New York.- For years, the Secret Service has distributed its limited protective resources based on who it was protecting. The sitting president and vice president are allotted the most protection. Former presidents, major-party candidates and visiting dignitaries receive the least.
Former President Donald Trump broke the mold for protective services setup when he left office in 2021, maintaining an intense agenda that required a never-before-seen set of protective measures for former presidents.
The Secret Service has declined to disclose the exact number of agents and the different types of protective resources assigned to the roughly 40 people it currently protects. But the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, and another on Sunday at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, have forced a rethink of the usual model and its relevance in the current threat environment.
Here’s what we know about how the Secret Service looks after its charges.
The acting president and vice president have the highest priority for protective resources
That’s because the Secret Service’s priority is to protect the continuity of government — in other words, to keep the president and vice president safe so they can run the country. That’s why they’re always given the most resources, from personnel to technology.
While the president is always assigned a Secret Service countersniper — an agent trained to take down an armed assassin — for protection, the vice president is not always assigned one, according to a former official with knowledge of the process who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
There is also a significant difference between the resources allocated to the president and vice president. By law, the Department of Defense is required to provide certain resources to help the Secret Service protect the president, such as aircraft to transport him and security equipment. That requirement is not mandated by law for the vice president or other individuals under Secret Service protection.
Former presidents and their spouses receive lifelong protection, but it is not the same for everyone
Some former presidents are more active and exposed than others and therefore require more round-the-clock protection. For example, former President Jimmy Carter, who is in hospice care, does not need the same amount of resources to protect him as former President Barack Obama, who continues to travel and make public appearances.
After leaving the White House, Trump maintained a schedule similar to the one he had when he was in office, including rallies, something the Secret Service had not seen from a former president.
As one of the most controversial people in the world, Trump also attracts more attention than other former presidents, raising the risk that he could be targeted. Even before the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania in July, the Secret Service had increased resources to secure his South Florida home and protective detail, former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified before Congress in July.
Depending on the level of threat to the people it protects, the Secret Service can allocate even more resources, which is what happened in Butler. In that case, it assigned two countersniper teams to the rally in response to a heightened threat environment. According to Ronald Rowe Jr., the agency’s acting director, it was the first time such Secret Service resources had been deployed for a former president.
The agency has since poured even more resources into Trump’s protective package, including bulletproof glass to protect him at outdoor campaign rallies.
One issue, however, is always how many resources are actually available. The Secret Service has a certain amount of detection equipment like drones or infrared radar detectors and may not be able to spare them to protect a former president if those resources are already being used for the sitting president, for example.
Typically, leading candidates receive protection at a certain point in the election cycle.
The Secret Service has long provided protection to the leading presidential and vice presidential candidates in the 120 days before the general election. But this year it broke with that model, providing security for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate at the time, whose campaign had been asking for protective detail for months.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas decided to expand Kennedy’s protections after Butler’s rally. Mayorkas consults with a senior group of Congressmen on such decisions.
Some foreign dignitaries also receive Secret Service protection.
The Secret Service divides its protection of foreign dignitaries into three categories: low, medium and high, with those in the highest category receiving the most resources. For example, the Israeli prime minister would receive more resources than the prime minister of the Seychelles, said Ronald Layton, a 26-year Secret Service veteran who ran divisions tasked with overseeing event protection and security.
Layton noted that the foreign dignitary who has received the most resources was Pope Francis when he visited the United States in 2015.
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