Secret Service investigating misconduct allegation against agent

The U.S. Secret Service said Wednesday it is investigating a misconduct allegation against one of its employees and has placed them on leave.

“The U.S. Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating a misconduct allegation involving an employee,” the agency said in a statement to The Hill. “The Secret Service holds its personnel to the highest standards. The employee has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.”

The statement on the investigation comes after Real Clear Politics published a report earlier Wednesday that detailed a Secret Service agent being accused of allegedly sexually assaulting a staffer for Vice President Harris while on an advance trip for a campaign event last week in Wisconsin. The report cited four unnamed sources in the Secret Service community.

In a statement to NBC News, the vice president’s office said it was alerted by the Secret Service that an incident involving an agent took place but did not offer any details of the incident. It did, however, make note that the office has “zero tolerance for sexual misconduct.”

"The Office of the Vice President take the safety of staff seriously. We have zero tolerance for sexual misconduct,” the statement read. “Senior OVP [Office of the Vice President] officials were alerted by the USSS about an incident involving an agent and informed that USSS initiated an investigation.”

Harris’s campaign and the vice president's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. 

The Democratic nominee is spending Wednesday delivering remarks on the economy in Pittsburgh before sitting down with MSNBC for an interview airing at 7 p.m. Eastern.

The revelation of the Secret Service investigation comes as the agency continues to face heavy scrutiny over its operations following two apparent assassination attempts on former President Trump.

Also Wednesday, a Senate committee released a scathing report on failures by the agency to protect Trump during the first attempt in Butler, Pa. in which agents were found to have missed multiple opportunities to prevent the shooting.

An earlier internal review by the Secret Service also revealed “multiple operational and communications failures” including an unclear chain of command and communication failures between the agency and local law enforcement.