pentagon may be broadening its investigation into U.S. military members assigned to Colombia -- after the Secret Service agents they were supporting were accused of misconduct amid a prostitution scandal.  Military officials initially said Saturday that five U.S. service members may have been involved in "inappropriate conduct." Pentagon spokesman George Little now says there "may be more than five" involved in the incident.  The Pentagon so far has not provided many specifics on what wrongdoing military personnel are accused of committing, other than violating curfew.  Little offered few details Monday, saying he could not "tie particular individuals at this point to alleged prostitution."  But the military members under scrutiny were connected to the Secret Service team in Colombia dispatched for President Obama's visit. And they were staying in the same hotel where a dispute with prostitutes is alleged to have occurred.  Little said the U.S. Southern Command may be looking at more than one military service as potentially being involved.  So far, 11 Secret Service agents have been placed on administrative leave over the incident.  President Obama addressed the incident for the first time on Sunday, saying he will be "angry" if the reported allegations against the agents turn out to be true.  He said Secret Service personnel, like the rest of any U.S. delegation abroad, must "observe the highest standards."  "We're here on behalf of our people and that means that we conduct ourselves with the utmost dignity and probity. And obviously what's been reported doesn't match up with those standards," Obama said, on the closing day of his visit to Colombia.  The president, though, said he would wait until the internal investigation is complete before rendering a judgment. He said he expects the probe to be "thorough" and "rigorous" -- and that if the allegations turn out to be true, "then of course I'll be angry."  The president addressed the controversy during a joint press conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Allegations that a Secret Service unit interacted with prostitutes in Colombia ahead of Obama's visit overshadowed a trip that was supposed to focus on trade and other pressing issues between the U.S. and its Latin American ally.  Obama cast the incident as isolated, and praised the Secret Service as a whole.  "These men and women perform extraordinary service on a day-to-day basis protecting me, my family, U.S. officials," he said. "They do very hard work under very stressful circumstances and almost invariably do an outstanding job."  Details are still emerging, but at least one Secret Service agent in Colombia is said to have had a dispute with a prostitute at the hotel where agents were staying. Nearly a dozen agents were subsequently recalled and replaced with a new crew before Obama's arrival.  Fox News' Justin Fishel contributed to this report.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions