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Report Sees Alcohol Involved in Secret Service Car Episode

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security inspector general has found that two senior Secret Service agents were most likely under the influence of alcohol in March when they drove into an area near the White House where the authorities were examining a suspicious package.

The agents — Marc Connolly, the deputy special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division, and George Ogilvie, the assistant to the special agent in charge of the Washington field office — had been at a retirement party for an agency official at a bar in Georgetown before the episode, the report said.

Mr. Connolly has decided to retire, according to a Secret Service official. The service’s Office of Integrity will determine any punishments for the agents.

Joseph P. Clancy, the service’s director, said in a statement: “I am disappointed and disturbed at the apparent lack of judgment described in this report. Behavior of the type described in the report is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

Both of the agents told investigators that they were not drunk when they drove to the White House to retrieve Mr. Connolly’s vehicle. But the inspector general, John Roth, concluded that “it was more likely than not that both Connolly’s and Ogilvie’s judgment was impaired by alcohol” when they drove near the suspicious package, according to a report about the episode.

The agents spent five hours at the bar, the report said, adding that Mr. Ogilvie “ran up a significant bar tab, at least some of which he was unable to account for.” An officer at the White House said that the men acted as if they had been drinking, the report said.

The report also said that it was troubling that “two highly experienced Secret Service supervisors drove into a crime scene inches from what the rest of the Secret Service was treating as a potential explosive device.” The agents could have endangered their lives and those of others, the report added.

The episode received widespread attention after initial reports that the agents had crashed their car at the White House. According to the inspector general’s report, the men just hit a barrel that moved about five feet.

The passenger, Mr. Connolly, said the car had only bumped the barrel in backing up to get through, but the report said that “this was no mere ‘bump,’ but rather extended contact to shove the barrel out of the way.”

“Additionally, apparently unknown to Ogilvie, his car passed within inches of the suspicious package during this process,” the report said.

There was no yellow tape around the package, and the two agents said they did not know there was a suspicious package in the area, the report said.

The episode was the latest embarrassment for the agency. Last September, a man who jumped over the fence at the White House got through its front door before being tackled. After that episode, the agency was widely criticized, and its director resigned.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Report Sees Alcohol Involved in Secret Service Car Episode. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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