United States Secret Service

The United States Secret Service is a federal law enforcement agency with two statutory functions: the protection of the President, the Vice President, their families, former Presidents, visiting heads of state and major candidates, and the investigation of offenses against the currency and of a list of financial fraud statutes. It was a unit of the United States Department of the Treasury from 1865 to 2003 and has since been a component of the Department of Homeland Security.¹²

Founding

"The Secret Service Division was formed on July 5, 1865 as part of the Department of the Treasury." Its first chief, William P. Wood, was sworn in by Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch. The division was organized to suppress counterfeiting at the end of the Civil War, when "nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit."¹

After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, "Congress requested Secret Service protection of U.S. presidents." In 1902 "the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for protection of the President," with two agents assigned to the White House Detail.¹

Statutory basis

The agency's powers are codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3056, "Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service," first enacted on June 25, 1948 (ch. 645, 62 Stat. 818) and amended repeatedly through 2022. Subsection (a) lists the protectees: "The President, the Vice President (or other officer next in the order of succession to the Office of President)," their immediate families, "Former Presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes," "Visiting heads of foreign states or foreign governments," and "Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates," among others; protection under paragraphs 2 through 8 "may be declined." Subsection (b) grants arrest and investigative authority over "any of the laws of the United States relating to coins, obligations, and securities of the United States and of foreign governments" and over enumerated financial fraud offenses. Subsection (d) makes it a federal offense to "knowingly and willfully obstruct, resist, or interfere with" the agency's protective functions.²

Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Department of Homeland Security Reorganization Plan of November 25, 2002, the statute was amended to substitute "of Homeland Security" for "of the Treasury" wherever it appeared. "On March 1, 2003, the Secret Service was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the new Department of Homeland Security."¹² The statute now provides that "No personnel and operational elements of the United States Secret Service shall report to an individual other than the Director of the United States Secret Service, who shall report directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security without being required to report through any other official of the Department."²

Directors

James J. Rowley "joined the Secret Service in New York in 1938, transferred to Washington the next year, and was named chief of its presidential protective division in 1947." He was sworn in as director in September 1961 by Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, while President John F. Kennedy "dropped in to greet Mr. Rowley's family," and he served until 1973. As director he "became head of not just the presidential security detail but also a force that investigated crimes." The Executive Protective Service, later the agency's Uniformed Division, was established during his tenure with responsibility for "physical security of the White House and American security at foreign diplomatic missions," and he was "instrumental in establishing the Consolidated Federal Law Enforcement Training Center." He died on November 1, 1992, at his home in Leisure World, Maryland.³ Rowley later sat on the board of the Wackenhut Corporation alongside the former CIA director Stansfield Turner, the former FBI director Clarence Kelley and the former DIA director Joseph Carroll.⁴

The agency's own list of recent directors records Julia A. Pierson, 23rd director, sworn in on March 27, 2013, the first woman to hold the post; Joseph P. Clancy, 24th, appointed February 18, 2015; Randolph D. "Tex" Alles, 25th, appointed April 25, 2017; James M. Murray, 26th, appointed in 2019; Kimberly A. Cheatle, 27th, appointed in 2022; and Sean M. Curran, 28th, appointed in 2025.¹

Counterfeiting investigations

The counterfeiting jurisdiction in § 3056(b) was the basis for the arrests in Bucks County in December 1974. On December 10, 1974, Hatboro police detained Raymond Hoersch, later known as R.C. Horsch, after a card shop reported a suspicious ten-dollar bill. Secret Service agents with a search warrant found 630 dollars in counterfeit notes in his car, seized printing equipment in a building on Taylor Street in Doylestown, and arrested Charles Griffith there. "U.S. Secret Service Agent James D'Amelio identified the suspects," the Associated Press reported. Accounts of the face value of the notes seized ranged from 180,000 dollars to more than one million dollars.⁵⁶

Watergate and the Kennedy records

On June 17, 1972, the day of the arrests at the Watergate, CIA cables recorded that Michael Mastrovito of the Secret Service "agreed to downplay McCord's Agency employment," referring to the arrested former CIA security officer James McCord.⁷

In January 1995, after the JFK Records Act had taken effect, the Secret Service destroyed protection survey reports for some of Kennedy's trips in the fall of 1963. The Assassination Records Review Board learned of the destruction about a week later.⁸

Cartagena inquiry (2012)

In April 2012, CNN reported, "United States Secret Service employees were in Cartagena, Colombia, preparing for a Presidential visit to the Summit of the Americas," and "several USSS employees were suspected of soliciting prostitutes."⁹ The DHS Office of Inspector General reviewed the agency's internal investigation in report OIG-13-24, "Adequacy of USSS' Internal Investigation of Alleged Misconduct in Cartagena, Colombia," released January 24, 2013.¹⁰ CBS News, summarizing the report, stated that thirteen employees had been suspected, that "three returned to duty, six resigned or retired," and that four "had their clearances revoked and were removed," and that the inspector general made "14 recommendations to improve the Secret Service's processes for identifying, mitigating, and addressing instances of misconduct."¹¹

Protective details

Reporting on the flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727 in 2016 noted that former President Bill Clinton traveled on at least some legs without his Secret Service detail. A 2019 statement from Clinton's spokesman said his Secret Service detail had traveled on every leg.¹²¹³ The writer S. Dovey described a May 1978 photograph of John Wayne Gacy with First Lady Rosalynn Carter in which Gacy wore a Secret Service clearance button.¹⁴