Ex-President becoming a citizen of another country

Factual Questions
1

Odd thoughts that kept me awake for awhile.

I was listening to NPR yesterday, and they were interviewing three journalists from Mexico, Kenya and France on how other countries viewed Bush’s inauguration and Clinton’s leaving office.

The journalist from France (from Le Monde) said something, most likely half-jokingly, about Clinton being eligible to run for President of France because he was a resident of Arkansas** which was part of the Louisiana Territory which was once owned by France which could make him eligible, etc. Likely he would have to change citizenship. (And very unlikely for Clinton to run, in his opinion - “doesn’t have the patience to learn the language”.)

This brought up a few questions and possibilities:

  1. When a US President leaves office at the end of the term, he, but not his family, still receives lifelong Secret Service protection, correct? [For the following questions, I was taught this was true and am going on that assumption.]

  2. Would he still retain Secret Service protection if he moved to and resided in another country, let’s say Canada, but still retained US citizenship?

  3. Would he still retain Secret Service protection if he changed citizenship to another country, whether he stayed in the US or not? Let’s say he became a citizen of Germany. Would he be protected by the US Secret Service while living in Germany, or only while in the United States on a visit?

  4. The pension the President receives after leaving office - is it taxed? (Never learned the answer to this one. Help me out here.)

  5. If he did change citizenships, is that taxable by his new country of citizenship? Would it be taxable by the US government also since he is receiving the money from the US?

  6. Say Clinton does become President of France (or some other country where he fulfilled the pre-requisites). Does he still retain the pension from being US President while in office in that country? After leaving office, would he be protected by the equivalent of the French (or whatever country) Secret Service, or the US Secret Service or both?

Never learned this in history class, so I’m asking now.

**[sub]yeah, yeah, I know he’s got a house in New York, etc.[/sub]

2

Sorry, I can only give an answer to #1

Yes and no. All current ex-presidents (including Clinton) will receive lifetime protection from the secret service. In 1997, however, Congress changed the rules for this so that future ex-presidents will only receive protection for 10 years after leaving office.

I’m kind of curious as to why this change was made. Does anyone know?

–sublight.

3

I don’t think too many countries would be happy with secret service personel running around. Except by special arrangement for official visits, or within the confines of an embassy, US secret service would have no jurisdiction and would almost certainly have to surrender their weapons.