Secret Service Deputy Director Quits Amid Questions Over Ties To Drone-Defense Maker Fortem
Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,
Deputy Director Matt Quinn announced his resignation from the Secret Service in an internal agency email Friday amid questions about his conflicts of interest over the agency's counter-drone technology.
Quinn served 23 years as a Secret Service agent before retiring in 2021. He then went to work at drone-manufacturer Fortem Technologies, which sells the DroneHunter product, as a senior vice president for three years before returning to the agency last year to serve as deputy director. His last day will be Nov. 7.
As RealClearPolitics first reported, Quinn was criticized by several current and former Secret Service agents for admitting during a mostly softball Sunday CBS News "60 Minutes" interview that the Secret Service was not prepared for an attack by a drone swarm.
The piece featured a DroneHunter demonstration without mentioning several technical problems the platform has experienced. RealClearPolitics over the last 48 hours submitted detailed questions to the Secret Service about some of the statements made during the "60 Minutes" interview about the drone technology, its effectiveness, whether the DroneHunter's purchases were competitively bid, and the agency's track record in taking out drones.
The "60 Minutes" report did not mention Quinn's prior work for Fortem. The Secret Service did not respond to RCP's questions.
Even before Quinn's announced departure, several Secret Service sources were questioning a report in a recent CBS "60 Minutes" segment that the agency used electronic jamming equipment to take down a drone at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore last December. The game was attended by the president and several members of Congress.
The sources suggest that the Secret Service is not providing the proper context about the downed drone, while raising concerns that it was most likely a friendly-fire incident.
CBS News correspondent Norah O'Donnell sat down with Secret Service Director Sean Curran and Quinn in a joint interview that aired Sunday night, Oct. 11. The three discussed this year's surge in threats to President Trump and his Cabinet and how the agency is trying to adapt to dangers posed by autonomous attack drones, not just lone gunmen.
The 13-minute report features scenes of Curran and Quinn at the agency's Rowley Training Center demonstrating counter-drone systems. The segment featured drone-fighting technology, including the DroneHunter, a weapon that uses AI and radar to disable what O'Donnell referred to as "enemy drones." When it's working properly, the DroneHunter captures targeted unmanned aerial vehicles in a net.
At one point, Quinn, who concedes during the interview that the agency doesn't have the capability to stop a swarm of drones, narrates as a DroneHunter hexacopter captures an unmanned aerial vehicle in a training demonstration.
"Whoa," O'Donnell remarks while watching the capture starting to take place.
"What you see is the drone hanging from the drone hunter," Quinn explains. "So, the bad guy drone is now captured. It's gonna take it to a predetermined safe area."
Near the end of the segment, O'Donnell states without citing a source: "60 Minutes has learned the Secret Service took down a drone using electronic jamming equipment at the Army-Navy game in Baltimore last December where the president and members of Congress were in attendance."
It was just one line in the segment, and there was no explanation of whether the drone posed a genuine threat to Trump and everyone else gathered in the stadium for the annual military academy football rivalry. The report also didn't indicate whether the drone was associated with a foreign actor or was simply a hobbyist's drone that posed no threat at all.
Active and retired Secret Service agents are now calling on agency leaders to explain more fully what happened. Their biggest question is whether it was a case of friendly fire. Instead of intercepting an alien drone that may or may not have posed a threat, a Secret Service officer or agent used a handheld drone-jamming gun to disable and take out one of its own surveillance drones monitoring the stadium, the sources tell RealClearPolitics.
Trigger-happy
A Secret Service source said the Specialized Rifle Unit, a tactical element within the Secret Service's Uniformed Division, got "trigger happy" and took out an agency surveillance drone without communicating with others to find out whether it was an agency asset.
"SRU was, to my knowledge, the drone hunter team, and [they] failed to deconflict," the source told RealClearPolitics. The SRU officers were celebrating until they realized it was a "blue-on-blue" incident, the source added.
Two sources told RCP that the downed Secret Service drone fell either onto or just to the side of Interstate 395, where the agency recovered it. Several sources also said the DroneHunter failed to operate as planned on the day O'Donnell was scheduled to appear at the training center for the demonstration. Since Quinn returned to the Secret Service, several agents have questioned whether he should have recused himself from any decisions on DroneHunter purchases because of his ties to the manufacturer.
The Secret Service didn't respond to a set of emailed questions RCP posed about the Army-Navy game drone downing.
Such a friendly-fire incident would not be the first time this year that a federal law enforcement agency was involved in shooting down a U.S. government drone.
The U.S. military accidentally shot down a U.S. Customs and Border Protection drone using a high-energy anti-drone laser system near Fort Hancock, Texas, in February. Reports on the incident said the CBP didn't coordinate the flight with the military task force assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Still, the agency's silence around the Army-Navy incident is once again stoking internal agency concern that Secret Service leaders have yet to fix all siloed communications between agency assets that are supposed to be working in tandem to protect President Trump.
Another case of siloed communications?
The friendly-fire accusations cite a disconnect between the Secret Service's drone surveillance operators and a team dedicated to disrupting drones that may pose a threat to Trump. The sources say they are raising concerns about the incident because they are deeply worried that the agency has yet to fix the communications confusion that contributed to the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The shooting wounded Trump, killed retired fireman Corey Comperatore, and seriously injured two other men, James Copenhaver and David Dutch.
Congressional investigators found that on July 13, 2024, information about shooter Thomas Crooks moved through two largely separate channels - local police and the Secret Service - and also failed to spread within the Secret Service's own network.
'Nothing changes here'
A Biden administration Department of Homeland Security official moved quickly after former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle's resignation in 2024 to reassure Rowe, the incoming acting director at the time, that operations would continue unchanged under his new leadership - even as the agency struggled to defend itself to Congress and the public over Trump's near-assassination.
Newly released documents obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America, a conservative watchdog organization, through ongoing Freedom of Information Act litigation reveal new internal reactions to the Butler shooting. The files also provide new detail about the fallout after Cheatle's resignation as Secret Service director days later.
Then-DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued an agency-wide email at 1:08 p.m. on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, on his statement regarding Cheatle's resignation, under pressure from lawmakers after her testimony to Congress and Rowe's appointment.
In the statement, Mayorkas commended Cheatle for what he cast as her "tireless dedication," "honor," and "integrity" over nearly three decades in the Secret Service.
"Over the past two years, she has led the Secret Service with skill, honor, integrity and tireless dedication," he said.
Six minutes later, at 1:14 p.m., a DHS official forwarded that same statement - this time to Rowe alone - with a personal note attached: "Nothing changes here, Ron, I have your back."
"Thank you," Rowe replied.
The identity of the person who forwarded the email to Rowe was redacted in the first version CASA received. CASA Director James Fitzpatrick says the DHS and the Secret Service withheld the name, citing personal privacy and a concern that disclosure could interfere with law enforcement proceedings.
CASA appealed the redaction, and a judge agreed to overturn it, revealing that Patrick "PJ" Lechleitner, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from July 2023 to January 2025, sent the note to Rowe.
CASA Director James Fitzpatrick interpreted Lechleitner's "nothing changes" remark as an endorsement of the status quo at both DHS and the Secret Service after a disgraceful breakdown in security.
"Through aggressive FOIA litigation, CASA uncovered documents from the Biden [DHS] showing that an official reassured Ron Rowe just hours after Cheatle resigned that 'nothing changes here' after one of the biggest security breakdowns in the history of the country in Butler, PA," he told RCP.
Contacted by RealClearPolitics, Lechleitner said the comments he made to Rowe at the time were from one "cop to another" that "nothing changes" - "everything is good between ICE and the Secret Service."
"Honestly, I had worked with Ron, and we were all career people before [our political appointments]," he said.
The message was simply one of support, Leichleitner explained.
"It was just [that the] relationship remains regardless of the leadership that moves around," he said.
Lechleitner also said his career background before heading ICE was in DHS's Homeland Security Investigations department, which often works directly with the Secret Service to provide additional federal agents to assist with security at events. In fact, several HSI agents had augmented security for the Butler rally.
Trump removed Lechleitner along with other key Biden immigration enforcement officials on his first day in office.
DEI and a lack of training 'had nothing to do with' Butler failures
A second document provided to CASA through the FOIA process provides details of the "murder board" prep sheet - mock question-and-answer exercise agencies use to prepare officials for hostile congressional questioning - used to ready Rowe for his July 30, 2024, appearance before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.
Talking points in the document, as described by CASA, include assertions that a forthcoming investigation would show a "thorough security plan" had been in place, that "DEI issues had nothing to do with" the security breakdown, that there was "not a lack of USSS training," and that there had merely been "an unwanted outcome" in Thomas Crooks' near-killing of Trump.
The document also states the agency would "take steps to ensure an unwanted outcome like this does not occur again."
Six weeks later, in September 2024, a second near-miss attempt was made on Trump's life at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. During that incident, a Secret Service agent shot and missed Ryan Routh, who was hiding in the shrubs near the sixth hole while pointing a rifle at Trump and his security team.
Congressional investigations and a GAO report have concluded that inadequate preparation and training contributed to the near-killing of Trump at the July 13, 2024, Butler rally.
Fitzpatrick argues the prep materials show Rowe working to shield the Biden administration's DEI mandates and the Secret Service's training problems from scrutiny rather than fully reckoning with the agency's failures.
"Not only that, but during Rowe's preparation for this July 30, 2024, testimony to a joint Senate committee, he attempts to mask the various downfalls of the Secret Service and goes out of his way to try to protect the Biden DEI initiatives that the agency was obsessed with at the time," Fitzpatrick said.
CASA says the FOIA litigation is ongoing and that it expects additional records to surface as the redaction appeal proceeds.
The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment.
A dissenting voice from inside the agency
Rowe's Senate testimony contradicts assertions by numerous former senior Secret Service agents and at least one current agent who has spoken out against the agency's DEI policies, which he asserts directly contributed to the Butler shooting.
Rashid Ellis, a 13-year veteran of the agency who has served in an elite unit and on top protective assignments, last year sat down for an interview with the Independent Women's Forum, a Virginia-based conservative nonprofit.
"My initial thoughts when seeing the Butler assassination attempt was dread," Ellis says in a video. "My stomach was in knots watching it because we had known for years that this was coming."
Ellis went further in the interview, saying he believes internal DEI agendas at the agency had long taken precedence over its protective mission, and that this dynamic is directly connected to what happened in Butler.
A graduate of The Citadel military college in South Carolina, Ellis has held a string of high-level assignments over his 13-year career, including a stint on the agency's Counter Assault Team, an elite tactical unit, and a posting on the Presidential Protective Detail. He has also taught counter-surveillance as an instructor at the Secret Service's training center.
Ellis, who is African American, argued in his lawsuit that the agency's diversity-based hiring and promotion practices have damaged morale and fueled a wave of departures among senior agents.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 10/19/2026 - 13:25
Recent comments