How hard is it to get close to the President? Not very, apparently.
Just a week after a man made headlines for making it past security on the lawn and breaking into the White House, and just after a second man was arrested at the White House gates for deliberately blocking the driveway with his car, the Secret Service is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons again.
This time, an unidentified man said he was Congressman Donald Payne, Jr., Democrat of New Jersey.
Congressman Payne. Note that this is actually the Congressman, and not an impersonator. We think.
The only problem was that the man was not Congressman Donald Payne, Jr., Democrat of New Jersey. A savvy Obama aide noticed the difference after the impersonator had made it through security, and asked him to leave.
We don’t know who he was, because the Secret Service never asked for his actual identification. And they never asked for his actual identification because he was never detained after being found out.
He simply vanished, like a fart in the wind.
The Secret Service’s defense? Well, “this guy went through security, fully screened.”
It’s probably worth pointing out that this whole incident took place shortly before Julia Pierson, former head of the Secret Service, resigned following the very public blunders on her and her agency’s part.
