Secret Service agents never saw the drone Thomas Crooks used to find his shot on Donald Trump.
Now the agency's number two just quit and what pushed him out is worse than Butler.
The Secret Service deputy director just resigned and the drone his team celebrated as a kill was actually one of their own.
Last December, President Trump attended the Army-Navy game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore surrounded by layers of Secret Service protection.
The agency's Specialized Rifle Unit spotted an unidentified drone and jammed it out of the sky.
Agents celebrated until they found out the drone belonged to the Secret Service itself.
Sources told RealClearPolitics the SRU team "failed to deconflict" – meaning they shot down their own surveillance drone without ever checking whose it was first.
The downed drone fell onto or just beside Interstate 395, where agents quietly recovered it.
None of it made it into the 60 Minutes report that aired October 11.
Norah O'Donnell brought cameras to the agency's Rowley Training Center and aired 13 minutes with Secret Service Director Sean Curran and his deputy Matt Quinn on the drone threat to President Trump.
O'Donnell included one unattributed line claiming the Secret Service had used jamming equipment to take down a drone at the Army-Navy game.
CBS called it a win.
It also featured a live demonstration of the DroneHunter – a counter-drone weapon made by Fortem Technologies.
What 60 Minutes never mentioned: Quinn had been Fortem's senior vice president before Director Curran brought him back as the agency's deputy director in 2025.
Secret Service agents had been raising questions for months about whether Quinn ever recused himself from DroneHunter procurement decisions given his direct financial ties to Fortem.
The Secret Service never announced any recusal.
The DroneHunter itself failed to operate properly on the day O'Donnell showed up to film the demonstration.
What 60 Minutes Left Out About the Man Narrating the DroneHunter Demo
Quinn ran the Washington revolving door in both directions.
He retired from the Secret Service in 2021 after 23 years, then spent three years selling Fortem's drone-hunting technology back to his former agency.
Director Curran hired him back in 2025 as the number two – now overseeing the purchases he'd spent those years pitching.
RealClearPolitics submitted detailed questions to the Secret Service about whether DroneHunter purchases were competitively bid and about the platform's actual effectiveness.
The Secret Service didn't respond.
The Secret Service Email Biden Officials Tried to Hide After Butler
FOIA documents obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America reveal that just hours after Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in disgrace following the Butler shooting, a senior Biden official reached out to her replacement.
Acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner messaged incoming Secret Service chief Ron Rowe: "Nothing changes here, Ron, I have your back."
Biden's team tried to redact Lechleitner's identity from those released records – a federal judge overturned it.
The same Biden-era leadership prepared talking points for Rowe's Senate testimony insisting "DEI issues had nothing to do with" the Butler security breakdown.
Rashid Ellis, a 13-year veteran who served on the Presidential Protective Detail and the Counter Assault Team, went on record saying the opposite.
Ellis said the agency's DEI agenda had taken precedence over its protective mission for years – and he saw Butler coming.
In September 2024, Ryan Routh hid in the shrubs near the sixth hole at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course pointing a rifle at the President – and the Secret Service agent who spotted him fired and missed.
The Secret Service inspector general later confirmed the agency never detected the drone Crooks used to scout Trump's position at Butler – calling it a missed opportunity to stop the shooting.
The agency that was supposed to fix its drone failures hired Fortem's senior vice president as its second-in-command.
Then it put him on 60 Minutes to promote his former employer's product without mentioning where he'd worked.
And when his team shot down their own drone and called it a win, nobody corrected the record.
Biden's people told Ron Rowe "nothing changes" – and they kept their word.
Sources:
- Susan Crabtree, "Secret Service Deputy Director Quits Amid Questions Over Ties to Drone-Defense Maker Fortem," RealClearPolitics, October 19, 2026.
- Teri Christoph, "Quinn Resignation from USSS," RedState, October 16, 2026.
- Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, "Secret Service 'Totally Accountable' for Butler, Deputy Director Says," Daily Signal, July 10, 2025.
- "Maryland Lawmakers Say They Weren't Alerted to Drone Takedown at Army-Navy Game," Fox Baltimore, 2026.
