Secret Service deputy Matt Quinn stepping down after 18 months back on the job

Deputy Secret Service Director Matt Quinn is leaving the agency about 18 months after coming out of retirement, citing family time even as conflict-of-interest questions trailed his return.

Matt Quinn said Friday he is working on a near-term exit from the No. 2 job at the U.S. Secret Service and plans to return to retirement so he can spend more time with his family.

Just The News reported that the departure lands roughly 18 months after Quinn left retirement to take the deputy director post, and that he has been coordinating the handoff with Secret Service Director Sean Curran for months.

Quinn framed the move as orderly and already in motion. He told the workforce the agency is in solid shape and that leadership has been planning the change for some time.

On X, Quinn wrote that the notice went out internally the same day.

Quinn said:

"Today I informed the men and women of the Secret Service that I will be transitioning out of my role as Deputy Director,"

He added that he and Curran had mapped the exit carefully.

Quinn said:

"Director Curran and I have been working on a thoughtful transition plan for months now. Proud of the men & women of the USSS and all your accomplishments!"

He also described the Secret Service as "well-positioned for the future."

Family first, after a short second tour

Quinn’s stated reason is personal. He said it is the right time to go back into retirement and to put family first, while leaving as quickly as possible under the plan worked out with Curran.

That short second tour follows a long first one. According to RealClearPolitics material cited in the same reporting, Quinn served 25 years in the Secret Service before he left for the private sector.

He then spent three years at Fortem Technologies, a drone manufacturer, before returning to the Secret Service last year. The deputy director role was the post he took when he came back.

Personnel churn at the top of government is familiar ground for readers tracking other high-level exits, including coverage of an Army secretary expected to step down after prolonged internal conflict.

Conflict questions followed the Fortem years

Quinn’s exit also follows reports that raised a potential conflict of interest tied to his work at Fortem Technologies. The Just The News account notes the sequencing but does not detail a formal ethics finding, recusal order, or completed investigation in the available record.

What is clear is the employment path: a quarter-century inside the Secret Service, three years at a drone firm, then a return to the agency’s senior ranks, and now another departure less than two years later.

Protective agencies already face intense scrutiny when leadership wobbles, a point underscored in prior reporting on how the Secret Service put three officials on leave as a misconduct probe widened concerns about credibility.

Drone swarms and a staffing claim

Quinn recently told "60 Minutes" he does not feel the Secret Service is prepared to handle a drone swarm attack. That warning sits uncomfortably beside his private-sector background in drone technology and the conflict questions that followed him back into government.

At the same time, he pointed to a hiring turnaround on his watch. According to the deputy director, the Secret Service recorded a net gain of more than 900 law enforcement personnel this year, compared with 87 last year. He has said he is most proud of helping reshape the leadership team and lifting law-enforcement staffing.

Those figures, if sustained, would matter for an agency that guards presidents, candidates, and major events. They do not answer the open file on how the service would stop a coordinated drone assault, the gap Quinn himself flagged on national television.

Senior staff moves elsewhere in the executive branch have followed a similar public pattern of rapid announcements and tight transition talk, including when Trump tapped a new White House press secretary after another high-profile departure.

What still is not settled

No successor was named in the Friday announcement. No final calendar date for Quinn’s last day was published. No city or venue beyond the internal notice and the X post was identified.

The conflict-of-interest reports are described only in outline. The "60 Minutes" remarks on drone-swarm readiness are summarized, not quoted at full length, and no air date appears in the seed reporting.

Even so, the core facts are plain. A deputy director who returned from retirement lasting about 18 months is leaving. He and the director already built a transition plan. Family and a second retirement are the reasons he put on the record. The Fortem chapter and the drone-preparedness warning remain part of the public backdrop.

Other recent personnel shifts have shown how fast top jobs can turn over when pressure rises, a dynamic also visible when coverage tracked the appointment of Katie Zacharia as press secretary after the prior exit.

Americans who fund and depend on the Secret Service deserve leaders who stay long enough to finish the hard upgrades, staffing, drone defense, and clean ethics lines, not another short tour that ends before the public gets clear answers.