A man with a gun that the Secret Service did not know about rode in an elevator with President Obama during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Sept. 16. A source familiar with the case said Obama was in an elevator with his Secret Service security detail when a CDC security officer operating the elevator started taking photos and a video of the president with his phone and behaving unprofessionally. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) 
 
 Correction: This story has been updated to correct descriptions of the armed man who rode an elevator Sept. 16 in Atlanta with President Obama. When he didn’t deny taking the photos, his CDC supervisor, who was on hand for the interview, said the behavior was highly irresponsible and told him to hand over his gun, shocking the Secret Service officers who were questioning the man. The Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, asked a top agency manager to look into the matter but did not refer it to an investigative unit that was created to review violations of protocol and standards, according to two people familiar with the handling of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Some agents stayed behind to question the man and then used a national database check that found some prior arrests in his historyturned. The previously undisclosed breach, confirmed by two sources familiar with the case, raises new questions about the agency's ability to protect the president. Some elements of the incident were first reported Tuesday afternoon on the Washington Examiner’s Web site. The threat to the president appeared minimal, but the incident alarmed agents on site and exposes a breakdown in several important Secret Service security protocols, the sources say. Local police and federal officers are not checked in the same way under the Arm’s Reach Program, with the Secret Service presuming that they meet the safety standards because of their employment in law enforcement. Responding to the man’s behavior, one of Obama’s detail agents contacted a member of the protective intelligence team, on-site detectives who handle suspicious-activity cases, to collect the man and interview him.
– And the hits just keep on coming for the Secret Service: The Washington Examiner today reports on yet another serious lapse in security involving President Obama. The latest incident occurred just two weeks ago when the president traveled to Atlanta to visit the CDC—and ended up in an elevator with an armed man who has no fewer than three convictions for assault and battery. That's a lapse on two fronts, explains the Washington Post: Anyone in such close proximity to the president is supposed to be screened for weapons and criminal history. Unbeknownst to Secret Service agents traveling with Obama, this person had both. He was reportedly a contractor from a private security firm who was operating the elevator during the presidential visit. The man drew the attention of Secret Service agents when he refused to comply with orders to stop filming the president in the elevator with his smartphone. When agents questioned him afterward and then learned he had a criminal history, they called in his supervisor. The man got fired immediately and had to turn over his weapon to his boss—which is the first time the agents learned that he was armed. “You have a convicted felon within arm’s reach of the president and they never did a background check,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican. “Words aren’t strong enough for the outrage I feel for the safety of the president and his family." (The agency's director was grilled on Capitol Hill today and promised reform.)