5 things you need to know from the Washington Post's Colombia prostitution scandal update

Senior Obama administration aides knew of a possible White House link to the Colombia prostitute scandal that cost several Secret Service agents and members of the military their careers, the Washington Post reported.

The Post published the news – a scathing update to the 2012 incident – late Wednesday, drawing the immediate ire of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Twitter, who called it old news.

But as the lead Post writer on the story, Carol Leonnig, pointed out, there are some highly compelling previously unreported details.

The entire story is worth a read, but here’s a quick roundup of five things you need to know:

1. Despite fierce statements to the contrary, new details indicate that White House aides were given information that suggested a member of the presidential advance team spent the night with a prostitute.

2. That information was apparently not made public or thoroughly investigated by the White House.

3. The lead investigator on a Department of Homeland Security team that a Senate committee asked to look into the incident, David Nieland, reportedly felt pressure from the department’s inspector general’s office to withhold evidence because it was an election year and the report could be embarrassing for the Obama administration.

4. The advance team member who may have spent the night with a prostitute, then-25-year-old Jonathan Dach, whose father is a prominent Democratic donor and Department of Health and Human Services employee, began working as a policy adviser in the State Department’s Office on Global Women’s Issues earlier this year.

5. Nieland and other members of his office were put on administrative leave after questioning alterations to the report. Their bosses said the leave was unrelated, but those placed on leave said they believed it was related to their questioning of the alterations.

Emily DeRuy is a Washington, D.C.-based associate editor, covering education, reproductive rights, and inequality. A San Francisco native, she enjoys Giants baseball and misses Philz terribly.