AF1 wheels up from JBA en route to West Palm Beach and Mar-a-Lago. Today he will be hosting a summit with a number of Caribbean leaders. He will also be working this weekend on China trade negotiations.
So on the gray, overcast, drizzly, early ride in this morning to work I was thinking about those Clinton photos. I thought to myself where is his Secret Service detail during this time.
Then I remembered, and correct me if I’m wrong, but right after Obama was elected there was a change in SS details for ex presidents. As I recall the change was that ExPOTUS would only have SS details for a certain number of years instead of the rest of their lives. I seem to recall there was discussion that the Dems did this just to get back at Bush.
But then I thought that it exempted all POTUS prior to Bush including his dad so Clinton wouldn’t have been impacted.
So during my break I did a quick dig and came up with this:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-restores-lifetime-secret-service-for-former-presidents/
Which confirms that Clinton was exempted and lifetime protection was restored in 2014. However, it went into original effect in ‘94.
So now my original question is back...where was Clinton’s SS detail during the island visit.
Just nine days before the FBI applied for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil a top Trump campaign aide, bureau officials were battling with a senior Justice Department official who had "continued concerns" about the "possible bias" of a source pivotal to the application, according to internal text messages obtained by Fox News....
Further, the texts show that on Sept. 12, 2016, Page forwarded to McCabe some "unsolicited comments" calling then-House GOP Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy a "total d--k." Gowdy, at the time, was grilling FBI congressional affairs director Jason Herring at a hearing on the FBI's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
But perhaps the most significant Page-McCabe communications made plain the DOJ's worries that the FISA application to surveil Trump aide Carter Page was based on a potentially biased source -- and underscored the FBI's desire to press on.
Barr is doing a good job of taking charge.