The chairman of a House committee investigating an alleged Secret Service prostitution scandal predicted more firings as key lawmakers and a top adviser to President Barack Obama expressed confidence Sunday that the agency will effectively deal with the incident. 
 
 People walk past Hotel El Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia, late Thursday, April 19, 2012. Eleven Secret Service employees are accused of misconduct in connection with a prostitution scandal at the hotel... (Associated Press) 
 
 "Every possible lead is being examined," said Rep. Peter King, who heads the House Homeland Security Committee. King, R-N.Y., said he expected that in the "near future, several other" members of the Secret Service will leave. 
 
 "What they were thinking is beyond me," King told NBC's "Meet the Press." 
 
 So far, the scandal includes 12 Secret Service employees and 11 military members. 
 
 Six of the Secret Service members have lost their jobs. One has been cleared and five remain on administrative leave. The main incident occurred shortly before Obama arrived for a meeting of regional presidents last weekend. 
 
 A Secret Service official confirmed Sunday that one of the 12 implicated in the scandal was staying at a different hotel than the others. 
 
 He was staying at the Hilton, where Obama eventually would stay, said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The agent is being investigated for improprieties in a separate incident that may have happened on April 9, days before the president arrived and while the hotel was still open to the general public. 
 
 Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, also mentioned the 12th agent under investigation in an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation." 
 
 "Now we don't know at this point what that 12th agent is being charged with and why he's been put on administrative leave. But now you're into the hotel where the president of the United States was going to stay. And it just gets more troubling," Lieberman said. 
 
 Lieberman told Fox News Sunday there is "no evidence that information was compromised" in the incidents. Those involved "were not acting like Secret Service agents. They were acting like a bunch of college students away on a spring student weekend," Lieberman said. 
 
 King, Lieberman and other leaders of congressional committees examining the scandal made the rounds on Sunday news shows. Generally, they said the scandal was being closely scrutinized on Capitol Hill and voiced support for Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan's handling of the matter. 
 
 Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod said the allegations are disturbing, but that the misdeeds of a few individuals should not tarnish the overall work and reputation of the service. 
 
 Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" that he always felt the agents were willing to go to great lengths to protect the president and the people around him. He called the conduct in Colombia "really disappointing." 
 
 "I think we will get to the bottom of it," said Axelrod, who worked at the White House before leaving last year to work full time in Obama's re-election campaign office in Chicago. 
 
 He later told NBC that "on the whole, the Secret Service does heroic work. This is quite disturbing. We have to get to the bottom of this, and I'm sure we will." 
 
 Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a frequent critic of the president, declined to fault the White House's response. "You know, I'm not critical of what the administration has done thus far," he told CBS. "I think what we're seeing is an aberration." 
 
 Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., both said that more female Secret Service agents might help guard against such incidents from happening again. 
 
 "I can't help but wonder if there had been more women as part of that detail, if this ever would have happened," Collins said on ABC's "This Week." 
 
 Maloney told the same program that only 11 percent of the Secret Service's agents are women. 
 
 "I can't help but keeping asking this question: Where are the women? We probably need to diversify the service and have more minorities and more women," Maloney said. 
 
 Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told NBC that the episode was "something the Secret Service can fix. We have confidence that it will be fixed." 
 
 "The most important thing is that this never happens again," Issa said. 
 
 Ralph Basham, a former Secret Service Director, told CBS the behavior of those implicated in the scandal "could have compromised the trip and the safety of the president." ||||| Most of the Secret Service agents embroiled in a prostitution scandal brought women back to their Colombia hotel rooms before President Obama arrived in town for an international summit, Rep. Pete King said Saturday. 
 
 King said the raunchy rendezvous involved 11 agents and went sour when an agent refused to pay one of the women, who were presumed to be hookers. 
 
 “The agent said, ‘I don't owe you anything,’ but gave the woman some money,” said King (R-L.I.),the head of the House Homeland Security Committee, who was briefed on the matter. “I don't know how much, and it was settled right there.” 
 
 IN COLOMBIA, THE SEX BUSINESS IS SO BIG THAT SOME CALL IT THE 'THAILAND OF LATIN AMERICA' 
 
 As it turned out, the agents’ troubles were just beginning. Local cops were called to the hotel in Cartagena and, because the matter involved foreigners, a report was written up and sent to the U.S. Embassy, King said. 
 
 Embassy officials in turn notified the Secret Service, which immediately launched an investigation. 
 
 At least one supervisor was among the agents involved, King said. He was not certain exactly how many women were involved. 
 
 The scandal — a black eye for the United States’ reputation abroad — was revealed Friday just hours before President Obama arrived in Cartagena. 
 
 The 11 agents were part of an advance team assigned to secure a local hotel before the summit began, yet their attention apparently turned to taking advantage of Colombia’s policy of legal prostitution. 
 
 Five American service members were also accused of misconduct stemming from the scandalous incident at the hotel, according to the U.S. military. 
 
 “They had arranged to have a bunch of prostitutes come by and one of the agents refused to pay a prostitute,” said author Ronald Kessler, one of the leading experts on the Secret Service. “Yes, doubly good judgment there.” 
 
 Fernando Vergara/AP 
 
 Kessler, who was briefed on the investigation by his sources within the agency, told the Daily News Saturday that the spurned hooker told police about the lack of payment. 
 
 The 11 agents were immediately recalled to Washington. 
 
 “Their careers are over,” said Kessler. 
 
 “Number one, it is against basic ethics to go to a prostitute,” he continued. “Number two, it is incredibly embarrassing to the White House.” 
 
 “And number three,” he continued. “It could leave them open to blackmail and a possible assassination attempt.” 
 
 Obama still has “full confidence” in the Secret Service, according to White House spokesman Jay Carney, who declared late Saturday that the incident “has been more of a distraction for the press” than the President. 
 
 Kessler said two of the agents were supervisors who attempted to cover up the mortifying incident. 
 
 The agents were staying at the beachfront Hotel Caribe, which is also hosting the White House staff and the traveling press team. 
 
 Guests at the swanky hotel told reporters that several of the agents had been spotted drinking heavily during their weeklong stay. 
 
 Details of the incident remain murky, but U.S. officials believe one agent took a woman back to his room Wednesday night and threw her out in a dispute over money. 
 
 The woman caused a commotion in the hallway, getting the attention of local cops and other Secret Service agents, a senior official told The New York Times. 
 
 Though it was not known if all 11 members of the Secret Service team are suspected of wrongdoing, they were all recalled as part of the investigation. Several of the agents are married, according to reports. 
 
 Prostitution is legal in Colombia, as long as it is conducted in so-called “tolerance zones.” 
 
 Though the exact boundaries of the zones frequently change and are rarely enforced by police, the coastal city of Cartagena is a popular destination for prostitution and sex tourism. 
 
 Hookers can easily be procured online or in bars or hotels in much of the city. It was not clear how the agents met the women involved in the incident. 
 
 The scandal threatened to overshadow President Obama’s visit to the important summit. He landed in Cartagena Friday night and attended a formal dinner with the other world leaders at Castillo San Felipe de Barajasajas, an historic Spanish fortress. 
 
 The President, who had a full day of summit events Saturday, has not addressed the Secret Service scandal. He is not staying at the Hotel Caribe. 
 
 The Secret Service did not elaborate on the allegations Saturday. The night before, the agency — which is charged with protecting the President — simply confirmed that the officers were pulled back to Washington. 
 
 All of the agents are based in Washington, D.C., according to Kessler, author of “In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes With Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.” 
 
 The matter was turned over to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles the Secret Services’ internal affairs. 
 
 With Mark Morales 
 
 jlemire@nydailynews.com 
 
 
 
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– Heads probably haven't finished rolling at the Secret Service over its prostitution scandal, Rep. Peter King said today on Meet the Press, saying he expected "several" members to depart in the "near future." The House Homeland Security chair promised a thorough investigation, and has already sent a letter to the agency demanding answers to 50 questions, like whether agents used their expense accounts to pay their paramours, Fox News reports. He's not alone; the Senate will be expanding its investigation too, Joe Lieberman said today, according to CNN. Secret Service officials also confirmed today that one of the 12 agents implicated in the scandal so far was staying at a different hotel than the other 11—the same hotel that President Obama would eventually stay in, the AP reports. "It just gets more troubling," Lieberman said, though he cautioned that, "We don't know at this point what that 12th agent is being charged with." Lieberman and King weren't the only lawmakers discussing the scandal either; click for more from our Sunday talk show roundup.