New Lawsuit After Kamala Harris Secret Service Brawl

A public ethics watchdog is suing to uncover documents on a bizarre incident in which a Secret Service agent assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris physically assaulted her supervisor and several agents who tried to restrain her.

The lawsuit comes after the baffling failure of the agency to stop a man from attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump in a shooting that left one man dead and Trump and two others wounded.

The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch announced they filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security 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.”

“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.”

“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,” Judicial Watch reports.

According to a later report “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.” 

“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,” Judicial Watch notes.

“Secret Service agents and officers are privately questioning the hiring process and whether the agency had adequately screened Herczeg’s background,” the reports notes, adding “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.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.