Some Republicans are questioning whether a boost in spending for the Secret Service as part of the upcoming government funding bill would help protect former President Trump in the immediate term.
Leaders in both parties have floated a funding boost for the agency after what authorities said was the second assassination attempt against the former president and GOP presidential nominee.
But lawmakers, including Republicans, are also sounding a note of caution. They say it is unlikely that anything included in a short-term government funding bill, which has a Sept. 30 deadline, would do much to help Trump before the election and that the issue is how the agency is allocating its resources.
“I don’t know,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said when asked what can be done in the near future. “I just know they need more agents and the system is stressed. These guys and gals are working a lot of overtime.”
“Anything you can infuse into the system to up their game, more money to make some short-term hires, pay overtime — I don’t know,” he continued. “Money helps in the sense that it helps bring more capability to the table.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Tuesday that the chamber is focusing on how the Secret Service uses its money and manpower.
“If you look at their budget since 2017, we have increased their budget over their own request every single year. So clearly, they’ve gotten more money,” he said. “It’s about allocation, you know?”
Republicans returned to Washington this week frustrated and dismayed after learning that a gunman was able to camp out for 12 hours waiting for the president just outside his West Palm Beach, Fla., club. An agent accompanying Trump on a round of golf spotted a rifle being pushed through a fence and opened fire, causing the gunman to flee.
They pointed fingers at the Secret Service for not having a sufficient security presence and asked why protection had not been beefed up further after Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet at a rally in Pennsylvania in July.
But they are also wondering how to best remedy the situation.
Senators readily acknowledge that increased funds won’t lead to an immediate uptick in active agents. Secret Service training is a lengthy process that wouldn’t result in help right away for the former president’s detail.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe on Monday said the Secret Service “operates under a paradox of zero fail mission, but also that we have done more with less for decades, and this goes back many, many, many, many decades, right?”
He added that the agency, has the “need to make sure we’re getting the personnel that we have, and that requires us to be able to have the funding to be able to hire more people. You can’t just give me money and say, ‘hey, we’re going to make sure that everybody gets overtime. Because the men and women of the Secret Service right now, we are redlining them.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told The Hill on Tuesday that he is open to the idea of a plus-up in funding for the Secret Service, but says he needs to hear what the agency needs the money for.
“In the real world, someone would have been fired by now,” Kennedy said. “In the world of government … when someone doesn’t do their job, they get money because obviously they must need it. In this case, I’m not convinced they need it.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday said he was open to including additional resources for the Secret Service in the pending package to fund the government at the end of the month.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who chairs the Homeland Security spending panel, said committee members are “going back and forth” with Secret Service officials about a possible supplemental funding figure in the “hundreds of millions” of dollars. He also said that his immediate worry is how to help Trump and others between now and inauguration day, with committee members hoping to expedite those funds to the agency.
“I’m most concerned about the period between now until the inauguration,” Murphy told reporters. “I think it’s going to be a real dangerous time in American politics and the Secret Service is going to need to be creative about how to spread itself wider than it has.”
The Connecticut Democrat pointed to possible actions to help the agency in the coming weeks, including increased overtime pay, establishing partnerships with other law enforcement agencies and additional technology such as drones.
“They are burning these agents really brightly right now. There’s a real concern that you’re going to have attrition because of the existing overtime requirements,” Murphy continued. “You could have agents leave between now and the inauguration if we don’t help with overtime, help with getting them some assistance from other agencies. This problem could become worse if we don’t get some additional funding.”
The gunman, who authorities have identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was able to camp out in that area because the former president does not have the same level of detail he would as a sitting president, which would have led to that area being cleared completely.
Some top lawmakers believe beefing up Trump’s detail to the level of President Biden’s is the necessary move.
“Secret Service needs to provide whatever protection is necessary,” Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) said during a breakfast on Tuesday. “Given what’s happening, I’m fully supportive of that.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) suggested Tuesday that the House would vote on a bill this week to establish uniform standards of Secret Service protection for presidents, vice presidents and presidential and vice presidential candidates for major parties. The measure, introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), says it would authorize funds needed to enforce the legislation.
Allocating additional funding for the USSS in the forthcoming stopgap, meanwhile, is an open question in the House, where top lawmakers are signaling that it is a possibility, but may not be the correct path forward.
“I’m not so sure it’s a funding issue, but Congress will be willing to do what’s necessary,” Johnson said Tuesday.
He separately told reporters that, “We don’t want to just throw more money at a broken system. We’re looking at all aspects of it, and we’ll make the right determination.”
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) — the chairman of the task force looking into the assassination attempts against Trump — added that allocating more funding to the Secret Service in the stopgap is something to look into, but was coy on whether or not that is the correct course of action.
“I think we ought to take a look at it,” he said when asked if there should be a funding boost in the spending bill for the agency. “I don’t know how it’s being deployed right now. If they’re short then we need to boost up.”
