Secret Service to oust 3 more, W.H. rebukes Palin

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)The Secret Service announced on Friday that three more employees are leaving the agency in the midst of the investigation into the Colombian prostitution scandal, as the White House accused Republican critics like Sarah Palin of trying to use the controversy as a political weapon against President Barack Obama.

The announcement brings the total of those ousted to six.

The Secret Service initially put 11 of its employees on paid administrative leave in response to the incident, barring them from agency facilities and confiscating their official identification and weapons. On Friday, The Associated Press reported that a twelfth employee was put on leave. The scandal has also caught up 11 military personnel. The scandal erupted when the members of the Secret Service and the military were in Cartagena, Colombia on the sidelines of an international summit attended by Obama ? though there has yet to be any suggestion that his security was in any way compromised by agents in compromising situations.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney hit back sharply at Republican former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin after she charged that the scandal and the controversy over wanton spending at the General Services Administration (GSA) were brought on by Obama's "poor management skills."

"It is preposterous to politicize the Secret Service," Carney told reporters at his daily briefing.

Palin and Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions have in recent days charged that the scandal, coupled with the outrage over lavish GSA spending on a convention in Las Vegas,?reflects poorly on Obama. Those two controversies, as well as the tragic mass slaying of Afghan civilians, allegedly by an American soldier, have overshadowed much of the White House's agenda in recent weeks.

"What they're doing is trying to turn these incidents?one that's still under investigation?to political advantage," Carney charged when asked about critics who lump the three issues together. "On the face of it, it's a ridiculous assertion that trivializes both the very serious nature of the endeavor that our military is engaged in in Afghanistan and the very serious nature both of the work that the Secret Service does, the apolitical nature of the institution, and the seriousness of the investigation under way," the spokesman said.

Palin weighed in on the scandal on Fox News Channel late Thursday after The Washington Post reported that David Chaney, one of two agents removed as a result, reportedly posted a photograph of himself guarding the former Republican vice presidential candidate during the 2008 campaign and captioned it "I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?"

"Well, check this out, bodyguard. You're fired," Palin quipped.

"You know, the president, for one, he better be wary there of?when Secret Service is accompanying his family on vacation. They may be checking out the first lady instead of guarding her.?And I say that not just tongue-in-cheek, but I say that seriously, that the president, the CEO of this operation called our federal government has got to start cracking down on these agencies! He is the head of the administrative branch and all these different departments in the administration that now people are seeing things that are so amiss within these departments."

"The buck stops with the president. And he's really got to start cracking down and seeing some heads roll. You know, he's got to get rid of these people at the head of these agencies where so many things, obviously, are amiss," she said. "Our president has poor management skills."

Carney sidestepped questions about potential disclosure of sensitive information as well as whether the scandal was an isolated incident or a symptom of a broader problem in the culture of the Secret Service, which was investigating the incident.

"The President does not want to, and I certainly don't want to, get ahead of the conclusions of the investigation, make broader judgments while the investigation is still underway," Carney said.

[This post was updated at 6:30 p.m. ET to reflect the announcement from the Secret Service about the additional departures and to add that the AP reported a twelfth agent was put on leave.]

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