The U.S. Secret Service protects dozens of personnel at numerous facilities across the country and has been grappling with multiple threats against those it protects, including two assassination attempts on former President Trump.
The Secret Service is responsible for protecting up to 40 people, including current and former presidents, vice presidents, and their spouses.
One former agent said the mission could not continue without more personnel.
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Ryan Routh is accused of pointing a rifle at former President Donald Trump while he was playing golf at a West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course on Sunday. This is being investigated as a second assassination attempt against Trump. (Source: Fox News Digital)
With leaders from both parties launching congressional investigations and demanding accountability, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Tuesday that the House was considering additional funding for the Secret Service for “staffing purposes.”
“We don't want to just throw money at a broken system,” he told Fox News' Chad Pergram on Capitol Hill.
Bill Gage, a former Secret Service agent and consultant at Safe Haven Security Group, welcomed the proposal but said hiring and training the additional agents could take up to two years.
“It's not going to have an immediate impact,” he told Fox News Digital.[We] “We need legislation or executive orders to reform the agency.”
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A photo of then-President Trump playing golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on December 28, 2020. (Reuters/Marco Bello)
According to the Secret Service, the agency has the authority to provide protection for all current and former presidents and their spouses, as well as the families of presidents and former presidents, as well as certain senior cabinet members and individuals designated by executive order.
Children of former presidents are protected until they turn 16. President Biden's grandchildren are also protected. Adults are also protected, such as Naomi Biden (30), who was involved in a shooting that occurred when three suspects entered a parked government vehicle outside her Washington townhouse and involved security forces. She has been a protected person since her grandfather was vice president, and he can ask his successor to put her on the list even after he leaves office.
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President Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden and her fiancé Peter Neal ride bicycles on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, on November 23, 2021. (Mandel Gunn/AFP via Getty Images)
The major presidential candidates would receive the protection within four months of Election Day, and the president-elect and vice president-elect would receive the protection before taking office.
A former agent puts the number of people currently in custody at between 30 and 40. Not all are in full-time custody.
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Camp David's Aspen Lodge, officially called Thurmont Naval Support Facility, is one of the safest places in the world. (Bettman)
Others who receive Secret Service protection include foreign heads of state, their spouses and other “distinguished” visitors — a list that Gage said changes frequently — and certain events, such as the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
Further complicating the issue are the vast estates where presidents live and vacation: Trump, a real estate mogul before taking office, owned Mar-a-Lago in Florida and Trump Tower in New York, among others, while Biden enjoys Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, which is just off a major highway.
None of these areas are as safe as Camp David in Maryland, which serves as the official “vacation home” of the sitting U.S. president.
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“Believe it or not, Camp David is one of the safest places in the world,” Gage told Fox News Digital. “It's extremely difficult to make a vacation property safe.”
President Obama jumps into the ocean at Pyramid Rock Beach in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii on January 1, 2013. (Pete Souza/The White House via Getty Images)
Gage, who visited Hawaii during President Obama's vacation in 2012, said it was a massive security operation involving dozens of Navy SEALs and members of the U.S. Coast Guard.
“Camp David is on top of a mountain and it's very remote,” Gage said.
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U.S. military personnel monitor the waters as President Obama's motorcade passes by while on vacation in Kailua, Hawaii, on December 22, 2015. (Brendan Smiarowski/AFP via Getty Images)
The only access, he said, is along a narrow road that stretches about seven miles down the mountain, surrounded by two layers of eight-foot-tall fencing and US Marines stationed in guard huts, making the site much more secure than the White House, which serves as the president's main office and where staff, couriers and other people come and go throughout the day.
Villas are even less safe.
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August 10, 2007, at Walker's Point, President George W. Bush's family vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine. (Mandel Gunn/AFP via Getty Images)
“It's a tradition for presidents to vacation in different places,” Gage said, “The problem is, it's not the same world. In the 1980s, presidents vacationed in Kennebunkport, Maine, or on the Bush estate, and I'm not sure a president could do that now without taking extreme precautions.”
“When President Obama vacationed in Hawaii in 2012, you have 20 to 30 Navy SEALs patrolling on different ships because Hawaii is surrounded by water on three sides. You needed multiple Coast Guard units. You had to have separate evacuation plans. The landing point. How far was the hospital? That family lived right next door. People were coming in and out of the house. The logistics of that kind of protection operation are very difficult to organize.”
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Then-President Obama plays golf at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on August 24, 2009. (Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images)
“This really raises the level of risk and in some ways makes the Department of Public Safety's job nearly impossible,” Gage said.
He has called for increased personnel and an overhaul of the agency to improve preparedness, given the threats to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
Former President Trump hits a shot during a pro-am prior to the LIV Golf Invitational Bedminster at Trump National Golf Club on August 10, 2023 in Bedminster, New Jersey. (Mike Staub/Getty Images)
In addition to the two assassination attempts on President Trump, other high-profile threats against U.S. government officials in recent months include the arrest of a Florida man in July for threatening a Republican presidential candidate, a man charged in August with making death threats against Vice President Kamala Harris, federal charges against individuals accused of making threats against Harris, Biden and Obama, and charges against an alleged Iranian operative accused of trying to assassinate a U.S. government official.
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Since the first assassination attempt on Trump in July, the bureau has lost its director and is facing internal and external investigations into its preparations for and response to a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman named Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire in clear line of sight of those he was meant to protect.
Then on Sunday, Ryan Routh is accused of carrying a loaded rifle into Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and camping out in a wooded area in the failed assassination plot.
Fox News Research contributed to this report.
