Democrats’ Double Standard on Harris, GOP VPs, Losing Secret Service | The American Spectator

Ya can’t make it up.

Check this headline over at Mediaite: “‘Act of Revenge’: Top Democrats Slam Trump for Yanking Harris Secret Service Protection.”

The story reports:

Democrats are blasting President Donald Trump’s decision to yank former Vice President Kamala Harris’s extended Secret Service protection as “vindictive” and an “act of revenge.”

The former vice president lost her statutory six months of protection in July, but former President Joe Biden had quietly signed an order granting her another year of coverage, according to exclusive reporting from CNN.

Cue the outrage.

But hold on. The former VP, as noted in the news reporting, had only a “statutory six months of protection” coming her way after leaving office. That time period expired. So there was nothing unusual about her Secret Service protection ending. The real question is:

Where is former Vice President Dan Quayle’s protection? I know, I know. Quayle has been out of the vice presidency since January 20, 1993, when the defeated President Bush and Vice President Quayle had to turn over their White House keys to incoming President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.

But if the complaint here is that Harris should have her protection time extended, then why not for Quayle in the day? Or, for that matter, ex-VP Al Gore? Or ex-VP Mike Pence? Or ex-VP Dick Cheney? Or have all ex-VPs had their protection extended up until today?

The hard fact here is that there appears to be a double standard on this issue with the left. If Harris’s protection time is up, there’s hell to pay. But if it’s Dan Quayle or Dick Cheney? Who cares.

The fact of the matter is that often enough America has former vice presidents floating around the country. And they have managed to do so without their once-upon-a-time in-office Secret Service details.

Former Vice President Richard Nixon spent eight years as a private citizen without Secret Service protection between losing the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and winning the presidency in 1968.

So too did ex-VP Spiro Agnew, who resigned the vice presidency in October of 1973 after charges of income tax evasion, faced demands that he lose his Secret Service protection. The New York Times reported back in the day that incumbent President Nixon: “Rep. Moss Tells Treasury to End Agnew Guard (Published 1974)”

“Asked that the detail be assigned to Mr. Agnew for ‘a reasonable period of time.’ Treasury officials have indicated that the detail may be withdrawn in April, six months after Mr. Agnew’s resignation.”

Suffice to say, in the case of former Vice President Harris, it has been 8 full months — not 6 like that for Agnew — since departing the vice presidency. Much is being made of her current book tour. Surely the Harrises can afford their own security as they see fit when their security disappears. (RELATED: Time to Cut Off Security Clearances for Ex-Gov Officials)

The hard fact and concerning problem for Americans is that when people of high rank, other than the president, leave office, there is always a move to let them keep everything from Secret Service protection to top secret clearance for security briefings.

Surely there comes a time when this should stop. The phrase “Out of Office” means just that.

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