With investigations swirling around Donald Trump, it begs the question as to whether the former president will get Secret Service protection if he goes to prison. The New York Attorney General’s investigation into the Trump Organization “is no longer purely civil in nature,” and the probe has elevated to a criminal case. Also, prosecutors are reportedly treating the investigation into the Trump Organization in much the same manner that they would if they were investigating and prosecuting a Mafia family.
Former agents weighed in, saying that the former president would have Secret Service protection in prison, according to Insider. We’ve never had to ask this question before, but we’ve also never had a lawless president like Donald Trump in office before, either.
“If Donald Trump gets sent to prison, what’s the role of the Secret Service in that case?” asked Douglas Smith, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, according to the outlet.
A former Secret Service official told the outlet that before Trump’s presidency, “I don’t think anybody ever contemplated having a president in jail and what impact that would have on the Secret Service.”
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“Is an agent going to be with him inside a cell? No,” said the former Secret Service official, who predicted that the ex-president would wind up in a “country club-type place” if he’s convicted. But, the official added, there would likely be at least one agent on the property to protect Trump, even if that person isn’t “walking on his shoulder out in the yard.”
Such a job isn’t likely to be a coveted assignment for any Secret Service agent, that person said, unless they’re also studying to get their master’s degree. “I would think you’d have a lot of time to do some reading.”
“Secret Service officers could theoretically protect Trump within the confines of a prison, either physically near him or by maintaining a presence within a prison — in an administrative office, for example, said Michele Deitch, an expert on prison oversight at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs,” the report continues.
Security experts don’t expect Trump would be tossed into the general population with the other prisoners.
“He would certainly not be part of the general population,” Ken Gray, a retired FBI special agent who served 24 years in the bureau, told the outlet.
Michele Deitch, an expert on prison oversight at the University of Texas at Austin’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, said, “Trump — he would have a target on his back,” and added that the former president would unquestionably be placed in what’s known as “protective custody.”
As we reported previously, Bradlee Moss, a lawyer with national security expertise, said the same thing.
“There is no precedent for this, so no one knows for certain the answer, and arguably President Biden gets final say over the extent of any USSS protection for his predecessor,” Moss said. “That said, it is likely former President Trump would maintain protection even if convicted and incarcerated due to his special status.”
You can read Insider’s full report here.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
