The Secret Service’s polygraph examinations are some of the toughest in law enforcement. Job candidates spend hours getting grilled by seasoned agents who probe into their personal lives to find out if they’re fit to protect the president and the country’s highest officeholders and candidates.
For decades, that work was performed by an in-house team of specialized examiners.
Now, a push to hire thousands of new agents and officers in time for the 2028 election cycle has prompted the Secret Service to outsource some of these notoriously rigorous tests for the first time in its history.
The Secret Service and the General Services Administration this year signed contracts of up to $20 million allowing three private polygraph companies to administer the exams over the next five years.
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The contractors have polygraphed hundreds of candidates across several hiring events in recent months, charging more than $2,000 per exam, according to federal contracting records and people familiar with the process.
The change comes amid a historic rise in threats against public officials as well as wider concerns about vetting standards at other federal law enforcement agencies looking to expand their ranks with an infusion of funding from Congress.
To boost recruitment, the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have lowered hiring standards and abbreviated training, eliciting concern from policymakers and current and former law enforcement officials. Secret Service leaders are under pressure to speed up hiring as well, but they have said repeatedly that they are not reducing their standards.
Secret Service Deputy Director Matthew Quinn, who authorized the contractor arrangement, said it was just as intensive as the in-house team’s and was necessary to reduce a backlog of polygraphs that had built up as the agency embarked on an aggressive recruitment campaign.
The Secret Service’s polygraph program — which typically employs roughly three dozen examiners — historically could keep pace with the churn of applicants.
But the agency turbocharged its hiring last year with the goal of netting 4,000 new employees, in preparation for a breakneck protective schedule in 2028. That led to a surge of new candidates who needed screening, according to Quinn.
In-house examiners still do about four tests a week when they aren’t being pulled into other assignments, such as the UN General Assembly meeting this week. The contract examiners are brought in periodically for additional support at events where the Secret Service allows candidates to pack the polygraph and other screening assessments into a long weekend.
“It’s been a needed force multiplier,” Quinn said in an interview. “Without it, we would not be able to maintain our hiring tempo and keep the pipeline of applicants moving through the way we are right now.”
The proposal initially faced resistance from some inside the service who objected to the break from the agency’s longstanding norms around its polygraphs.
Over the summer, an anonymous whistleblower complaint was filed with GSA’s inspector general protesting the contracts. The Washington Sun could not independently confirm the allegations in the complaint, which was first reported by the website Antipolygraph.org.
The move to third-party polygraphs also alarmed some of the Secret Service’s retired polygraph examiners, who worried that it could jeopardize vetting standards for the people tasked with guarding the president, his family and other top leaders.
“You need people who really know the job to be a gatekeeper,” said a former longtime Secret Service polygraph examiner who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “A polygraph examiner doesn’t just do polygraphs — you do protection, you do investigations, you do all of it. You know the job top to bottom. They can craft their questions and their interview to match having actually done all those jobs before.”
According to Quinn, all but two of the 20 contract polygraph examiners the agency has used so far at its hiring events are former Secret Service examiners.
All have to go through a weeklong Secret Service training where they’re revalidated on the agency’s standards. They also have to do what are known as “check ride” tests where current Secret Service examiners evaluate their performance. At the hiring events, Secret Service quality control supervisors closely review every test they administer.
“We’re cherry-picking the ones that we want,” Quinn said. “All of these people have maintained their skills. We didn’t pull people off the bench who have been out for years and decided they just want to come and do polys.”
The decision to contract out some polygraphs is especially sensitive because of the program’s elite — and imposing — reputation.
The agency’s polygraph examiners have long been a small, tight-knit group, and the bar for entry is high.
Agents spend three months training in a classroom and lab with the National Center for Credibility Assessment, a federal institution that certifies government polygraph examiners. Then they train directly with the Secret Service for several more months, watching experienced mentors conduct exams before performing dozens of their own under close scrutiny.
The applicant exams often last five hours or more, and they can be grueling. They involve two components: one covering national security issues, the other focused on the candidate’s integrity. A challenge coin given to some polygraph examiners features an image of a flaming skull with wings, along with text reading, “Let the mindgames begin” and “Justica per verum” — Latin for “Justice through truth.”
Some candidates fly through the test in a few hours with no issues. But it’s not uncommon for the exams to last at least twice that long. Some agents liken it to psychological torture.
“A hellscape,” one former agent said of the process. “One of the worst experiences of my career,” said another, who retired last year after two decades with the agency.
“It’s a very psychologically challenging test that also brings in physical challenges because of the stress,” said Don Mihalek, a retired agent who protected presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. “You can get ready for a physical test, you can get ready for a written test. But there is no way to get ready for a polygraph other than being a complete open book when you go into it. And that’s hard for a lot of people to do.”
Though the exams themselves generally aren’t admissible in court, they have in some instances resulted in candidates admitting to crimes and being arrested, according to several current and former agents.
And they’re not just used for job applicants. The Secret Service’s polygraph examiners are routinely tapped by other law enforcement agencies for help on criminal cases and assist in the national Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program in investigations involving child exploitation and abuse.
“This is a proven format that has been used by the Secret Service for decades,” said a former senior Secret Service official who was also a polygraph examiner. “If anything, it has improved over the years.”
The Secret Service’s polygraph contracts highlight an ongoing scramble within the agency to expand its workforce as quickly as possible and reduce strain on its chronically overworked agents, officers and staffers. The overall goal is to get the agency to a record 10,000 employees total by around the time the presidential campaigns are in full swing.
To help get there, the agency recently awarded a $90 million contract for a national recruitment campaign that officials hope will draw more than 40,000 applicants. Hiring bonuses can now be up to $75,000, the highest of any federal law enforcement agency.
On a Reddit page run by users who claim to be current and former Secret Service staffers, applicants trade advice on how to navigate the hiring process.
In July, the page’s moderators announced a new rule: no posts or comments about the polygraph.
“We know the poly is frustrating, stressful, & unpredictable. but please don’t research it. You are hurting yourself,” the announcement read. “All you can do is relax, tell the truth, and see where the cards fall.”
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