Secret Service struggle to protect presidents won't see 'immediate' end even with more manpower: retired agent
The U.S. Secret Service has dozens of people to protect across numerous properties around the country as the embattled agency struggles with multiple threats to its protectees, including two failed attempts on the life of former President Trump.
The Secret Service is responsible for protecting up to 40 individuals, including all current and former presidents, vice presidents and their spouses.
It's an unsustainable mission without more manpower, one former agent says.
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While leaders on both sides of the aisle have launched a congressional investigation and demanded accountability, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday the House is looking at additional Secret Service funding for a "manpower allocation."
"We don’t want to just throw money at a broken system," he told Fox News' Chad Pergram at the Capitol.
Bill Gage, a retired Secret Service agent and a consultant with SafeHaven Security Group, welcomed the proposal but said additional agents could take up to two years to hire and train.
"It's not going to make an immediate impact," he told Fox News Digital. "[We] need legislation or an executive order to reform the agency."
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According to the Secret Service, the agency is authorized to protect all current and former presidents and their spouses. The first and second families are also protected, as well as certain high-level Cabinet members and anyone else designated by presidential order.
The children of former presidents receive protection until they turn 16. President Biden's grandchildren are also protected, even those who are adults like Naomi Biden, 30, whose detail was involved in a shooting outside her Washington townhouse after three suspects broke into a parked government vehicle. She's been a protectee since her grandfather was vice president, and he could ask his successor to keep her on the list after leaving office.
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Major presidential candidates get protection within four months of Election Day, and presidents-elect and vice presidents-elect receive it before taking office.
Former agents estimate the number of current protectees between 30 and 40. Not all of them receive full-time coverage.
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Additional recipients of Secret Service protection include foreign heads of state, their spouses, and other "distinguished" visitors. That list is often changing, Gage said. Certain events, such as the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, are also protected.
Further complicating matters are presidents' sprawling properties, where they live and vacation. Trump, a real estate billionaire before taking office, had Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Trump Tower in New York and more. President Biden enjoys Rehoboth Beach in Delaware – right off a major highway.
None of those areas are as secure as Camp David, a Maryland property that serves as the official "country residence" for sitting U.S. presidents.
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"Camp David, believe it or not, is one of the most secure places in the world," Gage told Fox News Digital. "It is extremely hard to secure vacation properties."
Gage, who traveled to Hawaii in 2012 during a vacation for President Obama, said it was a massive security operation involving dozens of Navy SEALS and the U.S. Coast Guard.
"Camp David is on a mountaintop – it's super remote," Gage said.
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The only way in or out is along a narrow road that stretches about seven miles down the mountain, he said. There are two layers of 8-foot fencing and guard shacks manned by U.S. Marines. That makes it much more secure than the White House, which doubles as the president's main office building, where workers, deliveries and other people come and go all day long.
Vacation homes are even less secure.
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"There’s a tradition of presidents vacationing in different places," Gage said. "The issue is that it's not the same world. For a president to vacation in the 1980s in Kennebunkport, Maine, or the Bush compound, I'm not so sure that a president could do that now without extensive protective precautions being taken."
"When Obama vacationed in Hawaii in 2012, surrounded on three sides by water, we had 20 or 30 Navy SEALS with us on different kinds of boats patrolling. We had to have multiple Coast Guard entities. We had to have a separate evacuation plan. Landing sites. How far is the hospital? That house had neighbors right there. People were coming and going from their houses. The logistics of that sort of protective operation are very difficult to set up.
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"It really increases the level of risk, and in some ways the Service has darn near an impossible job," Gage said.
He has been calling for increased manpower and a complete overhaul of the agency to boost its preparedness given the threats against the United States after Sept. 11, 2001.
Aside from the two assassination attempts against Trump, other high-profile threats against U.S. officials in recent months have included the July arrest of a Florida man for making threats against the GOP presidential ticket, August charges against a man accused of making death threats against Vice President Kamala Harris, federal charges against someone accused of threatening Harris, Biden and Obama, and charges against an alleged Iranian agent accused of trying to place a hit on high-level U.S. officials.
Since the first attempt on Trump's life in July, the agency saw its director step down and faces internal and external investigations into its preparedness and handling of the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman named Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire with a clear line of sight to the protectee.
Then on Sunday, Ryan Routh was accused of bringing a loaded rifle to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and camping out along the tree line in an alleged assassination plot that failed.
Fox News Research contributed to this report.