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Secret Service prostitution scandal: Obama calls for investigation; director should be fired, WaPo writer says

Ron Kessler, the author who broke the Secret Service prostitution story in the Washington Post over the weekend, has been making the morning talk-show rounds, saying the director of the agency should be fired after agents were alleged to have solicited local prostitutes ahead of President Obama's trip to Colombia.

"This is the worst scandal in the history of the Secret Service," Kessler said on NBC's "Today" show on Monday. "The Secret Service, under Mark Sullivan, has gone from one debacle to another."

The only scandal that comes close to this one, Kessler said on CNN, was in 2009, when Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed the state dinner at the White House.

"It goes back to a culture of laxness in the Secret Service," Kessler said. "Corner cutting. Just a lax attitude which contributes to this kind of thing."

On Sunday, Obama called for an investigation of the alleged incident.

"What happened here in Colombia is being investigated by the director of the Secret Service," Obama said. "I expect that investigation to be thorough and I expect it to be rigorous," the president told reporters in his first public reaction to the controversy. "If it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course I'll be angry."

But Kessler said there's no need for an investigation.

"There's nothing to wait for," he said. "The action that's needed is replacement of the Secret Service director because it's really President Obama's life that is at stake."

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