Tennessee U.S. Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) on Friday joined a number of congressional Democrats who seek to remove the Secret Service protection afforded to former President Donald Trump if he is convicted and sentenced to prison.
Cohen was named in a press release issued by Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS-02), who led the House January 6 committee, as a co-sponsor of the DISGRACED Former Protectees Act, which would amend Secret Service procedures “by automatically terminating Secret Service protection for those who have been sentenced to prison following conviction for a Federal or State felony.”
Thompson said in a statement the bill was necessary “so the American people can be assured that protective status does not translate into special treatment” for the former president.
The legislation by Cohen and his Democratic colleagues comes only months after a prison expert warned Trump could be “killed” if placed behind bars.
Prison analyst Robert Rogers told Newsweek last December, “there would also be inmates who would try to kill him, in spite of Secret Service protection, just to make a name for themselves so that they would go down in history, not as common criminals and losers, but as someone who had killed an American president.”
A former Obama administration official similarly speculated to The Washington Post last August that it would be “a pretty enormous burden on our prison system to have to incarcerate Donald Trump,” with current Secret Service staff telling the outlet “there is no such policy” for an incarcerated former president.
Due to the logistical constraints to confining the former president, a former federal prosecutor told the outlet that “home confinement” could be an alternative compromise that would allow the Secret Service to fulfill its mandate of protecting Trump without creating distractions for the federal prison system.
Republican supporters of the former president responded by suggesting Democrats want to see Trump harmed or killed.
Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who endorsed Trump after ending his campaign, recently stated, “Ask yourself what outcome they’re actually rooting for?”
Ramaswamy continued, “This is ugly, this is un-American, and I think they’re being much more transparent about to what extent they’re willing to go to achieve their single minded objective” of defeating Trump.
Attorney Mike Davis of the Article III Project posted to social media, “Translation: Biden Democrats are now plotting to get Trump killed.”
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Congressman Steve Cohen” by United States House of Representatives. Background photo “US Capitol” by Alejandro Barba.
.
