THE US Secret Service has confirmed an investigation into allegations that agents hired strippers and prostitutes in El Salvador, before a visit last year by US president Barack Obama.A new report says Secret Service members had sex with strippers at a club in the Salvadoran capital, San Salvador, and took prostitutes into their hotel rooms last spring, senior politicians said on Thursday.Mark Sullivan, senior director of the Secret Service, is looking into the report but has so far not found anything “credible” to back it up, Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said outside the US House of Representatives.The allegations arise from a television interview, in which an anonymous US contractor described visiting a San Salvador strip club that offers sexual favours with some Secret Service agents and US military specialists in advance of Obama’s March, 2011, visit.The report said high-ranking US embassy employees also “routinely” visited the strip club.“Obviously, we will inquire of our embassy in San Salvador with regard to the conduct of our own employees. But the article alleges that they attended the establishment, not that they engaged in any illegal or unsanctioned conduct,” Victoria Nuland, US state department spokeswoman, said.US officials are also facing charges from a Brazilian prostitute who is set to sue the US embassy and five staff members, including three members of the United States Marine Corps.
