The latest twist in the White House break-in story:

The man who jumped the White House fence this month and sprinted through the front door made it much farther into the building than previously known, overpowering one Secret Service officer and running through much of the main floor, according to three people familiar with the incident.

An alarm box near the front entrance of the White House designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher’s office, said a Secret Service official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Of course, the Secret Service has no comment "due to an ongoing investigation of the incident." Do these investigations ever conclude?

In case you missed it, the Washington Post story also has a link to its previous story about the shots fired at the White House in 2011 which were only discovered some days later.

As a friend keeps muttering about the situation in Italy: "Incredibile!"

Update:

Giving credit where credit is due the Times picks up on the Post story:

The new development, first reported by The Washington Post, will create an explosive hearing on Tuesday when a bipartisan panel of lawmakers intends to grill Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service, about whether a lax and undisciplined culture inside the long-heralded agency has badly eroded its ability to protect the president and his family, several members of Congress said Monday.

It also includes a helpful graphic showing how far the intruder presumably arrived.

In a letter to the Chair of the House Committee Ms. Pierson requested that the hearing take place for the most part in a classified briefing not open to the public. It would be “beyond reckless,” she said, to air the security measures the Secret Service takes to protect the President.

It would appear that these security measures themselves are “beyond reckless.”

Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is a longtime Commonweal contributor.

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