Judicial Watch announced on Friday it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records relating to an incident at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland in which a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly got into a scuffle with colleagues (Judicial Watch v. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-01705)).
According to an April 24 report by the Washington Examiner, a Secret Service agent was removed from her duties after physically attacking the commanding agent in charge and other agents who tried to subdue her.
A later report states: “The agents involved in restraining [Michelle] Herczeg were especially concerned because she still had her gun in the holster. They wrestled her to the ground, took the gun from her, cuffed her, and then removed her from the terminal.” The report also states that, following the incident at Joint Base Andrews, which is the home base for Air Force One and Air Force Two:
Secret Service agents and officers are privately questioning the hiring process and whether the agency had adequately screened Herczeg’s background. Some also wonder whether her hire was part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion push in response to years of staff shortages that may have required the agency to lower its once-strict employment standards and physical performance to reach quotas for female agents and officers.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after DHS failed to respond to an April 25, 2024, FOIA request for:
All records related to a reported incident at Joint Base Andrews in which a Secret Service agent was involved in an altercation with colleagues on or about April 23, 2024, including but not limited to incident reports, Vice Presidential protective detail agents’ emails and text messages, and emails and text messages of the following USSS officials: Director Kimberly Cheatle, Deputy Dir. Ronald Rowe, Chief Operating Officer Cynthia Radway, Asst. Dir. Michael Plati, Asst. Dir. Brian Lambert, Chief Human, Capital Officer Denise Walker Hall, Asst. Dir. David Smith, Asst. Dir. Miltom Wilson, Uniformed Division Chief Michael Buck, Chief Counsel Thomas Huse, and Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi.
All SF-50s, SF-52s, training completion forms, and disciplinary records of Secret Service Agent Michelle Herczeg.
All USSS and DHS policy documents related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the hiring, employment, training and discipline of Secret Service agents.
Prior to the altercation, Herczeg reportedly arrived at Joint Base Andrews “and began acting erratically, grabbing another senior agent’s personal phone and deleting applications on it, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The other agent, a shift leader, was able to recover his phone and then acted as if nothing had happened.”
“The catastrophic security failure behind the attempted assassination of former President Trump shows how the management and quality of Secret Service personnel are urgent issues,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Secret Service’s illicit cover-up of these documents about the Kamala Harris protective detail incident is not reassuring.”
In May 2024, Judicial Watch obtained a recording of a phone message left by an FBI special agent for someone at the Secret Service in the context of the raid on President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
In February 2024, Judicial Watch received Secret Service records showing Assistant Director Michael Plati ordering his staff not to respond to a request for information from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s head of security. The documents also confirmed that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas and President Biden both had the discretion to provide Secret Service protection to Kennedy at any time.
In October 2022, Judicial Watch sued the Department of Homeland Security for all communications of the U.S. Secret Service internally and with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding the raid on President Trump’s home and for any video or audio recordings made during the raid on August 8, 2022.
Judicial Watch has launched a major independent investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Author: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. Visit Judicial Watch at https://www.judicialwatch.org/
