Secret Service agents will receive tailored suits paid for by taxpayers after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly disliked how a protective detail was dressed, according to a public contract solicitation from the Department of Homeland Security.
The solicitation, first reported by CNN, states that graduates from protective detail training will receive two navy blue suits with their name embroidered inside the jacket. The suits must be entirely made in the United States, and the contract covers a five-year ordering period, with the cost yet to be determined.
Two sources familiar with the matter told CNN that Noem did not like the suits a protective detail had bought for themselves, prompting the new solicitation. However, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin denied that optics were the reason, saying, "This does not have to do with optics."
McLaughlin explained that agents in the Secret Service's Uniformed Division do not have to pay for their on-duty clothes, but agents in protective details do. "This is to fix the inequity that non-uniformed [officers] have to pay for their uniform," she said.
A CNN source said the Secret Service found funding within its current budget. It is unclear whether the partial government shutdown will affect the solicitation, as Democrats withhold funding from DHS over immigration enforcement reforms.
Former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican critic of the Trump administration, mocked the initiative on X, writing: "DHS has so much money (thank GOP) that now new secret service detail agents get two new tailored suits each!" He also referenced a reported $70 million luxury jet that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to buy.
