Trump strips Hunter and Ashley Biden of Secret Service protection ‘effective immediately’?
WASHINGTON — President Trump revoked Hunter and Ashley Biden’s Secret Service security detail on Monday after the former first son, flanked by agents, was spotted on an “ultra-luxurious” getaway in South Africa when he was due for a deposition in court.
“Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous!”
“He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people has been strenuously questioned,” the president added. “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,” Trump announced.
Hunter’s younger half-sister, Ashley Biden, 43, and her taxpayer-funded security detail also drew the ire of the president.
“Likewise, Ashley Biden who has 13 agents will be taken off the list,” Trump said.
The Secret Service is working to “comply” with the president’s directive, according to a spokesperson for the agency.
“We are aware of the President’s decision to terminate protection for Hunter and Ashley Biden,” Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement. “The Secret Service will comply and is actively working with the protective details and the White House to ensure compliance as soon as possible.”
Agents guarding Hunter and Ashley cannot leave their posts until the necessary paperwork formalizing Trump’s order is put in, sources told The Post.
The process of dismantling the taxpayer protection provided to the Biden clan will begin Tuesday, according to sources.
The president’s announcement came just hours after he said he would “look” into revoking the 55-year-old former first son’s security detail.
“I would say if there are 18 [Secret Service agents] with Hunter Biden, that will be something I look at this afternoon,” Trump said at the Kennedy Center when asked by a reporter about the taxpayer-funded visit.
Former President Joe Biden’s son was staying in a $500-a-night villa in Cape Town, described on its website as an “ultra-luxurious designer home with spectacular 180 degrees unobstructed views of the sea.”
But a federal judge granted the Biden scion’s bid to drop his lawsuit against former White House aide?Garrett Ziegler — whose nonprofit Marco Polo digitized his infamous “laptop from hell” and put its embarrassing contents online —?after he had departed for?South Africa, photos show.
Hunter had cried poor before the ruling last Friday, saying no one is buying his memoir or art and that he and his family were forced to relocate from their Malibu rental home after wildfires.
But photos showed him waltzing around Cape Town, shopping with his South Africa-born wife Melissa Cohen and holing up at the ritzy resort with his federal entourage.
Ziegler told The Post on Monday that Hunter had “fled the country” — and “worse than that, US taxpayers are footing the bill for it.”
“Trump should strip his Secret Service protection, which he is not entitled to, and make Joe Biden, who is collecting three handsome federal pensions, foot the bill,” Ziegler said.
The ex-White House aide also noted that Trump should consider relieving from “his duties immediately” federal prosecutor Derek Hines, who worked on Hunter’s twin criminal cases.
Hines served under former special counsel David Weiss in Delaware on the cases charging Hunter Biden with tax fraud and gun crimes — and was promoted last week to first assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Secret Service protection doesn’t automatically extend to adult children of presidents, but Hunter was directed to be given a special detail by his father, Trump administration sources said.
Trump, 78, also expressed displeasure at Hunter being in South Africa after his administration halted foreign aid to the country due to the government taking away land from farmers as an apartheid reparations measure.
“South Africa, you know, is on a watch list. You know that, yes, because what they’re doing to people is brutal, and I’ve stopped having money go to South Africa. You know that’s billions of dollars,” Trump said.
“So he’s in South Africa. That’s really interesting. All right, I’m going to take a look at that.”
Guglielmi told The Post on Friday that Hunter Biden was indeed given Secret?Service protection, but would not confirm the number of agents who accompanied?him on the trip.
Trump scrapped Secret Service details for his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his former national security adviser John Bolton, among others, after taking office.
“When you have protection, you can’t have it for the rest of your life,” Trump told reporters back in January.
“Do you want to have a large detail of people guarding people for the rest of their lives?” he asked. “I mean, there’s risks to everything.”
