WASHINGTON — President Obama has decided to appoint Joseph P. Clancy, who has guided the Secret Service on an interim basis for the last four months, to lead the agency permanently, the White House announced Wednesday.
In appointing Mr. Clancy, a former head of Mr. Obama’s security detail, the president rejected calls from critics on Capitol Hill and members of a special Department of Homeland Security panel that said that a string of mishaps and scandals made it clear that the agency should be run by an outsider.
Had Mr. Obama chosen the other leading candidate for the job — Sean Joyce, a former deputy director of the F.B.I. — it would have been the first time in the agency’s 150-year history that it had been run by someone who had not previously been one of its agents.
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Despite all the criticisms of the Secret Service, several current and former agency officials, and other law enforcement officials, have said the agency is not nearly as troubled as members of Congress and the panel have made it seem.
The officials said that the agency had made some mistakes, but that it did not need a complete overhaul.
