They don’t all face re-election this year and some will be up in just 2 years. They may want to remain effective in the Senate also. In 2009 Arlen Specter switched parties to stay relevant… But it’s very unlikely in this environment. If the Democrats take a majority in the Senate it will likely be a slim one which doesn’t not create any incentive for Republican senators.
If an ex-president goes to prison (for whatever reason) does he still get Secret Service protection?
The SS routinely asks for / demands co-operation from other security forces. And prison staff routinely protect prisoners: it’s part of the job. Even if the ex-president has SS protection, that doesn’t mean there has to be SS officers at checkpoints and guard posts. Maybe a SS co-ordination officer, maybe more.
Yeah, we definitely need to change something so we’re not abbreviating ‘Secret Service’ as ‘SS’.
USSS.
I don’t think he/she would get much use of the presidential yacht while in prison.
Although … The Man Without a Country … (Philip Nolan)
Sounds like a snake.
Since this is GQ I feel the need to point out that Rikers Island is a jail (really a collection of 10 jails) not a prison. It houses people waiting for trial or those with sentences of less than a year for the city of New York. Your movie would probably take place at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. It’s about 30 miles north of NYC.
Does SS protection after a president is out of office extend to his/her immediate family? (wife, children)
The Former Presidents Act authorizes payment for protection of the former president and their spouse. It doesn’t look to me like it covers any kids, parents, cousins, or other near relations. (Interestingly, it uses the gender-neutral ‘spouse’ here, but the gendered ‘widow’ and ‘she’ for the pension benefits).
Children of former presidents keep their protection until they turn 16. So Sash had about 6 months of protection after Obama left office, and Barron will get a little over a year if Trump gets the boot.
cite.
What’s the history of the age limit? 16 seems rather young to me – but it’s not driving age here, so no 16 year old has any kind of independence here. And there was hardly anybody I knew who would have been protected under that rule until they finished high-school / left home and went to university.
And that’s a very odd looking exception that seems to allow continued protection of the children of vice-presidents, but not presidents. I suspect that Australian laws are more carefully written than American laws.
According to the Secret Service historical timeline, protection of former Presidents started in 1962, but was only good for 6 months. In 1965 they extended it to the former President & spouse for the former President’s lifetime (interesting wording), and a widow or minor children for 4 years. In 1968 protection for spouse/widow was extended to their lifetime or remarriage, and the 16 years of age was codified.
Note that these changes were due to the very real situation of JFK’s widow and minor children still being in the spotlight after his assassination. Caroline was born in 1957, John Jr. in 1960, so they were the specific children that the laws were being passed about. It seems more like wheeling and dealing in Congress (it had been extended a few times between 1965 and 1968 already) than some reasoned decision about age of adulthood. Also, Jackie Kennedy remarried billionaire Aristotle Onassis in 1968, so I’m assuming there was some thought in Congress that he could pick up the costs of protecting her.
In other words - these laws weren’t created in a vacuum, they were created because of the specific situation of JFK’s assassination. And the laws providing protection of presidential candidates came about because of RFK’s assassination.
I’m not sure what you mean about the exception for children of vice-presidents, can you point it out?
But to do that, you’d have to have a friend in Saudi Arabia, no? Ooooh…
I assume the simple solution to the OP’s question would be to deputize some of the prison guards into the Secret Service. “You get a few thousand extra a month and get to wear this badge, too…” Plus a prison guard always standing there outside his cell would probably not ingratiate him to some of the other inmates.
Section 8 of the citation:
(8) Former Vice Presidents, their spouses, and their children who are under 16 years of age, […] The Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to direct the Secret Service to provide temporary protection for any of these individuals at any time thereafter
The authority seems to apply only to section 8. It doesn’t seem to apply to section 4.
The way I’m reading that is:
Section 4 - former Presidents and spouses get protection for lifetime. Children of former Presidents get protection until they turn 16. Doesn’t matter if that’s 15 years 364 days of protection, or 1 day of protection, that’s what they get.
Section 8 - Former VPs, their spouses, and children under 16 get 6 months of protection. However, the Secretary of HS can extend that protection for as long as necessary, but the “children under 16 years of age” condition still applies. So even if the Sec of HS decides to extend former VP protection for 10 years, it can still only go to the VP, spouse, and children under 16 during that 10 year period. He can’t extend it to the former VP’s siblings because they’re not listed, and he can’t extend it to children over 16, because they’re not listed either.
It also seems that if a former President has a child after leaving office, that child will get a full 16 years of protection.