text: One of the Secret Service supervisors ousted in the agency's ongoing prostitution scandal joked on Facebook that he was checking out former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as he protected her during the 2008 campaign. 
   
   FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2008 file photo, a Secret Service agent stands near then presidential candidate Barack Obama, background, at a rally in Norfolk, Va. Moving swiftly, the Secret Service forced out... (Associated Press) 
   
   FILE - In this June 30, 2010 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee member, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sessions told reporters Thursday, the president should take... (Associated Press) 
   
   David Chaney, one of two supervisors forced out of the agency this week, wrote: "I was really checking her out, if you know what i (sic) mean?" after a friend commented on the picture posted in January 2009. 
   
   In an interview with Fox News Thursday, Palin said the joke is on Chaney. 
   
   "Well, check this out, buddy _ you're fired!" Palin said. 
   
   Chaney posted at least two pictures of him with Palin, along with another in which a woman in a revealing bikini top stood in the background, looking at Chaney. The photo was captioned: "not in front of my son." 
   
   Details of the photos and comments were first reported Thursday by The Washington Post. 
   
   Palin said the scandal is "a symptom of government run amok." 
   
   "It's like, who's minding the store around here?" Palin told Fox. "The president, for one, he better be wary, there, of when Secret Service is accompanying his family on vacation. They may be checking out the first lady instead of guarding her." 
   
   Earlier Thursday, he White House had expressed renewed confidence in the director of the Secret Service in the midst of the sordid scandal, which threatens to become a serious political distraction in an election year. A key lawmaker who oversees the Secret Service predicted more firings there soon. 
   
   President Barack Obama's chief spokesman, Jay Carney, noted that some Secret Service employees involved have already lost their jobs, just days into the government's formal investigation of the incident last weekend in Colombia, where Obama was to attend a summit meeting. Carney also said the president's security in Cartagena was never compromised, and he asked for patience as official investigations continue. 
   
   "Perhaps it would be in the interests of a complete and thorough and fair investigation not to make determinations about the conclusions of an investigation before they've even been reached," Carney said. "That's the president's position." 
   
   The scandal arose ahead of the Summit of the Americas when at least some of 11 Secret Service employees brought prostitutes back to their Cartagena hotel. The agency has moved quickly to try to quell the embarrassing episode, forcing out three employees so far, including two supervisors. The supervisors were in the agency's uniformed division; one is a sergeant, according to a person familiar with Secret Service operations who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. 
   
   Lawrence Berger, general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officials Association, confirmed Thursday he is representing the supervisors, Chaney and Greg Stokes, but said he could not discuss details of the investigation. 
   
   "I cannot comment because I have an obligation of confidentiality with my clients and I have to maintain that," Berger said. 
   
   A third employee has resigned. The employees under investigation include members of the agency's "jump teams," which are sent to sites to set up security in advance of the president's arrival. Others are on counter-assault and counter-sniper teams. The majority of the group is believed to be based in the Washington area. 
   
   Eight men remain suspended and have had their top-secret security clearances lifted. The scandal also involves about 10 military personnel and as many as 20 Colombian women. 
   
   Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican and chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Thursday that more firings could be imminent. 
   
   "I wouldn't be surprised if you saw more dismissals and more being forced out sooner rather than later," said King, who is being updated on the investigation by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan. "You may see a few more today or tomorrow." 
   
   Sen. Chuck Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he thought more people would be fired within "just a few days." 
   
   "`I expect there will be more, but that's what the investigation is all about." 
   
   Three U.S. military officials have said the military personnel include five Army Green Berets, two Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal technicians, two Marine dog handlers and an Air Force airman. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way. 
   
   An Air Force colonel and a military lawyer have gone to Colombia as part of the military investigation. The Secret Service probe has included interviews with the employees and hotel staff. 
   
   King said investigators in Colombia have not been able to interview the women. 
   
   A 24-year-old prostitute told The New York Times this week that the scandal became public after she fought over payment with one of the Secret Service employees, and it spilled out into the hallway of the Hotel Caribe on April 12. 
   
   Jose Pena, a Cartagena taxi driver, told The Associated Press that he picked up the woman after the dispute. She said she left the hotel, where other members of the security detail and the White House press corps were staying, after she was paid $225. 
   
   In Cartagena this week, sex workers and hotel staff were reluctant to speak about the incident, which has become an election year embarrassment in the U.S. 
   
   Prostitution is legal in Colombia, and Cartagena thrives on the sex tourism industry, Mayor Campo Elias readily acknowledged, with hundreds of prostitutes available on any given night throughout the colonial walled city. 
   
   In Washington, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who said she had not been briefed, called the incident "disgusting." 
   
   "There has to be an investigation to see how this could have happened, and those responsible should have to pay a price," Pelosi said. "But as with all these things, there are many people in the Secret Service who do their job responsibly, and we can't paint everyone with the same brush. But nonetheless, those people who were responsible have brought disgrace and it's disgusting." 
   
   Rep. Randy Forbes, a Virginia Republican, called for leadership changes at the Secret Service. 
   
   "I mentioned before, and I can't get a better analogy than baseball. You get three strikes," Forbes said. "They went over their budgets, they couldn't control their budget. They couldn't control who got in the White House. And now we're talking about just absolutely a fundamental principle of security planning _ you don't let the prostitutes in." 
   
   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada suggested the problem lies with the judgment of those involved. 
   
   "Understand this, there is not a committee hearing that's going to take the place or stop people from being stupid. There is not a bill we can pass to cause people to have common sense," Reid said. "Think about this. People that are here to protect the president, they go to Colombia and have a fight with a prostitute over how much she should be paid. That's either very stupid or a total lack of common sense." 
   
   Another Republican lawmaker said Thursday that the Secret Service incident raised questions about whether Obama was capably leading the government. 
   
   "I don't sense that this president has shown that kind of managerial leadership," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama. 
   
   During his daily briefing, Carney shot back: "That sounds very much like a lawmaker attempting to politicize something that is not at all political." 
   
   ___ 
   
   Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Jim Abrams, Julie Pace, Larry Margasak, Ken Thomas and Eileen Sullivan in Washington, Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md., Denise Lavoie in Boston and Frank Bajak in Cartagena, Colombia, contributed to this report. ||||| One of the Secret Service supervisors ousted from the agency this week for their involvement in the Colombia prostitution scandal made light of his official protective work on his Facebook page, joking about a picture of himself standing watch behind Sarah Palin. 
   
   David Randall Chaney, 48, posted several shots of himself on duty in a dark suit and sunglasses, including one that shows him behind the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee during that campaign. 
   
   “I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?” Chaney wrote in the comments section after friends had marveled at the photo. He is married and has an adult son. 
   
   Chaney, who had been a supervisor in the Secret Service’s international programs division, retired under pressure Wednesday, according to people familiar with an internal agency investigation into the allegations that 11 agents and uniformed officers participated in a night of carousing April 11 ahead of President Obama’s visit to the Summit of the Americas. 
   
   He was one of two senior supervisors who are accused in the scandal, which investigators believe included heavy drinking, visits to a strip club and payments to women working as prostitutes. Several people familiar with the matter have identified the other supervisor as Greg Stokes, who was assistant special agent in charge of the K-9 division. Stokes has been notified by agency officials that he will be fired, although he will be given an opportunity to contest the charges, those with knowledge of the case said. 
   
   The disclosure that two high-level managers were involved in the misconduct has raised questions of accountability and personal conduct in an agency whose top leadership has insisted that the Cartagena incident is an isolated and aberrant case, not a sign of a deeper cultural problem within the institution. 
   
   Chaney and Stokes have each worked at the Secret Service for nearly two decades, and both have served significant time with the presidential protection detail, people who know the men said. Both are based in Washington. 
   
   The supervisors were sent on the trip to supervise dozens of younger, less-experienced agents who were part of the advance team preparing for Obama’s arrival. 
   
   Lawrence Berger, the general counsel for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and an attorney for Chaney and Stokes, declined to comment on details of the allegations involving his clients. He said the agency’s investigation is not complete for either man and stressed that any judgment about their roles in the scandal is “premature.” 
   
   “It’s our ultimate position that nothing they may or may not have done in Colombia negatively impacted the efficiency of their mission,” Berger said. “Nothing that has been reported to have been done has impacted negatively their mission or the president’s visit.” 
   
   Members of Congress who have been briefed on the matter have said 21 men are suspected of bringing as many as 21 prostitutes to their rooms. Ten military personnel also have been accused of participating, along with the 11 Secret Service members. 
   
   The incident became public after one man got into a dispute over payment with a woman on the morning of April 12, drawing the attention of hotel staff and Colombian authorities, who reported the matter to the U.S. Embassy. 
   
   The Secret Service recalled its 11 employees and replaced them with another team before Obama arrived April 13. All of the recalled members were placed on administrative leave, and their top-secret security clearances were revoked. 
   
   The Secret Service announced Wednesday that three of the men were being dismissed from the agency for their involvement. The third man is a junior member of the team who has voluntarily elected to resign, those familiar with the investigation said. 
   
   Berger did not answer questions about his clients’ employment status. 
   
   “They have a passion for the agency’s mission,” he said. “They’ve both been doing it for over 17 or 18 years, day in and day out, and very well.” 
   
   On Thursday, Capitol Hill lawmakers who oversee the Department of Homeland Security — which includes the Secret Service — said they expected more resignations and firings in the case. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the 11 agents involved in the scandal underwent drug tests and polygraph exams. Agency investigators in Colombia have visited all of the hotels where Secret Service personnel stayed and have interviewed each of the maids who cleaned rooms in the Hotel Caribe, King said. 
   
   People who know the two ­supervisors have described Chaney’s duties in the international programs division as supervising a department that provides support and administrative help to the agency’s foreign of­fices. Stokes has been described as the assistant special agent in charge of the K-9 training division at the James J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville. 
   
   Attempts to reach both men were unsuccessful. Calls made to Chaney’s home and cellphone and to Stokes’s home were not returned. No one answered the door when a reporter visited Chaney’s home in Northern Virginia. Parked outside was a silver Ford pickup truck, bearing stickers with a colorful outline of Texas, Chaney’s home state, and the mantra “SECEDE.” 
   
   A relative of Chaney said she would relay a message to him. 
   
   The commitment to the Secret Service runs deep in Chaney’s family. His father, George Washington Chaney, was a Secret Service agent in President John F. Kennedy’s era and knew the agents on his detail when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. 
   
   The elder Chaney had remarked to friends that he started at the service working “diaper duty,” where he watched President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s children and grandchildren in Gettysburg, Pa., and also met his wife. Later, he traveled to work in Dallas, where he was on President Lyndon B. Johnson’s protective detail. He also served a stint in the service’s El Paso office and then became the agent in charge of personnel in the D.C. headquarters, where he was working when Kennedy was shot. 
   
   He retired in 1977 and started a new line of work as a document examiner in Dallas, where he and his wife raised their five children. 
   
   On David Chaney’s Facebook page, he posted several shots of himself with Palin. 
   
   In one picture, he is wearing a dark suit and sunglasses, standing near a black vehicle behind Palin as she approaches a crowd. In the comments section next to the photo, a friend remarked that Chaney appeared to be “lurking in the shadows” behind Palin. 
   
   Another kidded that there seemed to be “real chemistry” between the two. 
   
   Chaney posted: “I was really checking her out, if you know what i mean?” 
   
   Another friend asked if one of the buttons on Palin’s lapel was emblazoned with Chaney’s face. 
   
   Chaney replied, “well if it was could you blame her, anything to satisfy a stalker.” 
   
   In another set of Facebook photos, Chaney documents a trip he took with his grown son to Egypt. One photo shows a voluptuous belly dancer in a revealing bikini-like top and tight, sequined skirt positioned between him and his son. 
   
   “Not in front of my son,” Chaney joked in the comments section. 
   
   On Fox News Thursday night, Palin responded to the Post’s revelations about Chaney’s comments by saying she was disgusted that a Secret Service agent would make jokes about checking out her “backside” and called his behavior “pretty embarrassing.” 
   
   “This agent . . . was kind of ridiculous posting pictures and comments,” she said. “Well check this out, bodyguard. You’re fired! And I hope his wife . . . kicks him into the dog house.” 
   
   Palin stressed she viewed the scandal as emblematic of Obama’s poor management. “Look who’s running the show,” she said. “People will say its boys being boys. I’ve had enough of these men being dogs and not being responsible for the taxpayer’s dollars.” 
   
   Fox News host Greta Van Susteren told Palin she agreed Obama should be held accountable for how he reacted to the incident but stressed that the agent made his comments about Palin under the Bush administration. 
   
   One current agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation, said both Chaney and Stokes were respected, well-liked agents and supervisors, who were both quick to offer advice and mentor younger agents and officers. 
   
   “I was just completely shocked to hear they were involved,” the agent said. 
   
   Staff writer Ed O’Keefe and staff researchers Alice Crites and Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
target: – One of the two Secret Service supervisors to lose their jobs so far over the Colombia sex scandal joked that he was checking out Sarah Palin as he guarded her during the 2008 campaign, the Washington Post finds. Senior agent David Chaney posted at least two pictures of himself with Palin on Facebook, one with the comment, "I was really checking her out, if you know what I mean." Chaney has been forced to resign, and another supervisor has been informed that he will be fired. In an interview with Fox News, Palin said the joke is on Chaney. "Well check this out, buddy—you're fired!" she said, calling the scandal "a symptom of government run amok," reports AP. "It's like, who's minding the store around here?" she added. "The president, for one, he better be wary, there, of when Secret Service is accompanying his family on vacation. They may be checking out the first lady instead of guarding her."