“I Want My Money, Baby”

One day they are the men that emulate security guards, escorts and even doormen at nightclubs, with their tough-guy eyes, wearing sunglasses and those camouflaged hearing devices. The next day, the professionalism of the White House Secret Service agents is in doubt over a scandal that came to light after a prostitute demanded payment for her services, which were haggled over. So far, six agents have resigned and one has been fired. The latter threatens to sue the security agency. The case involves more than 10 men from the Secret Service and the same number of military personnel from the Army, Navy, Special Forces and Marines.

Maybe due to the fact that prostitution is legal in Colombia, what occurred last week, before Obama’s arrival at Cartagena to participate in the Summit of the Americas, is public knowledge and provoked investigations by Congress, the Secret Service and the Pentagon about the behavior of a group of men who work for the president’s security. Perhaps this scandal did nothing but bring to the surface the motto that the Secret Service is supposed to defend every time it is on mission abroad: “Wheels up, rings off.”

As the days go by, the scandal grows, for it goes further than the reprehensible behavior of the men who swear to protect the president’s life with their own. It calls into question whether the security of the President is guaranteed. “If the women were working for a terrorist organization or other anti-American group, they could have had access to information about the president’s whereabouts or security protocols while in the agents’ rooms. This could have been disastrous.” said Peter King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, on Capitol Hill this week.

An account given to The New York Times, by one of the women who allegedly spent the night with one of the agents, clears up any doubt about terrorism. “I told him, ‘I want my money, baby’,” said the 24-year-old single mother who, according to her account, agreed to have sex with a member of the Secret Service in exchange for $800. According to this woman — who has chosen not to give her name to the newspaper due to fear of retaliation — her companion and at least one other man, although the group was larger, were immoderately drinking hundred-dollar-a-bottle vodka at a club called Tu Candela. Then they decided to go to the Hotel El Caribe, where the team working for the president — which in this case consisted of about 200 people — was staying. On the way to the hotel, the couple — with the woman communicating poorly due to the language barrier — asked the taxi driver to stop to buy condoms. It was then that she told the agent that she wanted a gift in exchange for what was about to happen, and she priced it at $800.

When, at 6:30 a.m., the receptionist phoned the room to comply with the rule that all prostitutes must leave the rooms by that time, the customer refused to pay and tried to quell her protests by paying her 50,000 pesos in local currency, about $30. The woman complained, but she’d been insulted, and she left the room. The altercation grew, and due to the legality of prostitution in that country, she sought protection from the local police. It’s just been brought to light that the case has triggered a security crisis in the U.S., which has led to political investigations and two teams of investigators going to Colombia this week, headed by a colonel sent by the Pentagon.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin E. Dempsey, agreed, “We let the boss down.” Meanwhile, the boss has already announced that he will be “angry” if everything turns out to be true. The president’s Praetorian Guard is much more than just an escort service. Agents who are Obama’s shadow — in general, men — make up a privileged elite force that has access to the most intimate details of the White House, from what time Obama will be brushing his teeth to what the position of snipers might be. All of this could easily have been accessed, thanks to agents drunk on vodka during early morning hours of salsa at Tu Candela.