Carter on the Secret Service scandal

>> and no one knows the job of the secret service better a former president guarded by them here is what former president jimmy carter told me about the issue on monday.

>> what did you think when you heard about what happened in cartagena.

>> two feelings. one is grief that it happened. secondly, that it was a small minority of secret service agents caught up maybe in a local environment that was extraordinary. i have had more than 200 secret service agents work with me before and during and after i was president. i would say that there is no other single group of public servants that i have ever known that would equal their standards of morality and proper activity and proper service and dedication to their very dangerous and difficult job.

>> the question that many members of congress are asking right now, though, is they did this in such a public way in and out of a lobby, a very well known hotel, and the number of them that were involved might suggest that this was not an isolated incident.

>> i believe -- i have heard about those allegations. my belief still is based on with multi-i78 secret service agents is there was an isolated incident and it may be that there was a celebration of some kind or that involved excessive drinking of alcohol that they were intoxicated. i don't know what the details were. i know it was a terrible thing. these secret service agents do not personify at all the overwhelming majority in the service or the ones that i have known personally. i would guess that secret service agent would have to be almost completely out of his mind or her mind to tell a prostitute as they call themselves, a female escort, anything about the movements of the president. that's their life. that's their total dedication is to protect the one who is assigned to them, whether it is an incumbent american president or the president's family.

>> does the buck stop there with the people directly involved?

>> i think both congressman isas and king have said already publicly that mark sullivan , the commanding officer of the secret service has acted in a very proper way with instant action to try to correct the existing problem, complete investigation without any holds barred and has taken action with the ones that have already found to be guilty or confessed their guilt to discharge them from the service. i think the higher ups as far as i know in washington were not involved in any way and are not culpable.

>> president carter also told me privately he thought frankly all of his agents guarding him now are upset and embarrassed by this. i will talk more to him later on in this hour, the second part of my sper view with president carter talks politics and gauges president obama 's re-election chances and tells me what he thinks of mitt romney .