There are a couple of articles this morning on a little controversy that was created when someone leaked that House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) once applied for a job with the Secret Service and was rejected. There’s a bipartisan consensus that this was a shitty thing to do and that it should be investigated. Both Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy have personally apologized to Chairman Chaffetz. The committee’s ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), is expressing outrage.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking Democratic member of the committee, called the allegations “disturbing” and agreed with [Jeh] Johnson that they must be thoroughly investigated.
“If that’s true, I find it appalling,” Cummings said. “There is absolutely no room for this kind of activity in the Secret Service… If true, it simply continues to erode the credibility of one of our most important agencies.”
If you’re wondering why someone might have been inclined to leak this information, it’s because Chaffetz is overseeing investigations of the Secret Service and has recently issued subpoenas. Maybe someone thought that making it look like Chaffetz has an ax to grind would make him back off, or maybe they just wanted some revenge. Either way, it was inappropriate and should be punished.
Having said that, however, Chaffetz just doesn’t know how to tell the truth. The time period we’re talking about is 2002 or 2003, when Chaffetz was still barely young enough to be accepted as a Secret Service agent, but he claims he was rejected because he was too old. In reality, he received a letter saying he was rejected because there were better qualified applicants.
The application was 50 pages long, but Chaffetz claims that he can barely remember applying because he only spent ten minutes on it.
The congressman explained that he hadn’t disclosed his Secret Service application because he had spent only “10 minutes” on his application and hadn’t thought about it in years.
“I haven’t looked at that in more than a decade. It’s not something that’s entered my mind…seriously, this was like 10 minutes, 12 years ago,” he said.
In 2003, around the time Chaffetz applied, the Secret Service application form was some 50 pages long.
Around the time Chaffetz applied he began serving as chief of staff to then Utah Governor Jon Huntsman. It’s not clear if he landed that job after being rejected or applied for the job while serving Huntsman.
Maybe Chaffetz should have disclosed that he’d been rejected by the Secret Service but I don’t think it necessarily creates any conflict of interest. Theoretically, it could, but I am more concerned with Chaffetz’s reaction. It’s like he can’t handle the ego blow of rejection, which makes me wonder if he actually is nurturing some wounded pride and resentment.
