Julia Pierson, the head of USA's Secret Service resigned on Wednesday, 1st of October 2014. Julia has been at the helm of the Secret Service since March 2013, and she has more than 30 years' experience with the secret service, having served with the Presidential security details of Presidents George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton as well as George W. Bush between the years 1989 and 2000.
Pierson resigned after reports of several breaches of the security of President Barack Obama and his family. Julia was the first female director of the Secret Service in its almost 150 years of existence.
The breaches that have led to her resignation include a white house break in on the 19thof September, 2014 where Omar Gonzalez, a disturbed ex-service man who had served in Iraq made it to the East room of the White House while armed with a knife. The man had allegedly scaled the wall to get in. Fortunately, the first family was not home when this happened. Another incident was where a guard with an assault conviction, who was not authorised to get close to President Obama with a gun, shared an elevator with the President. This second incident took place in Atlanta.
Julia was on Tuesday grilled by Congress on the breaches. It was later reported that due to the poor reception of her testimony to Congress, she was advised to resign which she later did. She submitted her resignation to the Secretary of Homeland Security. It was announced that the Secret service's retired head of the Presidential Protective Division would hold Pierson's job in the meantime. Homeland Security's secretary also announced that an independent inquiry of the working of the Secret service would be carried out. Julia's resignation has been lauded, most audibly by Utah's Representative, Jason Chaffetz, who said she did the right thing.
