Two US Secret Service agents are under investigation accused of crashing a car into a White House security barrier while drunk.
One of the men was named as Mark Connolly, the second-in-command on President Obama’s security detail.
The Washington Post, which broke the story, identified the other agent as George Ogilvie, a senior supervisor in the Washington field office.
Both men have been reassigned to non-supervisory, non-operational jobs while the Homeland Security Department carries out its investigation.
The incident on March 4, which the paper said happened after a night of drinking, is the latest episode to embarrass the agency tasked with protecting the president and follows a series of blunders.
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Sources told the Post that the agents on duty wanted to arrest the men and give them sobriety tests. But a supervisor ordered the agents be sent home.
The leaders of the House oversight and government reform committee - Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the Republican chairman, and Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat - said: “The fact that this event involved senior-level agents is not only embarrassing but exhibits a clear lack of judgment in a potentially dangerous situation.”
In the past six months several top agency officials, including Julian Pierson, the former director, have been forced out amid revelations of multiple, serious presidential security breaches. In September a Texas man armed with a knife was able to climb a White House fence and run into the executive mansion before being apprehended.
A Secret Service spokeswoman said the agency was aware of the allegations against the two agents and that “if misconduct is identified, appropriate action will be taken based on established rules and regulations”.