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Armed White House intruder got further inside building than admitted Armed intruder had penetrated farther into White House than admitted
(35 minutes later)
The intruder who scaled a fence outside the White House earlier this month made it much further than previously reported, reaching a part of the building often used by the president for speeches and ceremonial occasions. An armed intruder said by prosecutors to have been a threat to the president made it far further into the White House after jumping a perimeter fence than the secret service first admitted, according to damning new evidence to be heard by a congressional panel on Tuesday.
It was previously admitted that Omar Gonzalez reached the North Portico of the White House, but the the Washington Post and CBS News disclosed on Monday that he sprinted much deeper inside the executive mansion. Witnesses have told the House oversight committee that Omar Gonzalez overpowered an officer at the front door and was not stopped until he reached a separate room toward the back of the White House, according to testimony first reported by the Washington Post.
The revelations pile pressure on the beleaguered US Secret Service, charged with guarding the president, ahead of a congressional hearing on Tuesday when the director, Julia Pierson, is likely to face tough questioning about the incident. After running past a stairway leading to the first family’s living quarters, Gonzalez, a former army sniper, sprinted the 80-foot length of the East Room and was finally apprehended at the doorway to the Green Room – another formal room overlooking the South Lawn – the Post reports.
Fence-jumpers have become more common in recent years but most are apprehended on the White House lawn. Gonzalez, who was carrying a knife, was the first to have reached inside the building. The account differs starkly from a press release issued by the secret service the day after the incident which merely says he was “physically apprehended after entering the White House North Portico doors”.
The Post said he ran into the East Room, although CBS News said he was brought down by a door in an adjacent room. Both said he managed to get past the armed female guard posted at the north doors of the White House. The impression that this meant he was stopped immediately after entering the doors is something administration officials did nothing to counter in the days after the event.
Pierson has described the breach as unacceptable, and presented Barack Obama with a plan to shore up security at the White House on Friday. The ground-floor rooms of the main White House residence are normally highly guarded, as they are used for a range of public visits and guided tours, and the fact that Gonzalez was able to travel a considerable distance will compound concerns that the incident has revealed serious weaknesses in the protection given to President Obama and his family.
• A news alert sent to mobile devices for this story mis-stated the White House floor reached by Gonzalez. The East Room is on the first, not the second floor. Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House oversight subcommittee on homeland security, is expected to seize on the alleged evidence from whistleblowers to demand an explanation of why the door through which Gonzalez entered the building was not locked, as well as on suggestions that an internal alarm system was suspended because it had irritated ushers who worked at the door.
Obama and his family had left by helicopter from the South Lawn just minutes before Gonzalez, a former Iraq veteran allegedly carrying a pocket knife, scaled a fence outside the North Lawn and made it across the stretch of grass in front of the White House without being challenged by the snipers and dog patrols intended to guard against intruders.
Neither the secret service nor congressman Chaffetz’s office immediately responded to requests for comment, but the White House earlier downplayed a separate Washington Post report into a shooting incident in 2011, which the Post says the secret service failed to properly investigate.
“As you would expect, the president and first lady, like all parents, are concerned about the safety of their children,” said spokesman Josh Earnest when asked about the Post’s reporting that Michelle Obama was furious about the attack, which saw seven bullets strike the upstairs residence.
“But the president and first lady also have confidence in the men and women of the secret service to do a very important job, which is to protect the first family, to protect the White House, but also protect the ability of tourists and members of the public to conduct their business or even tour the White House.”
Gonzalez, who was allegedly found to have 800 round of ammunition and a machete in his nearby car, was described as “a danger to the president” by assistant US attorney David Mudd during a court hearing regarding the fence-jumping incident.