President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is revoking Secret Service protection for Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, after Hunter Biden took a lavish vacation to South Africa.
“Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer. There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous!” Trump said on Truth Social.
“Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection. Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list.”
Over the past five years, Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and debauchery have been subject to intense political and legal scrutiny. His half-sister Ashley, the only child between Joe Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden, has largely avoided the limelight except to support family members.
Trump pointed out that his administration cut off economic assistance to South Africa because of its policy allowing the government to seize land owned by white farmers. The Trump administration is also setting up a refugee program for white Afrikaners to escape to the U.S. because of racial discrimination.
Hunter Biden took a vacation to South Africa as a federal judge appointed by his father granted his request to dismiss a lawsuit he filed against former Trump staffer Garrett Ziegler. The younger Biden moved to dismiss the case because of his financial difficulties after sales of his memoir and his paintings collapsed, beginning in late 2023.
Ziegler’s attorneys alleged that Biden took the luxurious trip to South Africa to avoid his upcoming deposition in the lawsuit as he sought to dismiss the proceedings. Biden originally sued Ziegler for computer fraud tied to a public database that his nonprofit, Marco Polo, created from emails, texts, videos, and images on his abandoned laptop hard drive and iPhone.
Ziegler’s attorneys argued that Hunter Biden presented no evidence to back up his assertions that Ziegler had manipulated his data and hacked his devices. Instead, they suggested that Biden was trying to silence Ziegler’s free speech rights.
U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera dismissed the case in California with prejudice, meaning that Biden cannot bring the lawsuit against Ziegler again at a later date. The lawsuit was part of Hunter Biden’s aggressive political strategy against his political opponents as his legal and political situation made near-daily headlines.
The New York Post, shortly before the 2020 election, first reported on the materials on Hunter’s laptop and the evidence they provided of his father’s involvement in his many business enterprises. Biden’s devices also contained salacious messages and images and videos documenting his lavish lifestyle, drug addiction, sex with prostitutes, and relationships with various women after his marriage fell apart.
The House GOP investigated Hunter Biden’s business dealings for much of the past two years as part of an impeachment inquiry into his father. The inquiry uncovered $27 million worth of payments from foreign sources to Hunter Biden and his business associates during and after his father’s vice presidency. Republican investigators also discovered several interactions between Joe Biden and his son’s foreign business partners when he was vice president and shortly after he departed office.
Another aspect of the impeachment inquiry was whistleblower allegations from IRS agents Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that agency officials and their Justice Department counterparts slow-walked and obstructed the long-running investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes. The career IRS agents presented detailed testimony and a trove of documents to back up their allegations, which contributed to the collapse of Biden’s generous plea agreement with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss in summer 2023.
Weiss was subsequently elevated to special counsel and prosecuted Hunter Biden on federal gun and tax charges last year. A Delaware jury found Biden guilty of three gun felonies last June for purchasing a gun while being addicted to cocaine and lying on gun paperwork about his drug addiction. Three months later, rather than go through another trial, Biden pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges related to his failure to pay $1.4 million of federal taxes in a timely manner last decade.
Then–President Joe Biden pardoned his son in December of any potential crimes committed between January 2014 and December 2024. Joe Biden issued the sweeping pardon right before his son’s sentencing dates, despite having stated many times that he would never pardon his son. Many Republicans and some Democrats criticized Joe Biden’s pardon and his attacks on the federal prosecutors who brought the cases against his son.