On Secret Service protection for adult children of former US presidents
Let’s start with the requirements [emphasis mine]:
By law, the Secret Service is authorized to protect:
– The president, the vice president, (or other individuals next in order of succession to the Office of the President), the president-elect and vice president-elect
– The immediate families of the above individuals
– Former presidents, their spouses, except when the spouse re-marries
– Children of former presidents until age 16
– Visiting heads of foreign states or governments and their spouses traveling with them, other distinguished foreign visitors to the United States, and official representatives of the United States performing special missions abroad
– Major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election
– Other individuals as designated per Executive Order of the President and
– National Special Security Events, when designated as such by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
Now let’s take a trip back in time to January 21, 2021 [emphasis mine]:
Former President Trump’s four adult children and their two spouses are receiving Secret Service protection for an additional six months following Trump’s departure from office, former administration officials confirmed to ABC News.
Additionally, ABC News has learned that Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, and former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin are also receiving Secret Service protection beyond Trump’s term.
It was unclear if the orders to extend the protection arrangements had come from Trump himself. …
It’s not unusual for first children to receive an extension on their protection as a courtesy extended to the outgoing president and his family, but traditionally such protection has been limited to underage children and college students, as opposed to independent adults. …
Retired Secret Service agent Don Mihalek said that the decision of whether to extend protection is often “threat based,” but that every additional protectee the Secret Service takes on requires additional manpower from the agency.
So, who ordered the extra six months? This article from September of 2021 says that Trump “triggered” and “provided” the order, but it doesn’t contain the phrase “Executive Order” although it may indeed have been one. The original WaPo article on the subject doesn’t use the phrase “executive order” either, although it says this: “Trump did not publish any public order announcing the decision at the time, or explaining his rationale.”
Also:
In recent years, former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George W. Bush have also ordered agents to protect slightly older, college-aged children for a short time after leaving office.
Yesterday we got this story with the headline, “Trump to end Secret Service protection for Hunter and Ashley Biden: When President Joe Biden took office, he extended protections to Trump’s adult children for six months.” Oh, so now it was Biden who extended the protection? Huh? Perhaps what they mean – although it’s not the way that headline is written – is that Trump ordered it and Biden didn’t rescind it prematurely?
Now other aspects of the story are reported on quite differently as well:
It is common for family members of former presidents to have Secret Service protection for a certain period. Former presidents’ children often receive protection from the Secret Service for up to six months after their administrations end, but that is up to the discretion of the sitting president.
No mention of that these people are “commonly” teenagers, or young adults in college. Adult children who are not in college? Previously, it seemed as though the only ones who fit that category and got Secret Service protection for those extra post-presidency months had been Trump’s children, but that isn’t pointed out anymore, now that Biden’s adult children have been getting such protection too.
Plus, it’s written as though Biden was the one in charge of this in both administrations:
Joe Biden extended security protections for his adult children until July before he left office in January. After Trump’s first term ended, Biden extended protections to Trump’s adult children for six months.
So none of these people gets Secret Service protection by law after the presidents’ terms expire; it’s all discretionary. The articles are also very poorly written – and I have to say that by the time I got through writing this post I was already heartily sick of the topic. But hey, I put in the time, did the work, and here it is.
Did anyone in the Trump family apart from DJT, Melania, and Barron have 15 agents assigned to them?
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This whole business is part of the hypertrophy of the post-presidency. Prior to 1958, there were no pensions for former presidents. Prior to 1962, there were no presidential libraries. Prior to 1965, former presidents et al did not have publicly funded security. Prior to 1977, former Presidents tended to be rather circumspect about the buckraking they did. Richard Nixon (a man with a mess of unpaid legal bills) was derided by the likes of James Fallowes for taking a $650,000 fee (a contextually similar sum today might be about $4 million) for 29 hours of unscripted interviews with David Frost. (Fallowes is still alive. What does he have to say about the Obamas $50 million haul?).
Speaking of protection, Chuck Schumer has canceled speaking engagements due to fear his constituents may do him harm.
Trump gets shot, keeps on going. Chuck hears loud voices,pees his pants, locks all the doors, and hides under the table.
Profiles in courage.
Charles Schumer has been on public sector payrolls since 1975 and on the federal payroll since 1981. His ghastly wife has had a succession of public sector positions in New York City over a period of about forty years; nothing ordinary, either. All senior management positions. Someone coming after them with a chainsaw is about the only way you’d get them away from the trough.
The articles are also very poorly written
That’s par for the course. It’s propaganda to begin with, and then poorly written propaganda on top of that.
The slickly-written propaganda costs money, and the people who would write that have been shoved away from the government trough, and they don’t work for free.
I understand Hunter’s current wife is South African, but they don’t seem to be visiting family. Instead, they are staying in a rental at a high-end resort location. The real reason for the flight appears to have been to avoid the possibility of being deposed in a lawsuit Hunter initiated but which he now wanted to end.
The news sources don’t do the thorough work Neo does.
The article obviously is attempting to generate a narrative that somehow Biden was being magnanimous by “extended security protections” to Trump’s adult children back in 2021 while that beastly Trump now is being petty and vengeful in cutting off Hunter and Ashley Biden’s protection now in 2025. Of course as you say it’s far more likely that it was Trump himself who ordered the “extended security protections” to his adult children before he left office (and not without good reason after the events of J6).
And it’s likely that Biden wasn’t even made aware of that. And even if Biden was made aware, he likely didn’t really care enough at the time to go out of his way to rescind those protections which may have made him look petty in the eyes of the public since at the time he was still attempting to present himself as a even keeled moderate to the public. But behind the scenes Biden was spinning up the deep state Lawfare machine to go after Trump.
IF Hunter had stayed in the US, Trump may have not ended the SS security.
How long did BO’s kids have SS security?
How long did BO’s kids have SS security?
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Supposedly, the statutory standard has it that Malia’s would have ceased when her father left office and Sasha’s about six months later.
Trump is playing with fire with all of these denials of SS protection. It’s petty and mean. There is a segment of Trump’s base that seems to like petty and mean, but I don’t think the public as a whole does.
That said, I don’t think that the public will really care about this issue unless one of the people who lose their SS protection is harmed. But if they are? What if the individual harmed is one who served in Trump’s first administration such as Pompeo? Hence playing with fire.
I can’t see how the cost benefit makes sense here for Trump. Sure, it thrills a certain segment of his base, but the cost savings are not significant and the downside risk is high.
It’s not reasonable that everyone get Secret Service protection forever.
CC™ is now a special pleader for Hunter, Ashley, and anyone else who is fully adult and has to live in the world but had Secret Service protection. Who will protect Hunter from himself?
We need new trolls, CC™ just isn’t remotely plausible.
Niketas Choniates – Wasn’t the previous practice for kids of former presidents to get SS protection for 6 months? That means we’re talking about four months of protection, not forever.
Again, Steve Ford’s detail departed at noon on 20 January 1977. He was then 20 years of age. That’s how it worked in that benighted age. (Steve Ford is a mess of a man, but he was never a bag man and he’s never reached Bourbon levels of decadence).
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John Kennedy Jr had a detail which was withdrawn in 1973, when he was twelve. It was at his mother’s request. He’d given them the slip while biking in Central Park.
@Bauxite:Wasn’t the previous practice for kids of former presidents to get SS protection for 6 months? That means we’re talking about four months of protection, not forever.
Biden has no “kids”. Didn’t you read what neo put up?
Anyone older is at discretion.
And you mentioned Mike Pompeo, not a “kid”, not a child of Biden, and out for way more than 6 months.
It should be threat based.
The secret service covered for hunters coke habit his negligence with firearms his sisters other irresponsible hats the coke found at the white house things of that nature
They were negligent at best at butler and palm beach so much like the fabled praetorian guard how they might have acted vs the fbi swat team on august ’22 is an open question
Of course Hunter pushed the envelope by going across the ocean to a place with major security problems to begin with. As Shirehome said, if Hunter had not drawn media attention with this travel, he would probably have kept the coverage until July, as his father had ordered. (I don’t think it is warranted after inauguration day.)
Hey, maybe Trump should just assign SS agents who were hired under DEI to protect those former Presidents and families. If those agents were thought sufficient for Candidate Trump, they should be fine for the others. Conversely, when Trump retires, his SS crew can be chosen from MAGA personnel. Fair is fair.
Which is worse, an article merely “written” (copy-pasted) by a “journalist”, or an article “written” (copy-pasted with AI assistance) by a “journalist”?