Secret Service spending $90M to find new agents before 2028 presidential election
Secret Service spending $90M to find new agents before 2028 presidential election
Alex Croft Wed, July 29, 2026 at 12:57 PM UTC
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The U.S. Secret Service is set to spend $90 million on a contract for a major advertising campaign aimed at dramatically scaling up the size of its force, documents show.
The contract appears to be the largest ever awarded by the Secret Service to an external company for recruitment, coming as the agency continues its ramped up hiring drive for an understaffed workforce.
It has been awarded to Avvy LLC, a Virginia-based business which has never previously won a federal contract and will be tasked with producing advertisements on TV, radio and streaming services during prime time, with hundreds of millions of impressions expected, according to contract documents seen by Notus.
The Secret Service hopes that more than 41,000 applicants will be delivered in the coming year, making up around half of the Secret Service’s goal to bring in 80,000 applicants in that period.
Members of the U.S. Secret Service stand guard on the day of the funeral service for late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (Reuters)
The agency wants to hire 4,000 new employees by 2028, a Secret Service spokesperson told The Independent, amid concerns about burnout within its ranks and the declining numbers of experienced agents in recent months. Meeting this goal would see the service expand by around 20 per cent and surpass 10,000 employees for the first time.
The new recruitment campaign is “massive” and “unprecedented”, one former senior homeland security official said, and it comes as Secret Service leaders prepare for a 2028 security calendar that includes the presidential campaign, Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and party conventions.
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Last year, the Secret Service received $1.2 billion in a major reconciliation package for recruiting, retention incentives, and recruitment bonuses - but as of May it had still gained only 400 new employees since Donald Trump took office in January 2025.
The agency’s ongoing struggles were laid bare in a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, which put the staffing challenges into the spotlight.
In a partly redacted report, the inspector general found that the Secret Service was understaffed by an average of 21.4 per cent during the 2023 and 2024 fiscal year.
The recruitment drive comes ahead of the 2028 presidential election (Getty)
Staffing challenges had led agents to be assigned marathon shifts with little rest in between, with 1.2 million hours of logged overtime causing widespread burnout and exhaustion, the report found. Poor planning had meant the agency had assigned unqualified personnel to protective operations.
The Secret Service has also been relying heavily on external personnel for protection events. In one event, Homeland Security Investigations provided nearly 80 per cent of agents, the inspector general said.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesperson, said the recruitment drive is designed to “rightsize and properly staff the agency to meet the demands of a significantly heightened mission.”
“Through the federal procurement process, the agency selected a strategic marketing partner to support recruitment goals,” he added.
The Independent has contacted the Secret Service for further comment.
Source: “AOL Breaking”
