Joseph Clancy, director of the Secret Service, has experienced a serendipitous recovery of his memory regarding when he first learned of the plot by several dozen agents and employees to smear Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who was heading up the investigation of the agency as chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Clancy first used the familiar administration gambit of claiming no prior knowledge of the scandal and hearing about it only when he read it in the Washington Post.

But a remarkable feat of recovered memory occurred, as Clancy now admits he knew of the "rumor" to leak Chaffetz's personal informnation before the story of the congressman's unsuccessful application to the Secret Service became public.

Washington Examiner:

Clancy says he now recalls knowing about the Chaffetz leak prior to being told last March of the imminent publishing of a Washington Postarticle breaking the story. Originally, he said that story is how he first learned about it.

Chaffetz is the chair of the congressional committee currently investigating Secret Service misconduct, and it was illicitly disclosed to the media that he had previously been rejected for a job at the agency.

The Post reported that Clancy now says he became aware of a "speculative rumor" about a 2003 Chaffetz application as early as March 25.

"It was not until later that I became aware that this rumor had developed as agency employees had used an agency database to gain access to this information," he said.

Chaffetz believes that this new story from Clancy is indicative of department inaction and possible malfeasance.

"It wasn't as if the director made any effort to squelch this at the time. He knew about it the day after the hearing. There's no evidence that he did anything about it," Chaffetz said.

Chaffetz was referring to a March 24 House Oversight Committee meeting where Chaffetz was particularly critical of Clancy. Minutes later, Chaffetz's file was accessed by someone at Secret Service, according to an Inspector General report released earlier this week.

Caught in a lie by the Post, Clancy does a 180 and admits his prior knowledge of the smear.  And a once proud agency that was the gold standard of integrity in government now has been brought low by thugs, dilettantes, and sybarites.  Misconduct by agents is common place, and Chaffetz, looking into how deep the rot reaches into the agency, was targeted because he was a threat.

It's almost beyond belief – except this is Obama's Washington, and we've come to expect the worst from government employees.