3 more in Secret Service forced out amid scandal

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON The repercussions from the burgeoning Colombia prostitution scandal continued to mount Friday as the U.S. Secret Service forced out three more employees, while agency director Mark Sullivan gave his first briefing to President Barack Obama on the alleged misconduct of those in charge of protecting him.

Developments in Washington

President Barack Obama's re-election effort enjoyed a huge financial edge over Republican rival Mitt Romney last month, out-raising the former Massachusetts governor by millions as Obama stuffed more than $104 million into his campaign war chest. A nasty primary battle between Romney and his GOP rivals took a financial toll on his presidential campaign, which raised $12.6 million in March and left Romney with about $10 million in the bank by month's end. All told, Obama and the Democratic Party raised a combined $53 million in donations during that period.

Officials say birds struck Vice President Joe Biden's plane as it was landing Thursday night at Santa Barbara Airport in California. Nobody was injured. Biden, who was in Santa Barbara for a fundraiser, left as scheduled Friday morning on another plane.

A former aide to onetime congressional power broker Tom DeLay was sentenced Friday to five months in a halfway house in the final act of the probe of the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal. Tony Rudy, an ex-deputy chief of staff to DeLay, pleaded guilty six years ago to conspiring with Abramoff, a Republican super-lobbyist, and others to accept a stream of gifts when Rudy was a congressional staffer.

-- Associated Press

Sullivan met with Obama in the Oval Office, a week after revelations surfaced of heavy drinking, strip clubs and payments to prostitutes on April 11 by members of the president's advance security team, who were preparing for his trip to an international summit.

In his daily briefing at the White House, which occurred before Obama met with Sullivan, press secretary Jay Carney said the president is confident his security was "never compromised," even though the Secret Service replaced at least 11 agents and officers just hours before Obama arrived in the city of Cartagena on April 13.

Obama has "faith in the Secret Service, and high regard for the agency and the job that they do protecting him, his family, protecting his predecessors," Carney said.

The three Secret Service personnel forced out Friday have chosen to resign, the agency said in a statement, bringing to six the total number who have lost their jobs in the wake of the incident.

That total includes two supervisors, David Randall Chaney and Greg Stokes, who were pushed out Wednesday after careers that spanned nearly two decades each. Chaney has elected to retire, while Stokes has been recommended for termination for cause and will be given a chance to contest the charges.

On Chaney's Facebook account, which was made inaccessible on Friday, Chaney joked about his work with former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin while he was protecting her in 2008. The AP published a photograph it took of Chaney working in Palin's protective detail in October 2008 during a campaign rally in Carson, Calif.

"I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?" Chaney wrote after a friend commented on the picture posted in January 2009 on Chaney's Facebook account.

Speaking on Fox News late Thursday, Palin said the joke was on Chaney.

"Well, check this out, buddy -- you're fired!" Palin said.

In all, 22 men from the Secret Service and military are now suspected of having participated in the carousing. The military said Friday that 11 of its members have been implicated, one more than previously reported.

Six are from the Army, two from the Marine Corps, two from the Navy and one from the Air Force, according to Col. Scott Malcom, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command.

The Army personnel are from the 7th Special Forces Group; the Marines and sailors work in San Diego; and the airman is based in Charleston, S.C., Malcom said in a statement. The service members have returned to their home bases pending a separate investigation by the Defense Department.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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