A Secret Service veteran says the former president because of his large media presence and other factors Donald Trump requires the heaviest Secret Service protection of any former president.
Ray Moore narrated Mark Winne from Channel 2 that as a retired special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office for the U.S. Secret Service and who has helped protect every president and former president going back to Richard Nixon, he knows that the preparations for protecting a president and his predecessor for the debate have been going on for months.
He says protecting the residents of the White House may even involve visits to the “big house.”
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“If someone in the state of Georgia, South Carolina, anyone within driving or flying distance made a threat against the president or the candidate, they are likely to be knocking on their door yesterday and today by Secret Service agents and their partners,” Moore said. “Including people who are in jail. They are being visited to make sure that they have not approached anyone on their behalf.”
According to Moore, partners like GEMA Director Chris Stallings and Georgia Public Safety Commissioner Col. Billy Hitchens indispensable for the Secret Service.
“We’ve been reaching out statewide to bring in people who have specialized needs that we think we may need during this debate about safety here,” Hitchens said. “We’ve been reaching out statewide to make sure that we’re not depleting our resources in certain places.”
“We went to the governor and explained what the needs would be so that we could have access to all the resources that we needed,” Stallings said.
“Donald Trump has an elevated media profile, which brings increased attention from people who love him and from people who may not love him,” Moore said. “So it lifts its protective umbrella.”
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When it comes to protecting President Biden, Moore says, “Yes, he’s still pretty agile. He wants to do things, he wants to communicate with the public, so that’s why officers have to be spontaneous sometimes.”
Hitchens told Winne that state agents and other government officials help get official parties safely to the right place.
They try to keep the freeways flowing and have a lot of their people on hand for any emergency, including if the Atlanta police, for example, call for help with a riot.
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