Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, who has been skewered by critics over the Sept. 19 White House security breach, has resigned, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“Today Julia Pierson, the director of the United States Secret Service, offered her resignation, and I accepted it,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement. “I salute her 30 years of distinguished service to the Secret Service and the Nation.”
Johnson has appointed Joseph Clancy, formerly special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service, as the interim acting director. “Mr. Clancy retired from the Secret Service in 2011,” he added. “I appreciate his willingness to leave his position in the private sector on very short notice and return to public service for a period.”
Pierson’s resignation comes in the wake of an incident in which Omar Gonzalez, a knife-wielding Iraq War vet, allegedly managed to slip over the fence, past several layers of security, and into the White House’s East Room, where he was subdued by an off-duty agent.
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