Authorities have no leads on who fired a gun several times outside Vice-President Joe Biden’s Delaware home on Saturday night because surveillance cameras weren’t aimed at the main road outside the house. The Bidens spend many weekends at the home, but no one was there when neighbors and agents heard four to six shots and a car speeding away. Government officials tell the Washington Post that there have been problems with the security system in the past, and at one point last year it was so unreliable that the Secret Service turned off the cameras and alarms for several months. (It was repaired in November.)
Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan wouldn’t provide specific details about the vice-president’s security, but said, “On the night of the incident in Delaware, the appropriate security measures were in place and fully functioning.”
Congressman Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, has asked Acting Secret Service Director Joseph P. Clancy to see the footage, saying he’s worried this could be like the time the agency failed to notice someone shot the White House for several days. “It still seems as though the most basic things are not being done,” Chaffetz told the Post. “Having a functional security system at the vice president’s home seems like an obvious thing to do.”
Then again, the agency is still working on installing a taller fence around the White House.
