The House of Representatives on Friday unanimously passed a bill to increase the level of Secret Service protection for Republican candidate Donald Trump following two assassination attempts against him, 64 days apart.
By a 405-0 vote, lawmakers directed the Secret Service to adopt uniform security standards “to determine the number of officers necessary to provide protection for the President, Vice President, and the major presidential and vice presidential nominees.”
The bill was voted on under suspension of the House rules, requiring a two-thirds majority to pass.
The act also requires the Secret Service to issue a report on the effectiveness of its protection for the president, vice president, former presidents, and major presidential and vice presidential candidates who have been designated “principal” protected persons by the Secretary of Homeland Security and congressional leaders.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) bill The attack came the day after Trump's first brush with death, when 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks shot him in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13.
The bill was put to a vote this week five days after suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, built a sniper's nest on the sixth hole at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Fired Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle acknowledged that the Pennsylvania attack was the agency's “most significant operational failure in decades,” but her successor did not take responsibility for preventing a second attack.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Lowe later told Trump, 78, that he would need a significant increase in security resources and coordination if he wanted to continue playing golf.
At a press conference on Monday, Rouse told reporters that he “fleeed the scene” after being shot by a Secret Service agent who had been patrolling the course earlier, because he “did not see the former president.”
“He did not fire or attempt to fire at our agents. Upon receiving reports of gunfire, the former president's security forces immediately evacuated the president to a safe location,” Rowe explained. “Secret Service security methods were effective.”
Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have also called for strengthening security protocols in the wake of Sunday's near-tragic incident, but it's unclear whether that can be achieved only through additional funding or executive action by President Biden.
But former federal law enforcement officials told The Washington Post earlier this week that more funding isn't needed.
“The resources spent on protecting Trump should be commensurate with the threat,” said Mark Morgan, a former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, noting that Trump had thwarted two recent assassination attempts as well as a plot by a suspected Iranian agent.
“Trump is perhaps the most threatened person in the world, facing threats from adversaries both domestic and foreign, including an Iranian assassination plot to avenge the death of an Iranian general. [Qassem] “Soleimani has never been killed during President Trump's term,” former acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security Laura Reese added. “Given the threat he poses, he deserves the greatest protection.”
Both the Senate Homeland Security Committee and a House special investigative team are investigating the assassination attempts, and the Senate Homeland Security Committee is expected to release its report on the first attempt within days.
Members of the Senate committee cited Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) as calling the Department of Homeland Security “a“obstructed” their investigation.
“Unlike the Butler incident, where there were clearly some failures, in this incident it appears that security processes and protocols were followed and the system worked as designed,” Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and ranking member of the House task force, told reporters on Wednesday.
“It appears to be the same security package that was provided to former President Trump at that location and the same activity that he actually received while he was president,” Crow said of Sunday's golf trip. “It was commensurate with presidential-level security.”
