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Obama sticks to appointing "insider" to lead Secret Service

Xinhua, February 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

The White House said Wednesday that U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to appoint Joseph Clancy, who has led the Secret Service on an interim basis for the last four months, to lead the agency permanently despite calls from critics to choose an outsider for the post.

Clancy, former head of the Secret Service's presidential protective division, had served as interim director of the agency since last October after the agency's former head Julia Pierson was forced out in the wake of a series of security lapses and scandals in the agency, including a breach of the White House by a knife-wielding man.

Obama's pick for the head of the agency, which is responsible for safety of the first family, did not follow the advice by members of a special Department of Homeland Security panel who said that the agency should be run by an outsider.

"The need to change, reinvigorate, and question long-held assumptions -- from within the agency itself -- is too critical right now for the next director to be an insider," said a report released by the panel last December. Endite