Secret Service members from Biden’s detail are now protecting Trump

After the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, last month, the Secret Service temporarily shifted some personnel from President Joe Biden’s protective detail to guard his predecessor.

An official with the agency told The New York Times that reassigning members of a president’s detail to a candidate is unusual, but the switch was made after the increased threat of violence against Trump, and because of Biden’s more limited travel schedule since dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. As another protective measure, the Secret Service has also obtained bulletproof glass to shield Trump during future outdoor rallies.

Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to climb onto a roof on July 13 and take aim at Trump from about 400 feet away as the former president delivered a campaign speech. A bullet grazed Trump’s ear, one rally attendee was killed, and two others were wounded. Both the FBI and Congress are investigating the incident.

The Secret Service has taken responsibility, and its former director, Kimberly Cheatle, was forced to resign in the aftermath. Even as the agency reckons with the most severe lapse in security for a president arguably since the assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan in 1981, the Secret Service has had to continue to protect about three dozen officials, both current and former, as well as their families.

Donald Mihalek, who retired from the agency in 2019, told theTimes that Secret Service methodology “is made to be flexible… and to address known, and unknown, threats. The steps the Secret Service is taking are a natural part of its asymmetrical approach to assure their no-fail mission is