At least 20 foreign women were involved in the ever-expanding US Secret Service scandal that has gripped Washington, a senator said
Barak Obama jogs from Air Force One surrounded by US Secret Service Agents. There is no suggestion that the agents pictured were involved in the scandal.
In briefings throughout the day, Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told lawmakers that 11 members of his agency met with 11 women at a hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, and that more foreign females were involved with American military personnel.
President Barack Obama and key congressional Republicans said meanwhile that they continued to support Mr Sullivan.
"The president has confidence in the director of the Secret Service. Director Sullivan acted quickly in response of this incident and is overseeing an investigation as we speak in to the matter," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
"It sounds like he's taking the situation very seriously," said Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who said Mr Sullivan briefed him Tuesday. "It was welcome news that he has called on the inspector general for an independent review."
Mr Sullivan shuttled between meetings with lawmakers Tuesday, outlining what his investigators in Washington and in Colombia have found about the incident.
"Twenty or 21 women foreign nationals were brought to the hotel," Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, said Mr Sullivan told her. Eleven of the Americans involved were Secret Service.
Additionally, a US official said Tuesday that 10 military members are being investigated in the matter. While the facts have yet to be fully sorted out, those 10 are from more than one service and none are officers, the official said.
Meanwhile, Mr Sullivan told the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee that the 11 Secret Service agents and officers were telling different stories to investigators about who the women were. Mr Sullivan has dispatched more investigators to Columbia to interview the women, said Representative Peter King.
"Some are admitting (the women) were prostitutes, others are saying they're not, they're just women they met at the hotel bar," Mr King said in a telephone interview. Mr Sullivan said none of the women, who had to surrender their IDs at the hotel, were minors. "But prostitutes or not, to be bringing a foreign national back into a secure zone is a problem," Mr King added.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The scandal overshadowed Mr Obama's visit to a Latin America summit over the weekend and embarrassed the US's top military brass. Pentagon press secretary George Little said that military members who are being investigated were assigned to support the Secret Service in preparation for Mr Obama's official visit to Cartagena. He said they were not directly involved in presidential security.
The Secret Service sent 11 of its members, a group including agents and uniformed officers, home from Colombia amid allegations that they had hired prostitutes at a Cartagena hotel. The military members being investigated were staying at the same hotel.
The Secret Service personnel were placed on administrative leave, and on Monday the agency announced that it also had revoked their security clearances.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate are looking into the allegations, with Mr King's committee devoting four investigators.
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