Congress divided over funding boost for Secret Service after assassination attempts on Trump

The Secret Service is asking Congress for hundreds of millions of dollars to help the agency bolster its security through the presidential election and inauguration, but some lawmakers doubt the agency actually needs more money.

Most Democrats and some Republicans say Congress should provide the Secret Service with any extra funding to protect detailees after two assassination attempts on former President Donald Trump.

But some GOP lawmakers argue that the agency’s issues are more with personnel and leadership, and changes to those can be made without Congress throwing more money at the Secret Service. 

“I think most of the problems were human error. Let’s address the human error before we start talking about more money,” said Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican. 

Mr. Paul is the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that is investigating the assassination attempts on Mr. Trump. The panel is planning to release a preliminary report next week on the security failures that led to the first attempt at a July 13 rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Trump was shot in the ear.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said in a letter to appropriators earlier this month that while the agency does not believe the failures that occurred on July 13 were due to a lack of resources, it could use more money to keep up with the demand of increased protective requirements.

He echoed that message at a press conference Monday where law enforcement officials provided preliminary information on the second assassination attempt against Mr. Trump that the Secret Service thwarted.

While the Secret Service has “done more with less for decades,” the agency has immediate and future needs that require more funding, Mr. Rowe said. Those needs include hiring more personnel and enhancing training for countersnipers, he said.

“Success, we have to have it every day. We cannot have failures,” Mr. Rowe said. “And in order to do that, we’re going to have some hard conversations with Congress.”

The hard conversations will come primarily with fiscal conservatives who think the agency’s $3 billion annual budget is enough funding and that the lapses in protecting Mr. Trump are more about management than money. 

“I don’t think it’s a funding issue. I think it’s a manpower allocation,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Fox News. 

President Biden called on Congress to consider providing the Secret Service with more funding. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer appeared ready to oblige.

“As we continue the appropriations process if the Secret Service is in need of more resources, we are prepared to [provide] it for them, possibly in the upcoming funding agreement,” the New York Democrat said. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, told reporters he is “certainly open” to added funding. “If increasing the funding is part of the solution, I’m for it,” he said.

But many Republicans argue money is not the solution. 

“No, we don’t need more funding. We got 7,000 Secret Service officers out there right now,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, Kansas Republican. “They’ve got plenty of personnel. They got plenty of money.”

Mr. Marshall is among a group of GOP senators calling on the Secret Service to provide Mr. Trump with protection equivalent to a sitting president. Others include Sens. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ted Budd of North Carolina and Mike Lee of Utah. They all agreed more funding is not needed.

Sen. Christopher Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service’s budget, said lawmakers can defer debate on the merits of increasing the agency’s annual budget. But he hopes they’ll consider a one-time emergency cash infusion to bolster security during the election and inauguration.

“I think it’s going to be a really dangerous time in American politics, and the Secret Service is going to need to be creative about how to spread itself wider than it has,” he said.

Appropriators and the Secret Service are “going back and forth on numbers,” but in general, are discussing additional funding in the “hundreds of millions,” for items such as overtime pay, Mr. Murphy said. 

The Secret Service’s annual budget for the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 is $3.1 billion. Congress is currently negotiating the terms of a government funding stopgap that would extend current-year funding for three to six months, so discussions about the Secret Service budget are what would be needed on top of that prorated annual amount.

Mr. Murphy said an alternative to providing extra funding would be to give the Secret Service authority to spend next year’s funding at an accelerated rate, “but it’d be better to do a fresh infusion.” 

If lawmakers opt for the accelerated spending, which Mr. Johnson had included in the House’s partisan stopgap funding bill that Democrats oppose, they will still have to decide later whether to increase the agency’s budget for the rest of the fiscal year.

Sen. Katie Britt, the top Republican on the Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, is working with Mr. Murphy to assess the Secret Service’s request for additional resources. Whether the agency needs more funding or can reallocate funds within its current budget is among the issues they are “working through,” she said. 

“I want to make sure, obviously, we get them what they need, but we get this right,” Ms. Britt told The Washington Times.