Secret Service officials are reportedly angry with FBI Director Kash Patel for announcing Tuesday the FBI had intercepted an alleged plot targeting President Donald Trump’s UFC Freedom 250 event before many arrests had been made in the case.
Officials “woke up” Tuesday morning to find Patel had posted on X, boasting about the FBI’s work to thwart the planned attack and arrest several individuals accused of conspiring in the plot. Patel thanked the Department of Justice as well as “law enforcement partners.”
However, not all suspects had been arrested and the case was sealed in court at the time, angering Secret Service officials who led the investigation, sources told MSNOW.
Matt Quinn, deputy director for the Secret Service, appeared to comment on the furor Tuesday. “I’ll tell you a phrase I learned early in my career in the New York field office and that’s ‘Don’t choke on your own smoke,’” he said at a press conference.
Quinn said the Secret Service “led that investigation from the beginning,” and “chose not to leak it” because they wanted to maintain the integrity of the ongoing investigation.
The Independent has asked the Secret Service and FBI for comment.
Less than an hour after Patel’s post, Secret Service Director Sean Curran released a statement saying the agency’s primary responsibility is safeguarding the president and that it worked closely with the FBI throughout the investigation.
“Equally important to our protective mission is ensuring accountability through the justice system,” Curran wrote. “To that end, our formal comments regarding the specifics of this case will be made through court filings.”
Federal law enforcement had five people in custody Monday but identified 23 others as part of a “network of plotters” who allegedly planned to use a drone equipped with an explosive to hit buildings near the event, force a mass evacuation and steer crowds toward a sniper team, officials told Fox News Digital.
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment Tuesday, accusing 19-year-old Tycen Proper of planning the attack to “jumpstart” a revolution in the U.S.
After a search warrant was conducted on June 11, law enforcement uncovered a Signal chat that included messages between Proper and others about planning the alleged attack.
However, sources told MSNOW that the Secret Service and FBI discussed making more arrests and unsealing the case by late Tuesday afternoon before making a joint public statement. Ultimately, Patel chose to make the announcement Tuesday morning.
UFC Freedom 250 was a cage match that took place on the White House South Lawn June 14. The event, while billed as an event celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, also took place on Trump’s birthday.
Patel has a history of rushing to publicly announce the details of investigations.
Last year, the FBI director announced a potential suspect in the fatal shooting of activist Charlie Kirk was in custody, only to explain less than two hours later the individual had been released after being cleared in an interrogation.
Patel generated controversy another controversy soon after when he tweeted out a photo of crime scene evidence from a shooting at an ICE facility in Texas in September, alleging a set of bullets were engraved with the message “ANTI ICE” and were proof of an “ideological motive.”
Then, in December, Patel again shared a premature victory message, claiming a “person of interest” was in custody for a shooting at Brown University, though he later specified the person was released without charges.
