President Donald Trump on Monday revoked the Secret Service details assigned to former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Hunter and Ashley Biden, the former president’s children.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi announced the move in an email, stating the three individuals and their families “are no longer protectees” of the security agency.
The Secret Service was informed on Friday that Mayorkas’s detail was being revoked four months before its expiration date, per internal records as reported by the Washington Post. The former DHS chief’s protection was supposed to end in mid-July after former President Joe Biden extended Mayorkas’s detail by six months before leaving office in January.
The Trump administration has repeatedly criticized Mayorkas for mismanaging the crisis at the southern border and enabling millions of illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. during his four-year tenure.
The Secret Service agents assigned to protect Hunter and Ashley Biden were also removed on Monday, one week after Trump announced he would do so. The president’s statement came after Hunter traveled to South Africa with his detail.
“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 posted on Truth Social last Monday. “He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people has been strenuously questioned. Because of this, South Africa has been taken off our list of Countries receiving Economic and Financial Assistance.”
“Please be advised that, effective immediately, Hunter Biden will no longer receive Secret Service protection,” he continued. “Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list.”
Guglielmi said at the time that the federal agency would comply with President Trump’s directive “as soon as possible.”
Hunter Biden was pardoned by his father in December after he was convicted of federal gun felonies and federal tax charges in two separate trials. President Biden pardoned his son for “those offenses . . . he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024.” The former president said his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” by the Justice Department’s former special counsel, David Weiss. Ashley Biden, alongside former First Lady Jill Biden, appeared at Hunter’s gun trial last year to offer moral support.
The security details for Hunter and Ashley Biden, like Mayorkas’s, were granted six-month extensions before being revoked. Trump granted similar extensions in 2021 to his adult children and top administration aides, which Biden honored.
The latest revocations of Secret Service details come days after Trump removed security clearances belonging to Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and other partisan political opponents. Former Representatives Liz Cheney (R., Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.), who served on the House January 6 committee that investigated Trump, were also on the list.
Trump has revoked security protection for others, including Anthony Fauci and John Bolton, since returning to office. Fauci oversaw the botched national response to the Covid-19 pandemic that Republican lawmakers often criticize, and Bolton served as the White House’s national security adviser during Trump’s first term. Bolton was under protection because of threats from Iran.