US Politics
Secret Service to get tailored suits at taxpayer expense after Kristi Noem disliked how protective detail was dressed: report
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Secret Service members will get tailored suits at the expense of taxpayers after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem disliked how a protective detail was dressed, according to a new report.
Graduates from protective detail training will get two navy blue suits with their name embroidered on the inside of the jacket, according to a public contract solicitation from the Department of Homeland Security, as first reported by CNN. The suits must be entirely made in the United States, the solicitation published last week states.
Two people familiar with the matter told CNN Noem didn’t like the suits a protective detail had bought for themselves, prompting the new suit solicitation.
The cost of the contract is yet to be determined and it will cover a five-year ordering period.
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A CNN source said the Secret Service found funding inside its current budget. It’s unclear whether the partial government shutdown will affect the solicitation, as Democrats withhold funding from DHS in a battle to reform its immigration enforcement arm.
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN about the new suits, “This does not have to do with optics.”
McLaughlin said that agents in the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division don’t have to pay for their on-duty clothes, but agents in protective details do. Uniformed Division officers wear protective vests and dark clothing.
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“This is to fix the inequity that non-uniformed [officers] have to pay for their uniform,” she said.
The Independent has reached out to DHS and the White House for comment.
Former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican critic of the Trump administration, mocked the new initiative.
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“DHS has so much money (thank GOP) that now new secret service detail agents get two new tailored suits each!” he wrote on X.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed last summer, gave about $170 billion for immigration enforcement over the next several years.
Kinzinger said the suits “will look nice on the plush new jet too,” referring to the $70 million luxury jet Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reportedly trying to buy.
