Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn announced Friday that he is leaving the agency, an abrupt move that follows a series of high-profile security failures and a sharp increase in threats against the president.
The announcement comes roughly two years after the assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle described that incident as the agency’s “most significant operational failure in decades.” It also follows a shooting at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
“Today I informed the men and women of the Secret Service that I will be transitioning out of my role as Deputy Director,” Quinn wrote in a social media post Friday.
“Director Curran and I have been working on a thoughtful transition plan for months now,” he added.
“Proud of the men & women of the USSS and all your accomplishments!”
A longtime Secret Service agent, Quinn retired in 2021 after 23 years with the agency. He returned last May to serve as deputy director.
Quinn had recently faced scrutiny over comments he made in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday on CBS News.
Speaking with Norah O’Donnell, Quinn said drone swarms represented “a huge problem” and a “big threat” to the Secret Service, including around locations such as the White House.
Deputy Director of the US Secret Service Matthew Quinn announced Friday that he is leaving the agency amid a series of high-profile threats and foiled plots in the nation’s capital
FBI Director Kash Patel and Secret Service Director Sean Curran arrive for a press conference following a shooting in Washington, DC. Curran and Quinn have acknowledged a sharp rise in threat cases involving their protectees
Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump is rushed from the stage by Secret Service agents after being grazed by a bullet during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024
“I’d love to tell you the swarm problem is solved. It’s not,” Quinn said, while emphasizing that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. remains relatively safe.
The CBS segment showed Curran and Quinn demonstrating the agency’s counter-drone systems, including technology that combines artificial intelligence with radar.
During the interview, both Quinn and Secret Service Director Sean Curran were questioned about the agency’s broader challenge in adapting to a rapidly evolving threat landscape. Curran acknowledged that the environment was unlike anything the agency had previously experienced.
Curran said the Secret Service had handled about 10,000 threat cases involving its protectees since January—an increase of “40 percent” over the same period last year.
Quinn’s departure comes as the Secret Service faces mounting pressure to respond to rising threats, including drone attacks and plots targeting President Donald Trump.
Over the past year, those threats have included an alleged drone attack plot at the UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn in July, which the Secret Service and FBI foiled. They also include a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, in April.
Other threats against the president’s life were reported at his Florida golf course and during a July 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. At that event, a gunman fired eight rounds from the roof of a nearby building, grazing then-candidate Donald Trump’s ear.
A Department of Homeland Security inspector general’s report released in June concluded that the Secret Service missed “multiple” opportunities to detect, prevent and disrupt the Butler gunman before the attack.
“Do we recognize the threat environment has increased? Absolutely,” Quinn told O’Donnell.
‘How we do it and how we change – that’s where we prefer to stay, in [the] background,’ he said.
