Secret Service Mismanaging Funds, Leaving Homeland Security Agents Out to Dry, Whistleblower Claims

The Secret Service has badly mismanaged taxpayer dollars to the point that agents aren’t being reimbursed after traveling on assignment with little advance notice, according to a whistleblower who came forward to Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa).

Grassley sent a letter Wednesday to government officials, including Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and acting Secret Service director Ron Rowe, asking them to turn over records related to the Secret Service’s alleged inability to reimburse Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents for assignments to accompany Secret Service personnel in their protective work.

For fiscal year 2024, congress appropriated roughly $1.5 billion of funding to the Secret Service specifically designated for its protective mission. Of that funding, $1.03 billion was allocated to protect specific people, with $244 million meant for presidential campaigns and special events, according to a congressional research service report cited in Grassley’s letter.

“However, according to legally protected whistleblower disclosures provided to my office, the Secret Service has failed to timely and adequately transfer funds to Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) to reimburse expenses paid by HSI agents detailed to HSI ‘Jump Teams’ used to provide the Secret Service with additional manpower in carrying out its protection mission,” Grassley wrote.

Internal DHS emails turned over to Grassley’s office appear to corroborate the whistleblower disclosures. The heavily redacted records show that the Secret Service did not transfer the necessary funding to HSI for reimbursements. The issue became so pronounced that the reimbursement account dwindled to $33 and officials asked HSI agents not to submit travel authorizations.

Grassley is demanding the Secret Service explain what appears to be a significant mismanagement of funds that is depleting the morale of HSI agents. To that end, he is requesting records from 2021 to the present on the “jump team” assignments and the funds transferred to HSI for reimbursement purposes.

Moreover, he is transmitting questions about the decision-making process for HSI agent travel assignments and whether DHS violated federal law under the Antideficiency Act that prevents federal agencies from spending more money than what congress appropriated.

“DHS responds to congressional correspondence directly via official channels, and the Department will continue to respond to congressional oversight,” a DHS spokesperson told National Review.

In the wake of the assassination attempts on former president Donald Trump, the Secret Service’s management practices have come under intense scrutiny.

“The Secret Service has a critical, no-fail protective mission to carry out. Based on protected whistleblower disclosures, it neglected to transfer enough funds for HSI to reimburse its agents, calling into question the agency’s ability to manage federal resources and raising major concerns,” Grassley said in a statement provided to National Review.

The first attempt on Trump’s life happened during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., in July when 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto a rooftop and fired shots into the crowd.

One of Crooks’s bullets grazed Trump’s ear and the former president famously pumped his fist, yelling “fight!” to the crowd moments after being wounded. Crooks’s attack killed former fire chief Corey Comperatore and wounded two other victims. A Secret Service sniper quickly gunned Crooks down once he started shooting.

The first assassination attempt is one of the most dramatic law enforcement debacles in U.S. history because the Secret Service and local officers failed to identify and deter Crooks in time to stop the shooting. Former Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her post weeks later after she received bipartisan condemnation for failing to answer basic questions during a House Oversight Committee hearing on what went wrong in Butler.

Rowe admitted to the Secret Service’s failures when he testified at a senate hearing in August and promised to institute a series of changes to the agency’s protocols while holding accountable the employees responsible for the mistakes in Butler.

Crooks’s rampage has been the subject of numerous investigations from congressional lawmakers and law enforcement agencies.

A bipartisan senate report released last month gave a detailed account of the Secret Service’s systemic failures leading up to Crooks’s attempt. Separately, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) released a report on whistleblower allegations related to the Secret Service’s handling of the Trump campaign rally.

Federal prosecutors are also pressing forward with their criminal case against Ryan Routh, the second suspected would-be Trump assassin, who is accused of hiding out on Trump’s Palm Beach golf course lying in wait to kill the former president.

Before he could fire a shot, a Secret Service agent spotted Routh and fired at him. Routh unsuccessfully attempted to flee the scene and law enforcement subsequently nabbed him with help from a civilian witness. A staunch advocate for Ukraine, Routh mused in his self-published manifesto about Iran carrying out an assassination of Trump.