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Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump raised many pressing questions: Who was behind the attack, what was their motive, and how might this affect the upcoming general election? But for at least one person, anyway, there was a topic missing from the national discourse: Which watches were on the wrists of the US Secret Service agents who flocked to Trump after the gunshots?
That question lands smack dab in the middle of Watches of Espionage’s wheelhouse. WoE is an Instagram account dedicated to cataloging watches involved in military operations or worn by veterans. Some recent posts from the account, whose operator is an anonymous former CIA intelligence operative, include a recounting of what pilots wore on their wrists during D-Day or the watches involved in a recent Counter Assault Team mission in New York. Still, responding to an assassination attempt on a former POTUS with a watch ID was easy joke fodder on social media. “Watch nerds on the ‘gram really are a special species,” one person on X joked with an image of WoE’s post.
For WoE, this was just business as usual. “Whenever there is a global event or national security incident, a watch is involved,” they said in an email. Typically WoE receives images directly through relationships they have with different military units, but the USSS is unique because its members are so often in the public eye and in widely distributed images. According to WoE, the Secret Service “have a deep watch culture with custom ‘unit watches’ from Omega, Tudor, Breitling, and several others.” Which is why, “after getting over the shock of the assassination attempt,” WoE went to work identifying the watch: an Omega Seamaster customized for USSS agents.
WoE understands that the Omega is unimportant in the context of an assassination attempt—but this is precisely the type of event the account is built to cover. Watch media is built on these types of micro obsessions: there are accounts dedicated to single brands, ones that meticulously cover the watches celebrities wear, and others focused on the timepieces owned by characters in television and movies. WoE’s zone of coverage just happened to drop them in the middle of the biggest news story in the world. That’s how you get an image of Trump, ear bloodied just moments after an attempt on his life, and the focus is somehow directed at a watch on an agent’s wrist. “The Omega Seamaster is relatively insignificant and trivial,” they admitted. “That said, at Watches of Espionage, timepieces are our prism for viewing current and historical events. Watches are a common feature in national security incidents and add additional understanding of those involved.”
So what does the Omega help us understand about the role of Secret Service agents? “The USSS has a very public-facing role and its agents are representatives of the US Government and an extension of the office of the President,” WoE explained. “In the same way that a timepiece can foster a sense of trust and relationship building in business, a timepiece can play a proactive role for those on the front lines. A watch like an Omega or a Tudor can be a tool to convey authority, build relationships, and convey a professional demeanor.”
The wrist of a Secret Service agent is also one of the last remaining places in modern society where a watch can just be a watch. These things actually tell time—crazy, right? In the field and on the job, it’s much simpler and more professional for an agent to look at their watch than pull a phone out of their pocket.
The watch WoE identified on this agent’s wrist was likely a unit watch. These are pieces that are available for purchase for reduced rates exclusively to members of specific units. The caseback would be engraved with the Secret Service star and “Worthy of Trust and Confidence,” the USSS’s motto. The appeal of Omega comes from the brand’s long association with military unit and intelligence communities, WoE explains. More interestingly, he also notes that there also might be an extra shine thanks to the brand’s association with… James Bond.
In addition to Omega, brands like Tudor also make watches available to the US Counter Assault Team (which goes by the call sign Hawkeye). WoE shared an image of a Tudor Pelagos customized for the unit you can see below.
WoE said that while they discuss political events they always intend to remain apolitical. Still, the only thing they might care about more than these military units is the watches they’re wearing. “The fact is many of the men and women ran to the sound of gunfire that day and placed themselves directly in the line of fire to protect the presidential candidate,” they said, “including the agent wearing the Seamaster.”