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Trump’s Ending of Hunter Biden’s Security Detail Raises Questions About Who Gets Protection
Former Vice President Kamala Harris has Secret Service protection, at least for a few more months.
Chelsea Clinton does not have a Secret Service detail anymore, though her father, former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, do.
All of President Trump’s family members currently have protection, including his grandchildren.
And while former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife are by law allowed to have protection for the rest of their lives, their adult children had it only for a few months. After leaving office, Mr. Biden issued an executive order that extended the protection to them, but Mr. Trump revoked their detail in a pique on Monday.
The controversies and Mr. Trump’s announcement have thrust the subject of security for public figures into the headlines. But they also raise questions: Who gets Secret Service protection? For how long? Who makes those decisions? How much is it costing the taxpayers?
Here are the ins and outs of government protection.
Who is the Secret Service required to protect?
The Secret Service is statutorily required to protect certain people, including the sitting president, vice president and their families.
In the case of both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, their family members made up a majority of people with Secret Service protection details during their respective administrations. Both men are grandfathers and have large families that have been under protection. Mr. Trump has five children and 10 grandchildren. Mr. Biden’s two children and seven grandchildren also had details while he was president.
The agency is required to protect former presidents and their spouses for life, and children of past presidents retain their Secret Service details until they turn 16.
In addition, visiting heads of states and their spouses receive protection details. So do major candidates for president and vice president and their spouses beginning 120 days before the general election.
How is protection assigned?
A president can also assign Secret Service protection through executive orders, meaning the president can add or remove the detail by fiat.
While president, Mr. Biden extended the protective detail for Mr. Trump’s youngest son, Barron, after he turned 16, according to an official familiar with the arrangement who was not authorized to speak about the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
And before he left office, Mr. Biden also extended the protective detail for his vice president, Kamala Harris, for at least six months, the official said. Because the law does not require protection for former vice presidents, Mr. Trump could choose to end the security detail for Ms. Harris.
Toward the end of his term, Mr. Biden issued an executive order extending security details for his children, Hunter and Ashley, for six months. Mr. Trump did the same for his five children at the end of his first term.
But Mr. Trump abruptly ended the protection for the Biden siblings on Monday, speeding up a process that was already set to happen.
On social media on Monday, Mr. Trump wrote that Hunter Biden had an 18-person protective detail providing security while he was on vacation in South Africa.
“Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list.”
For security reasons, the Secret Service would not say how agents are transitioning out of protecting former President Biden’s children. The agency does routine security assessments of the people it protects, but it would not discuss the threats facing Hunter and Ashley Biden.
Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said on Monday evening: “We are aware of the president’s decision to terminate protection for Hunter and Ashley Biden. The Secret Service will comply and is actively working with the protective details and the White House to ensure compliance as soon as possible.”
A representative for the Biden family declined to comment Monday.
How much does it cost taxpayers?
The number of people under Secret Service protection fluctuates, and the complete list of people is not made public for security reasons.
The list grew to 54 from around 26 after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a former official familiar with the protective details at that time. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that is not routinely publicized.
During the first Trump administration, 42 people had Secret Service protection. That number dropped to around 36 while Mr. Biden was in office. Currently, the Secret Service has protection details for 43 people.
Hunter Biden’s travels raised questions about the taxpayer cost and necessity of a large entourage when the Secret Service is struggling with staffing and retention, former agency officials said.
“During a time where resource constraints are difficult in the Service, this is something that he just deemed as no longer the extension of a courtesy,” Ronald Layton, a 26-year veteran of the Secret Service who led divisions with oversight of protection, said of the president’s decision. Mr. Layton said cutting the protection details short was “common sense.”
While the agency does not break down the cost of protective details for each person it is assigned, the Secret Service’s total budget in 2024 for its protection-specific mission was nearly $1.5 billion, according to data from the Congressional Research Service. In 2019, which was not a presidential election year, the budget for the protection-specific mission was nearly $970 million.
Resources at the agency have been stretched thin after years of staffing shortages and the grueling 2024 presidential campaign season, which called for more protection for candidates than in any previous campaign cycle, partly because of the number of candidates who received protection and threats against Mr. Trump.
This came into stark focus after the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump last summer. The Secret Service was broadly criticized for its security failures at an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pa., where a would-be assassin was able to climb onto a building and shoot Mr. Trump.
How has Trump used his Secret Service power?
Despite the legitimate questions of cost for protecting so many people, the sudden announcement of the cessation of protection for Hunter Biden, coupled with Mr. Trump’s fixation on the former president and his only living son, raised immediate questions about whether this move was the latest stop on the president’s revenge tour.
It prolonged Mr. Trump’s controversial pattern of using the power to assign or dismiss security details in ways that highlight his personal grievances and potentially expose his perceived enemies to peril — part of a retribution pledge that he has effectively carried out since his return to the Oval Office.
Within hours of taking office, Mr. Trump removed the security detail of John R. Bolton, one of his former national security advisers. Mr. Trump fired Mr. Bolton in 2019, and Mr. Bolton later wrote a book critical of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump also pulled the protection for Mike Pompeo, one of his former secretaries of state, and a former aide, Brian Hook. Mr. Trump did this even though Mr. Bolton, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook remain under threat because of actions they took during Mr. Trump’s first term.
As president, Mr. Biden gave Secret Service protection to Mr. Bolton, and later Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Hook, because of Iranian threats. Mr. Bolton and other officials from Mr. Trump’s first term, including the president, have faced continued threats for their involvement in an airstrike that killed Qassim Suleimani, a top Iranian general, in January 2020. In 2022, the Justice Department charged a man with plotting to assassinate Mr. Bolton.
When Mr. Trump pulled the protection details for Mr. Bolton and the other two former advisers, two Republican senators — Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — urged him to reconsider.
“Politics should not come into this in any way,” Jason Russell, a former Secret Service agent, said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. “It’s an unfortunate reality.”
“In this case, it seems like a retribution or some kind of political gamesmanship to take protection away,” Mr. Russell said. “But the Secret Service really shouldn’t be used in this manner. It should be always a threat-based decision.”
Mr. Trump also stripped the government-funded security detail for Dr. Anthony S. Fauci days after his return to office. Dr. Fauci did not have a Secret Service detail, but he continued to have taxpayer-paid security after he left the government in 2022. Initially, federal marshals protected him, and later he had a private contractor whose fees were paid by the government. Conservatives widely criticized Dr. Fauci because of his role guiding the country through the coronavirus pandemic, and he had a contentious relationship with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s announcement on Monday did more than eliminate Hunter Biden’s detail; it also told the public where he was, potentially putting him at risk.
The vacation was not exactly a state secret, however, as The New York Post had published an opinion essay on Saturday about his travels.
“We are in a very unstable security environment where there has been a lot of political violence,” said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “Decisions about the extension of Secret Service protection should be made with discretion so people are not exposed to any added risks.”
Minho Kim contributed reporting.
Three San Francisco couples set out Monday for their annual road trip to Ashland, Ore., for the town’s famous Shakespeare festival. They drove separately and planned to meet at 6:30 p.m. on the terrace of their favorite Japanese restaurant there.
They had booked a table for six, but only four showed up for dinner.
Judith and Wylie Sheldon were found dead in their running car on the side of the road to Oregon, shocking their friends and family and leaving a hole in San Francisco’s arts and film world.
Ms. Sheldon, 84, was the daughter of William Wyler — who won three Oscars for best director — and chaired the board of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Mr. Sheldon, 86, was a prominent lawyer.
David Smith, who had befriended the couple more than 40 years ago, said in an interview that he and the others at the dinner table had grown nervous as time ticked on and their friends did not answer repeated calls to their cellphones. They learned they had not checked into their hotel either.
The friends eventually learned from one of the couple’s sons that the California Highway Patrol had found the couple at 5:46 p.m., both dead inside their running Jeep Compass. It was parked on the side of Interstate 5, north of Redding, Calif., more than 100 miles from their destination, the authorities said. Ms. Sheldon was driving, while Mr. Sheldon was in the passenger seat, according to the authorities.
The Redding area on Monday was under an extreme heat warning issued by the National Weather Service. Temperatures reached 109 degrees, according to the Weather Service.
Mr. Smith said he learned from the son that the couple had been found without any water or other liquids in the car. The fan was on high, but the air conditioning was not working, meaning they might have been blasted with hot air, Mr. Smith said. The windows were rolled down. The car had plenty of gas, and there were no signs of mechanical failure or foul play, Mr. Smith said the son told him.
“They didn’t crash. They stopped. They both just died there,” Mr. Smith said. “The entire thing is so bizarre. We’re still in a state of shock.”
The circumstances and cause of the couple’s death is under investigation but “appears to be medically related,” the Highway Patrol said in a statement.
Whether the heat contributed to the couple’s death “may be determined” by an autopsy, a spokesman for the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said, adding that one had not been scheduled yet and could take several weeks to complete.
“We’ll just have to see,” the spokesman, Tim Mapes, said.
The Sheldons met at Stanford University and had two sons. They lived in a large home in San Francisco’s upscale Pacific Heights neighborhood that had views of the bay from the front and a garden out back.
They hosted many parties there on behalf of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and sometimes let revelers pose for photos with Mr. Wyler’s Oscar statuettes. Ms. Sheldon fell in love with silent movies after first seeing those created by her father — before his better known blockbusters like “Ben-Hur” and “Roman Holiday” — only about 30 years ago, said Anita Monga, artistic director of the festival.
Stacey Wisnia, the festival’s executive director, said the couple was generous, delightful and unassuming.
Back in Ashland, Ore., Mr. Smith said the four remaining friends had distracted themselves from their grief by attending plays, including “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Come From Away.” They were able to give away their friends’ tickets.
Ms. Monga had last seen Ms. Sheldon just last month at the film festival, which was held at the newly remade Castro Theater.
“This is such a shock,” Ms. Monga said of the deaths. “Also because it’s still a mystery.”
Luigi Mangione appears for a pretrial hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, June 17, 2026.
Angelina Katsanis/AP
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Angelina Katsanis/AP
New York — In a dramatic reversal, Luigi Mangione’s legal team on Thursday backed away from a plan to use a psychiatric defense when his case goes to trial in state court in September. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to murdering health insurance CEO Brian Thompson in 2024 on a Manhattan street.
At a hearing only a day earlier before state Judge Gregory Carro, Mangione’s attorneys confirmed that Mangione had been undergoing psychiatric evaluation. They signaled that his defense would be based at least in part on the argument that Mangione was experiencing “extreme emotional disturbance.”
But in a one-line letter sent to Carro on Thursday, Mangione’s team said that “at this time” they no longer intend to introduce psychiatric evidence during the trial. It’s unclear what sparked the shift. Mangione’s team didn’t respond to NPR’s request for comment.
Former Manhattan prosecutor and legal analyst Gary Galperin told NPR it was a “stunning reversal” for Mangione to withdraw from the psychiatric defense. “One can only speculate at this point as to the reasons,” he said.
“What remains, of course, at this point is the question of what defense they will pursue at trial,” he added.
This maneuver came after Carro ordered Mangione’s attorneys to quickly share psychiatric information with prosecutors.
“They need to know what the malady is that this defendant suffers and how that triggered extreme emotional distress,” he said, during Wednesday’s hearing. “I’m not going to let you surprise people on the eve of trial. Get it done.”
Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joel Seidemann repeatedly complained that Mangione’s team was “stonewalling” the prosecution by withholding medical information about his psychiatric state. “We have gotten nothing,” Seidemann said.
Mangione’s lead attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo denied her team was delaying the court process or improperly withholding information.
But legal analyst Richard Schoenstein says by withdrawing the psychiatric defense, Mangione’s team “is avoiding the court deadline to produce its psychiatric evidence.”
According to Schoenstein, this latest move “does not entirely foreclose” Mangione’s team from returning to some form of psychiatric argument during the trial, but he added that such a defense would now be far more difficult.
Mangione’s case has drawn worldwide attention. Legal experts say the 28-eight-year old has drawn an unusual level of public support because of his criticism of the health insurance industry. Thompson, a father of two, was CEO of UnitedHealthcare at the time of his murder.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Carro also indicated that a tranche of court documents would be made public that apparently relate to Mangione’s potential psychiatric defense. On Thursday, Carro reversed course.
In a signed order, he said that because Mangione will no longer present psychiatric evidence, “the court’s previous order sealing certain transcripts, emails, and documents, remains in effect.”
Mangione’s state trial is scheduled to begin in early September, with a federal trial expected to take place later.
The museums, designed by conservative nonprofits and Trump appointees, tell the story of early America, from colonization to revolution. The one exhibition looking beyond the early years is the “Wall of American Heroes.” It is a list of 51 people, chosen to illustrate 250 years of American history.
A White House spokesman said they were “individuals who shaped this nation’s history, culture and spirit across generations.”
The people pictured on this national honor roll — and the people left out — help illustrate what this administration sees as the highlights of American history.
Amid the administration’s efforts to reshape the nation’s relationship with its past, Trump appointees heavily weighted the list toward a single era of American history — and a few specific kinds of hero.
The other exhibitions in the Freedom Trucks were crafted by a pair of conservative nonprofits, PragerU and Hillsdale College. But the “Wall of American Heroes” was created by Freedom 250, a nonprofit effort whose leaders were chosen by President Trump and that was created to lead the planning of celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday, overshadowing a bipartisan congressional commission.
A spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said Mr. Trump was not directly involved in the selection of those featured.
But the list clearly tracks Mr. Trump’s own lifetime and the heroes of the conservative political movement.
The wall’s tilt toward heroes of the baby boomer generation, for instance, extends beyond Hollywood stars and musicians. Of the four religious leaders on the list, two — Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the Rev. Billy Graham — also appeared on TV regularly in the 1950s and 1960s. The only painter on the list is Norman Rockwell, known for his idealized depictions of American life in that period.
By contrast, there is only a handful of figures from the first decades of American independence.
“That’s a disservice, if your intention is to present the last 250 years,” said Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association. “Because all of the people on this list are building on the work and struggles and progress that was made by the people in the 150 years prior.”
The “Wall of American Heroes” was inspired by a similar display in a traveling museum created by the State of Virginia. But Virginia’s display celebrates little-known historical figures.
Mr. Trump’s, by and large, celebrates people who are already well-known — and, often, people who were famous in their own time. For example, it praises P.T. Barnum, a circus impresario who used hoaxes and freak shows to draw crowds. The wall calls him an “icon of American sensationalism.”
The spokeswoman for Freedom 250 said that many of the names on the wall were drawn from a list of 250 people that Mr. Trump wants to include in a “Garden of American Heroes” in Washington.
The spokeswoman declined to say what criteria were used to narrow down the list.
The only president whose name appears on the wall — not on the list of heroes, but alongside his quotation — is Mr. Trump himself.
Explore the Wall of Heroes
Navigate the display by dragging from side to side.
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