our white house correspondent kristen welker is in cartegena tonight with details. kristen, good evening. >> reporter: good evening to you, lester. the secret service has launched an internal investigation interviewing all 11 personnel involved, and placing them on administrative leave. it appears the fallout from this is just beginning. president obama for the first time addressing the secret service scandal that has embarrassed the agency and his administration. >> if it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course i'll be angry. >> reporter: it happened on wednesday night here at the hotel caribe, a few minutes from where the president is staying. 11 special agents and uniformed officers, including two supervisors, allegedly brought prostitutes back to the hotel, where guests have to leave their i.d.s at the front desk. thursday morning, hotel managers realized one woman hadn't picked up her i.d. by checkout time. and found her in a room with an agent, fighting, after he failed to pay her. the hotel called

it's hard to believe a bunch of guys just hit the ground running in cartegena.on on other trips. >> absolutely. i will tell you, anderson, when i was in the government and i was a protective, i saw no sign of anything of the sort. they were incredibly professional. you're not there for the advanced team and what happened there. i do think, though, that it's 1 # 1 people, two supervisors, and this happens, as you say, so close to the time of their arrival, explains why the director of the secret service, mark sullivan, has said that he is going to appoint an external panel to investigate this. >> fran, appreciate you being on and talking to your sources. >>> as we mentioned one of the prostitutes allegedly hired by the u.s. secret service agents and brought back to the hotel room has gone public with her story. she's 24 years old. she said she didn't realize the man she met last week was a secret service agent. william neuman interviewed her and i spoke with him shortly before air time. william, you spoke to the woman at the heart of this, who was involved in the

thank you to the people of cartegena. and the people of colombia for this outstanding summit.ality. the warmth that you extended us and the other leaders who gathered here. it makes me very confident about colombia's future. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> there are some questions. rcn, juan carlos, you have a question. >> presidents, good afternoon, president obama. today at the closing of the summit of the americas, there was great expectation, because we never -- you never came up with a document that would reflect a decision, and many people would say that cuba and the marina issue was not taken up as it should have. does this have to do in any way with the electoral environment, the electoral situation in the united states, and president santos, today that the state department announced a new security plan for the region. what benefits do you see coming from this pran? thank you very much. >> first of all, what it reflects is a lack of consensus among those who participated in the summit. the issue of cuba i've discussed before. since i came into office, we have

. >> i've been in cartegena, it's amazing place, and some people will identify you as a tourist. are paid by these clubs to encourage people to go and that's also a possibility, i suppose. >> absolutely. we know certain details of the investigation so far have leaked. there weren't women who were under the age of 20. all the women seem to be of age, if you will. one source said to me, there is no indication, they have interviewed maids, they have interviewed others and there's no evidence of drugs being involved. there was a lot of drinking going on. if there hadn't been a dispute over the payment of this one prostitute, none of this would have come to light. >> and the story he's going to tell us in just a moment is really stunning, about the details of this that it went on so listening. hearinging the details, and we don't know everything yet, it's hard to believe this is an isolated incident. it's hard to believe that a bunch of guys hit the ground running in cartegena and it makes you wonder what's been going on on other trips. >> when i was traveling internationally, i saw n

that's the office that's now doing the investigation into the cartegena scandal. and that is resented. the agents i speak to have sort of said to me this is sort of like sending the baby-sitter with us. you train us, you should trust us and hold us accountable. >> it sounds like the rules are common sense rules. you shouldn't be drinking heavily ten hours before duty when you're with the president. not allowing foreign nationals into the hotel room when you could have the president's schedule in your hotel room. >> yeah, i think it caused so many of the agents who were on the cartegena trip, violated the common sense rules. they felt the need to write them down so there's no ambiguity. it's clear they intend to hold people accountable. >> well, fran townsend, thank you very much. reporting on the rules changes. and drew griffin reports on the man at the center of this entire situation. >>> well, still outfront, a chinese murder mystery is up and we have more to report. >>> and president obama is being called the most corrupt president ever. >>> and debt collectors

drew griffin, cnn, cartegena, colombia. >>> well, we're following another story tonight.s back with the bulletin. >> police officers today testified about arriving at the crime scene in the trial of the man accused of killing jennifer hudson's mother, brother and nephew. hudson's sister testified yesterday that her estranged m husband threatened to kill her family. >>> and dick clark died last wednesday at a hospital and he was 82 and check out this video from northwest china. a teenage girl walking and talking on the phone fell low pavement into a sink hole about 20 feet deep. a cab driver pulled over and jumped the in to help her. firefighters came to the scene and they both climbed up a ladder to safety. >>> thanks very much. >>> coming up, three drunk guys take an unauthorized trip to sea world and steal a penguin. the ridiculist is next. an accident doesn't have to slow you down. with better car replacement available only with liberty mutual auto insurance, if your car's totaled, we give you the money for a car one model year newer. to learn more, visit us today. res

>> well, erin, we both identified one additional service -- secret service member from the cartegena trip who's been implicated and one has been cleared. one has been cleared of misconduct and he's going to face administrative process. you know, it's interesting, i think what you take from that, they're being very aggressive. the sort of things you'd want to know, you'd want to be confident about. and today that director sullivan was received in the oval office and briefed the president of the united states on the conduct of the investigation. that meeting is important for two reasons. one, it signals that he has confidence in sullivan and two it's important for morale. erin, there are lots of men and women who serve in the secret service honorably and well with courage and they need to know that they're still respected by the president and the receiving of director sullivan is just the kind of signal they were looking for. >> are you surprised, fran, i mean, as far as we know at cnn this is the first meeting between director sullivan and the president. are you surprised it took this

drew griffin, cnn, cartegena, colombia. >>> well, we're following another story tonight.ack with the bulletin. >> police officers today testified about arriving at the crime scene in the trial of the man accused of killing jennifer hudson's mother, brother and nephew. hudson's sister testified yesterday that her estranged husband threatened to kill her family when she told him shy didn't want to be with him anymore. >> dick clash's death certificate showed he died of a heart attack at day after surgery. he was 82. and check out this video from northwest china. a teenage girl walking and talking on the phone fell low pavement into a sink hole about 20 feet deep. a cab driver pulled over and jumped in to help her. firefighters came to the scene and they both climbed up a ladder to safety. anderson? >>> thanks very much. >>> coming up, three drunk guys take an unauthorized trip to sea world and steal a penguin. as a souvenir. the ridiculist is next. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] not everything powerful has to guzzle fuel. the 2012 e-class bluetec from mercedes-benz. see your author

president during the trip who may have also been involved have been confined to their quarters in cartegena. prostitution is legal in parts of colombia, but it is a violation of the secret service rules of conduct. in a statement the agency said, the secret service demands more from its employees and these expectations are met and exceeded every day by the vast majority of our work force. members of congress say they will launch their own investigation. >> my committee, we're going to look into all the details of what happened here, to see whether there should be changes in procedures, to see whether or not something should have been noticed before. >> this is really the biggest scandal in the history of the secret service. >> reporter: ron wrote "in the president's secret service" echoed the calls for change in the agency. >> there's a culture in the secret service that's fostered by the management of just nodding, winking, favoritism, corner cutting. >> reporter: now, the secret service has launched an internal investigation and placed all 11 personnel on administrative leave. lester? >>

have lost their jobs because of allegations they brought prostitutes back to their hotel rooms in cartegena, colombia, while on official business with the president of the united states. we are learning that the number of military members under investigation has grown from ten to 11. it's all branches here. six from the army. two from the marine corps. two from the navy and one from the air force. just a short time ago, we learned that the embattled director of the secret service mark sullivan actually briefed the president today in person on his investigation. which overall is expanding to include interviews with every secret service member on the trip, hotel staff, and the alleged prostitutes. we'll include a look at what happened in the hilton hotel where agents stayed during the trip in addition to the el caribe which is where the secret service agents allegedly lee yased with the prostitutes. new details about the two secret service supervisors who have been identified in the case. both left the agency earlier this week. we want to tell you what we know. david chaney bragged on his fac

so at least as far as the army members go, they had been in cartegena, they had trained there before. they're familiar with the surroundings. one wonders if because -- remember what we know of the facts here, the secret service agents weren't on the ground less than 12 hours before they were out in this bar and they had found these prostitutes. one has to wonder somebody had to be pretty familiar with cartegena and where you can procure the services. we know that army unit was in the area of responsibility. >> so do you think it's going to turn out that a lot of these guys, secret service, army, that ended up being friends across lines or just that it was such a sort of a clubby atmosphere people felt they could do and do this with something you don't know? somebody says, let's go hang out with prostitutes, you don't know, you'd turn the guy in. >> that's right. we have heard reports of the wheels parties. i think what you find when you travel with the president, there's an advance team that goes in. there are folks -- it's very intense when the president is on the ground. the preside

i'm standing outside of the hotel here in cartegena.his is where officials say the agents brought the prostitutes, this is where the scandal unfolded. it began several miles from here in a much different neighborhood than this tourist zone, in a club called the play club. officials have told us that some of the members of the advance team, went, partied and then hired some of the prostitutes that they brought here. in public -- some employees from that club have denied that saying they were not hired at that club. one of the officials told michael michael -- she wanted to charge double, they fought over that, police consider called and the embassy notified. >> park potter in cartegena. there's another investigation that washington is holding today. this comes as the house concluded it's own two-day hearing. take a listen. >> we investigated a number of individuals, we turned over every attornstone we turned ove found 50 more. >> joining us now the luke russert. all right, luke, yesterday obviously not a good day for folks who are on lea

. >>> bueno, por supuesto, también se encuentra en cartegena el presidente anfitrión, juan manuel santosas por dar estos minutos a univisión, y recibirnos aquí más de 50 años de prohibición, y hoy tenemos más producción de drogas, incluso, drogas nuevas, más dinero de promedio, y sobre todo más muertes provocadas en esta guerra contra los grupos criminales, es el fracaso de la lucha contra la droga? >>> es un tema importante, y lo que creemos no es nada diferente a abrir una discusión, hay que hacen realidad un alto en el camino y discutir diferentes escenarios posibles, y de pronto encontra una más efectiva y menos costosa, podríamos tomar la decisión de ir por ese cmaino, porque como vamos no vamos muy bien >>> y cartagena es el lugar? >>> el mundo no ha tenido un discusión profesional, racional con cifras técnicas sobre ninguno de esos escenarios. es hora de iniciar esa discusión >>> el trabajo viene de muchos años, solamente de esta administración, sino lo que hizo su precesor, alvaro uribe, con quien en este momento exite una relación aspera,uando fue la última vez que se tomaron un

. >> the beautiful city of cartegena. having a wonderful time. may want to bring michelle back later for vacation. we'll make sure to come back sometime in the near future. >> kimberly: oh, boy. >> eric: really. >> kimberly: don't stay at that he help. >> dana: how much you want to bet they never go to cartegena for vacation. >> eric: i bet they will. four times on our dime. >> kimberly: go ahead. >> bob: i will bet on dana perino, too. before in 2009 that people who paid taxes 1,500 multimillionaires who made that multimillion of dollars in 2008 paid, let's take a look at what they paid the i.r.s., multimillionaires. exactly zero. that is the point. they are just like mitt romney and most people wanting to protect millionaires. think about that. you pay taxes, right? they pay nothing. they made million dollars. >> kimberly: that was a debbie downer moment. on another bright note of true love forever. that doesn't involve viles of blood around someone's neck. there i am. angelina jolie and brad pitt, you are in my shot. you will pay for that heav

four explosions in columbia yesterday, two in cartegena and two near the u.s. embassy in bogata. joining me is on the phone, ronald kessler, he broke the story about the agents being sent home. mr. kessler, good morning to you, what is your understanding of what these secret service agents were allegedly doing in cartegena? >> all 12 agents involved in this situation, involving prostitutes, and one of the agents did not pay one of the prostitutes and she complained to local police and that is how this all started. police went to the state department, state department told the secret service, secret service recalled all the agents, it is clearly the biggest scandal in secret service history. the only thing that comes close is the penetration of the state dinner by the salahis and it goes back to a culture of laxness in the secret service which i revealed in my book "in the president's secret service." a lax attitude which contributes to this kind of thing. >> do we have any idea if all 12 were sent home, how many were involved in this? >> my understanding is all 12 were to one deg

they're wrapping up the summit of the americas in cartegena down in colombia.ring it to you when it happens. so stay with us. ♪ dave, i've downloaded a virus. yeah. ♪ dave, where are we on the new laptop? it's so slow! i'm calling dave. [ telephone rings ] [ male announcer ] in a small business, technology is all you. that's why you've got us. at the staples pc savings event, for a limited time get up to $200 off select computers. staples. that was easy. >>> president obama is in the nation of colombia this weekend for the summit of the americas. he'll be holding a news conference minutes from now. it was scheduled for 4:30 eastern time. it could start at any minute. we'll bring it to you live when the news conference begins. >>> the summit is being slightly overshadowed by a scandal that has erupted at the u.s. secret service. officers from the advanced detail were sent home from colombia. and put on leave. after allegedly having contact with prostitutes. representative peter king in new york state, head of the homeland security committee, talked to cnn about

what happened that night in cartegena?fin investigates. >> reporter: prostitution is so open, part of the tourist trade, it's hard to imagine what crimes the cartegena police could find to investigation. what's easy to imagine is how easy the u.s. security members got in trouble. a night on the town, a disco filled with scantily dressed women. seemingly at every corner, willing to connect single american men with available colombian women. >> just tell me. >> i want to show you, okay? >> reporter: show you to a back alley, a corner, private door. when they saw i wasn't interested in eating, he asked if i was interested in a girl, a chica. so, this is what he gave me. we got this a lot here. it's an advertisement for basically, what looks like a strip club and it's probably a hor house. a dozen or so working women making their way to where the agents were staying. it's where the trouble began. the agent didn't understand the price or was trying to rip off the female escort leading to the infamous scene in the hotel hallway.

three of the 11 secret service agents who allegedly brought prostitutes back to their hotel room in cartegena have their jobs. it leaves eight agents on administrative leave. their security clearance are pulled as the investigation continues. now, as many as ten military personnel are under investigation including five army special forces members. the alleged misconduct unfolded last week in the hours before president obama arrived in colombia for an international summit. now by the time his plane touched down, the agents and officers caught up in the scandal had already been sent home. the source tells cnn that investigators are looking into whether drugs were involved and we've learned that the allegations are even worse than first thought. joining me now is fran townsend, who just learned more details. you found out more information about the specific team these members were on. what can you tell us? >> well, anderson, we talk about the group of secret service agents being part of the advanced team and they have been there for some time in advance of the president's arrival. well what we'r

it could have been the case in cartegena or not, but that's not the point. if this is more common in the agency it could be happening and it could be threatening the president. >> absolutely. >> is that too paranoid? >> no, no. it's a worthwhile point. look, and they get trained. erin, the thing about this that's so astounding, the agents are trained in counterintelligence, to look for people who are trying to approach them for that reason. so they know better than this. they know better than to put themselves in a vulnerable position like that which is what makes it so astounding. look, you have a large number of agents for a short period of time on the ground caught up in this. it's a natural question, is it a cultural problem? first, we have to understand this incident and then you need to take it further and say is it a broader problem? i suspect that mark sullivan is committed to doing that. >> well, fran townsend, thank you very much. the secret service investigation broadens and continues. >>> next a student in iowa was raped and held captive and her

service members brought at least 20 prostitutes back to their hotel in cartegena, colombia, after visiting a strip club. nbc news has learned the woman at the center of the scandal complained to local police after two agents wanted to split a bill rather than pay full price. police called the u.s. embassy. investigators are in colombia, interviewing the women. >>> in the day ahead, gsa officials will be grilled by the senate on new accusations of excessive spending. yesterday a house committee discovered executive jeff neely took lavish trips to hawaii and napa valley. the trips came even after he was warn good possible investigations as early as last june. neely is currently on paid administrative leave while the head of the gsa, martha johnson, resigned this month. >>> this morning investigators are trying to determine why a woman kidnapped a three-day-old baby and shot his mother in the process. the mother later died. the woman attacked the mother as she left the doctor's office in a houston suburb. she was there for a checkup for her newborn. the woman repeatedly shot the mother, snatc

tests following reports that at least one agent had brought a prostitute back to his hotel room in cartegena colombia. the news of misconduct broke just after the president arrived for a summit there. at the time he was asked if he would be angry if the allegations proved correct. >> i expect that investigation to be thorough, and i expect it to be rigorous. if it turns out that some of the allegations that have been made in the press are confirmed, then of course, i'll be angry. >> reporter: today in an interview, the president defended the agency, but he called those agents individuals involved "knuckleheads." >> pelley: norah, so what happens next in the investigation? >> reporter: well, scott, the investigation continues especially for those 12 military personnel who have been inplimented dealt with and also there are now lawmakers on capitol hill demanding answers and that's why the homeland security chief, janet napolitano will be up on the hill to answer questions to make sure this doesn't happen again. and we're being told that even the people who have been cleared are going to be re

our white house correspondent has more from cartegena. >> here they have buried the story.t page, a sub headline reading days of liquor and disorder. it read right above two ads for university. we traveled with the pd all around the world, sometimes to densely populated cities, other times to beautiful coastal resort towns like here in cartegena columbia. our stories usually involve complicated issues. but rarely is the story about the hotel where we do most of our work at and stay at. this is the hotel caribe. it will forever be linked to the secret service scandal. ironically, this took place in the middle of one of the most secure bubbles we have ever seen. this road that leads to our hotel and the president's hotel is blocked off to the general public. in addition to the secret service, there's more than 5,000 military police right here in columbia. and right across from the hotel is a police substation. the president traveled all this way to attempt the sixth summit of the americas, to focus on jobs t economy, trade, to highlight the importance of the latin-american re

four years later she won't stop texting me from cartegena. >> the president a year ago, right beforeppearing before the same crowd, ordered the raid to get osama bin laden marked the occasion in an unusual way. >> last year at this time we delivered justice to one of world's most notorious individuals. >> donald trump wasn't roasting the president. that was jimmy kimmel's job. >> last year, he had a team to kill osama bin laden. so who will it be this year? [ laughter ] if you are looking for the biggest threat to america right now sheeshlg is right there, her name is kim kardashian. >> and mr. president, remember when the country rallied around you for the hopes of better tomorrow? that was hilarious. there is a term for guys like president obama. probably not two terms but.... [ laughter ] >> they praised the healthy eating initiative while going after new jersey's governor. >> let christy christy. he may be misunderstanding, it's not the olive garden state. >> but kimmel was equal opportunity aiming at mitt romney. >> they picked him out of a land's ti7b catalog. >> but they finis