Trump May Be Denied Secret Service Protection Under New Democrat Bill

Surrounded by campaign staff and members of the U.S. Secret Service, former President Donald Trump (C) waves to supporters as he visits the Iowa Pork Producers Tent at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, on Aug. 12, 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A Democrat lawmaker is pushing a bill that could strip away Secret Service protection granted to former President Donald Trump if he is sentenced in any of his ongoing cases.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), former chair of the now-defunct Jan. 6 committee, introduced HR 8081, or the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act, on April 19. The bill seeks to terminate Secret Service protection offered to any person once they are sentenced following a conviction “for a Federal or State offense that is punishable for a term of imprisonment of at least one year.” A fact sheet for the bill noted that this measure would apply to President Trump.

President Trump is currently involved in four criminal cases. Except for the “hush-money” case, it is unclear whether any of the other three would reach trial before the presidential election in November.

As such, if the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act were to pass and President Trump were to be sentenced in the “hush-money” trial, the former president could see the federal government withdraw U.S. Secret Service (USSS) protection granted to him.

Under current law, USSS protection is granted to certain current and former high-level officials and their immediate families. The act does not detail how such protection would take place “or whether it should occur” if the protected person is sentenced to prison following a conviction, the fact sheet states.

As such, the current law presents “logistical difficulties for both the Secret Service and prison authorities at the Federal and State levels.”

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HR 8081 would remove such conflicting lines of authority within prisons.

“The purpose of this bill is to hand off inmate protection to relevant prison authorities rather than involve the Secret Service,” the fact sheet reads.

“Former President Donald J. Trump’s unprecedented 91 felony charges in Federal and State courts across the country have created a new exigency that Congress must address to ensure Secret Service protection does not interfere with the criminal judicial process and the administration of justice.”

Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, accused the bill of attempting to get President Trump murdered.

“Thompson wants to take away Trump’s Secret Service protection if Trump is convicted on any of the 88 felony charges leveled against him by elected Democratic prosecutors and a Biden Justice Department appointee,” he said in an April 20 X post.

“Obvious subtext here is that removing USSS would make it easier for someone to kill Trump, which is arguably the goal of Thompson’s bill, H.R. 8081.”

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative foundation Judicial Watch, echoed similar concerns.

“House Democrats move to try to ensure Trump is murdered by removing his Secret Service protection?” he wrote in an April 20 post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Ryan Fournier, chair of the group Students for Trump, wrote on X: “They’re literally trying to remove Trump’s Secret Service protection under a new bill. If this happens, and something happens to him, BLOOD is on your hands. And we won’t let that go.”

Trump’s Trial

The bill comes as the opening arguments for President Trump’s “hush-money” trial are set to begin on April 22. A full jury and alternate jurors for the case were selected on April 19. President Trump is facing 34 charges in the case, with each count carrying a maximum jail time of four years.

In the case, President Trump is alleged to have falsified his business records regarding diverting funds to his former lawyer Michael Cohen.

The funds were supposedly given to Mr. Cohen to make hush-money payments to bury controversial stories linked to the former president. The focus of the case is a payment worth $130,000 made by Mr. Cohen to adult actress Stormy Daniels.

The payment was allegedly made to prevent Ms. Daniels from publicly revealing during the 2016 campaign that she had an affair with the former president in the mid-2000s. President Trump has denied making the payment and having the affair.

The case will be presided over by Judge Juan Merchan. Ahead of the trial in Manhattan, Judge Merchan issued a gag order prohibiting President Trump from talking about witnesses and jurors. The order was later expanded to ban President Trump from commenting on Judge Merchan’s family members.

The expansion came after the former president pointed out that the judge’s daughter was a political consultant for the Democratic Party.

“Almost every Legal Scholar and Expert has stated that there is ‘NO CASE,’ that this is a SCAM brought about by a Corrupt District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who has let Violent Crime in New York flourish at levels never seen before,” President Trump wrote in an April 20 post on Truth Social.

While the trial is in session, President Trump has to show up in court every single day or risk facing an arrest. President Trump has said that he intends to testify even though he has no legal obligation to do so.