Andrea Mitchell: Someone Should ‘Save’ Secret Service Director from ‘Further Embarrassment’

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson received an indisputably brutal verbal beating during a Tuesday congressional hearing regarding a series of security breaches at the White House. So much so that it earned Pierson the sympathy of NBC’s Andrea Mitchell.

“Someone needs to save Julia Pierson from further embarrassment,” Mitchell tweeted, “this hearing is unbelievable bipartisan shock at mishaps.”

During the hearing, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) pressed Pierson during the hearing on why a knife-carrying man who broke into the White House nearly two weeks ago wasn’t gunned down by an agent. To Chaffetz’s frustration, Pierson maintained that lethal use of force was up to the discretion of individual agents.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wasn’t any more forgiving. “You head an agency whose morale has gone down,” he said to Pierson. “It’s lower than other comparable federal agencies. It’s had a series of embarrassments.”

“Something is awfully wrong with this picture,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said of the security breaches.

Tweet below:

Someone needs to save Julia Pierson from further embarrassment this hearing is unbelievable bipartisan shock at mishaps #SecretServoce

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) September 30, 2014

[Photo via NBC/screen grab]

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