House to vote on bill bolstering presidential candidates’ Secret Service protection

By: CNN

Posted: Sep 20, 2024 6:36 AM CDT

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

By Clare Foran, Annie Grayer and Haley Talbot

Washington (CNN) — The House is expected to vote Friday to pass a bill bolstering Secret Service protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates, a move that comes in the wake of two apparent assassination attempts targeting GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

The bill directs the Secret Service director to apply uniform standards for protection of presidents, vice presidents and major presidential and vice presidential candidates.

The Secret Service is under scrutiny in Congress after two apparent assassination attempts on Trump, the first on July 13 at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and the second on September 15 at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNN he expects the vote on the House bill to be unanimous.

Following the first assassination attempt on July 13, “the Secret Service moved to increase assets to an already enhanced security posture for the former president,” Ronald Rowe Jr., acting director of the US Secret Service, said at a briefing the day after the September 15 incident.

“In the days that followed, President Biden made it clear that he wanted the highest levels of protection for former President Trump and for Vice President Harris. The Secret Service moved to sustain increases in assets and the level of protections sought. And those things were in place yesterday,” he added.

A source with direct knowledge of the legislation told CNN that the House bill will codify what President Joe Biden did and the process by which he did it. The bill will also authorize the president to extend this protection to any other presidential or vice presidential candidate for whom they have otherwise authorized the Secret Service to protect.

The legislation – HR 9106 – was introduced by GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York along with Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres also of New York.

Biden said in a recent radio interview that more resources should be provided to the Secret Service.

“We need more resources. We need more agents, we need more protection, we need to expand the availability of help,” the president said in the wake of the second apparent assassination attempt on Trump.

Rowe has made a concerted effort to put himself front and center after the apparent assassination attempt at Trump’s Florida golf course, as he makes his pitch, both publicly and privately, for Congress to provide his agency with more resources.

But lawmakers are still contending with – and debating – whether the Secret Service is underfunded or simply mismanaged, and many have questions about what meaningful security improvements can be made before the presidential election to an organization under whose watch two apparent assassination attempts have occurred against a former president roughly 60 days apart.

One possibility being discussed, according to sources, is to include additional funding to a government funding extension, which needs to pass by September 30. Senate appropriators and the Biden administration are in talks about how much money to add to the upcoming stopgap bill for USSS, telling CNN it could be “hundreds of millions of dollars” to plus-up their budget, or it could be language allowing the agency to spend its existing money faster.

The House task force created to investigate the assassination attempt against Trump at his July 13 rally is working behind the scenes to expand its probe to also include the second apparent assassination attempt.

GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who chairs the task force, said on Wednesday of the question of Congress providing additional funding to the agency, “(The Secret Service) should know how to ask for what it is that they need, and be able to justify why they are asking for it, to substantiate, come up with the reason why you’re looking for something.”

CNN’s Aditi Sangal contributed to this report.