If Trump loses the election and flees to another country to avoid his sentencing in his (multiple) lawsuits, does the Secret Service have to go with him?
If Trump loses the election and flees to another country to avoid his sentencing in his (multiple) lawsuits, does the Secret Service have to go with him?
Former U.S. presidents are authorized a security detail from the Secret Service for life. If Trump loses the election and flees the country, does his security detail have to go with him if he requests it?
I imagine this could go down in a variety of ways: He departs the U.S. before he's sentenced and just never returns, or he attempts to flees or does flees the U.S. after his sentencing. Either way, what happens to his security detail?
If he attempts to flees after he's sentenced, I would hope the detail would refuse to take part in it (if he can even board a plane/leave the country to begin with), but given all their failings, who knows.
AFAIK ex-presidents aren’t allowed to leave the country without specific permission, due to all the classified crap in their heads. If one tried to flee the country, it would be their detail’s duty to detain them.
Heck, they’re not even allowed to drive in public roads… not that Trump has probably ever driven a car.
You could say the same about running off with boxes of classified docs and keeping them in a bathroom. Reality is they don't care as long as he's alive
No, most of this is untrue. Ex Presidents can refuse secret service detail. They are allowed to drive on public roads - that is a secret service rule that they can't but it's not against the law and Presidents don't have to follow those rules. And they are allowed to live outside the US if a host country allows them.
You think that guy has a driver's licence
He has had a driver forever.
But why bother? He has already sold everything he knows along with the contents of the documents he stole.
Security is a privilege, not a mandate. Nixon dropped his in 1985.
Becoming a fugitive from justice would count as voluntarily giving up lots of privileges, the very least of which would be a publicly funded security detail.
I imagine they would just arrest him and hand him over for protection. Any member who allowed it would be breaking their oath and supporting an enemy of the state at that point would they not?
Edit: I meant prosecution, not protection, but apparently people understood
If we're gaming the whole scenario out, I imagine it would go something like this.
None of his current convictions are expected to come with a custodial sentence, but say he loses the election, and the more serious trials are heating up. At that point, he knows he's toast. 2028 is too late to run a fourth time; he's got no more hail marys, so he dismisses his detail completely, retreats to Florida, and sneaks away to Saudi Arabia in the middle of the night.
He's got a private jet, so getting out of the country shouldn't be a huge problem. But I think you're right that he has to set all this in motion before a guilty verdict is delivered. At that point, getting away from the secret service would be much more difficult.
USSS is on this guy like flies on shit and you’d better believe he’s not going anywhere if he loses the election. TF do you think Harris is gonna do, just be like “yeah, that trump guy, fuck him, whatever.” Everyone knows that he’s a tremendous national security risk (which truly blows my mind - assholes are going to actively vote to sabotage their own country).
which truly blows my mind - assholes are going to actively vote to sabotage their own country
The problem is they don't see it at all. Anyone who is truly in favor of Trump is watching propaganda that will always frame him as a poor victim of evil Democrat smear campaigns. Anyone else who is voting for him because they're a Republican and they just always vote R is just not paying attention and also fall under the category of "not seeing it." :(
I'm not so sure he's much of a security risk, unless he is still in possession of sensitive documents. I sincerely doubt he is capable of remembering anything in the way of valuable secrets. Anyways, even if he did, any adversary would be daft to trust he remembered correctly.
I'm just imagining being the poor sap working for a foreign power trying to extract useful information from his cottage cheese brain.
"Do you have nuclear subs in the South China Sea?"
"We have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. ... The biggest problem we have is nuclear — nuclear proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a nuclear weapon. That’s in my opinion, that is the single biggest problem that our country faces right now."
"Where! Are! The nuclear! Subs! Deployed!"
"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
They aren't lawsuits, they're criminal indictments. Big difference.
USSS won't just let him get on a plane and fly off to Russia. His security is their top priority, so allowing him to secrete himself somewhere without first verifying his itinerary and securing both the mode of transportation and the destination, would be unthinkable. That means they are reporting all of his movements to local law enforcement. Can't exactly flee the country in secret when every cop in the state will know his exact position and have eyes on him at all times. If the courts think he is a flight risk, someone involved in the process will know what he's trying to do and prevent him from going anywhere where it will be hard to get him back again.
The former presidents act seems to imply that a former president can decline Secret Service protection and even get $1 million for doing so. So I imagine he could just decline protection and hire his own security. But that would make it pretty obvious that he's planning on fleeing.
But that would make it pretty obvious that he's planning on fleeing.
As if that would be the first hint
I didn't know that Secret Service was mandatory for former US Presidents.
I suppose he could dismiss them, but considering he just had two recent attempts on his life, that would probably be unwise to say the least.
The USSS would not have any obligation to a former president that is a fugitive from law.
As individuals they could abandon their service, which has serious legal remifications, and follow Trump of their own choice. I doubt any would do that because why they became USSS and how badly it would ruin their lives.
So I looked into the USSS, and here from their FAQ: "Under Title 18, Section 3056, of the United States Code, agents and officers of the United States Secret Service can:
Carry firearms
Execute warrants issued under the laws of the United States
Make arrests without warrants for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony recognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed such felony
Offer and pay rewards for services and information leading to the apprehension of persons involved in the violation of the law that the Secret Service is authorized to enforce
Investigate fraud in connection with identification documents, fraudulent commerce, fictitious instruments and foreign securities and
Perform other functions and duties authorized by law"
This leads me to wonder just how many times a SS Agent witnessed Trump committing a felony in their presence but didn't arrest him.
They have no obligation to enforce the law, just as a patrol cop does not need to pull you over for speeding. There also is having to be the guy that arrests Trump and the response that would bring you.
There's a massive difference between watching someone commit arson and watching a document get delivered that turns everything into a RICO case. You'd never know unless you knew the business details.
Maybe Trump could escape the US by hiding in a box disguised as "music equipment" (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57760993). Then the USSS wouldn't have to accompany him.
He is more of a fan of his wife dying and hiding things in the coffin.
Melania falls down the stairs and he has her casket sent to her homeland of Slovenia or burial, which is quite the convenient place for him to find himself.
Maybe he could ensemble some sympathisers?
I imagine the second he requests asylum or says he is a resident of another country, the USSS recalls every agent attached to him. They still work for a us government agency & are not answerable to a former, disgraced, president.
Or rather, they assassinate him themselves, since someone who has held clearance higher than any other member of the US government is a liability if he becomes disloyal to the US
They aren't assassins. They've spent up to a quarter of their career keeping this guy alive, they aren't going to turn around and shoot him. In the highly unlikely case Trump let it be known that he actually had a photographic memory and wanted to write it all down for Putin the secret service would simply be recalled. And his plane would fall apart mid-air, as they tend to do when the CIA or FIS (Russian flavor) gets involved.
Most likely scenario is we all remember Trump didn't even read his intel folders and we wave a fond bon voyage while offering free tickets to Russia for any die hard MAGA fans who want to go with him.
You forgot about the old "What's that over there?" trick.
🏃♂️👉⁉️
The whole point of the USSS protecting former Presidents is to prevent this exact thing from happening. The USSS would do everything in their power to prevent him from fleeing or to get him back.
You are assuming he is going to be sentenced in the US which as we’ve all seen is impossible.
So you're saying Trump knows this and doesn't plan to leave the country?
"if Santiago was safe, why the order?"
Secret service takes their orders from the current president. So, if the order were given to bring him in they would have too.
Yes, but extradition back when the court issues a bench warrant would also be extremely easy. If there's already an order keeping him from traveling they'd have to enforce it. Which is part of why that New York judge getting scared was bad, the system is poorly designed for rich defendants. Usually it handles it by getting their passport and restricting them from traveling.
He won't be sentenced or ever face jail time.
Probably for the best. Two assassination attempts in less than four months is pathetic to say the least. Even though his actions led to this🤷♀️🤭
Interesting question that hadn’t occurred to me. Great one to bring up as a thought experiment. I agree with a sibling comment that says he likely wouldn’t be covered if convicted, but this is also new (and previously unthinkable) territory.
It isn't previously unthinkable, they just previously chose not to think about it. Reagan and Nixon are recent criminal presidents that were both spared prosecution and given full honors as former presidents.
But those lawsuits aren't at the federal level, they are at the state level, or so I understand. The secret service operates at the federal level. And if they are at the federal level, well, the Supreme Court has been stuffed and they've been pretty flagrant at expanding GQP corruption mechanics.
