House to vote on bill bolstering presidential candidates’ Secret Service protection
CNN
The House is expected to vote Friday to pass a bill bolstering Secret Service protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates, a move that comes in the wake of two apparent assassination attempts targeting GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.
The House is expected to vote Friday to pass a bill bolstering Secret Service protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates, a move that comes in the wake of two apparent assassination attempts targeting GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. The bill directs the Secret Service director to apply uniform standards for protection of presidents, vice presidents and major presidential and vice presidential candidates. The Secret Service is under scrutiny in Congress after two apparent assassination attempts on Trump, the first on July 13 at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and the second on September 15 at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNN he expects the vote on the House bill to be unanimous. Following the first assassination attempt on July 13, “the Secret Service moved to increase assets to an already enhanced security posture for the former president,” Ronald Rowe Jr., acting director of the US Secret Service, said at a briefing the day after the September 15 incident. “In the days that followed, President Biden made it clear that he wanted the highest levels of protection for former President Trump and for Vice President Harris. The Secret Service moved to sustain increases in assets and the level of protections sought. And those things were in place yesterday,” he added.
Vice President Kamala Harris directed her team this week to immediately schedule a visit to Georgia following a media report that revealed two deaths linked to the battleground state’s abortion restrictions, according to two sources familiar with the planning – a callback to the rapid response travel she’s done over the past year.
Attempts by conservatives to purge state voter rolls ahead of the November election, including from Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, are ramping up, prompting concern from the Justice Department that those efforts might violate federal rules governing how states can manage their lists of registered voters.