Kamala Harris will be protected by the California Highway Patrol after President Donald Trump ordered the Secret Service to pull protection detail for the former vice president, according to a report.
State officials have reportedly put a plan in place to provide Harris with dignitary protection, according to the LA Times, citing law enforcement sources.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass held discussions Thursday about Harris’s situation, according to the outlet.
Trump revoked an order signed in January by then-President Joe Biden to extend Harris’s security detail until January 2026. Under normal circumstances, Harris would have lost her protection six months after the end of her term.
The president issued a memorandum Thursday to the Secret Service, informing officials that they were “hereby authorized to discontinue any security-related procedures previously authorized by Executive Memorandum” concerning Harris.
Newsom would need to sign off on the new arrangement with the California Highway Patrol, although his office would not confirm the plans.
“Our office does not comment on security arrangements,” Newsom’s spokesperson Izzy Gordon told the LA Times. “The safety of our public officials should never be subject to erratic, vindictive political impulses.”
Bass hit out at the Trump administration over revoking Harris’s protection in what she called “another act of revenge.”
“This puts the former Vice President in danger and I look forward to working with the governor to make sure Vice President Harris is safe in Los Angeles,” the mayor said in a statement to the Times.
Harris has largely kept a low profile since she was defeated by Trump in last year’s presidential election. Last month she ruled out a run for California governor after months of speculation she could seek to return to elected office.
The former vice president is set to release a memoir in the fall about her 107-day campaign for president after Biden dropped out of the race, and she is about to embark on a book tour.
Since returning to office, Trump has used his authority over the Secret Service to punish perceived political adversaries by removing previously authorized protective details, even in cases where there have been documented threats to the people in question.
In his first days back in the White House, the president ordered the agency to stop protecting his first-term national security adviser, John Bolton, and his former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo.
Both men have been on a list of officials targeted for assassination by Iran in retaliation for the Trump-ordered drone stroke on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qassem Soleimani during the president’s first term.
But Trump nonetheless ordered their protective details to be withdrawn.
In March, he ordered an end to protection for former president Biden’s adult children, including his son Hunter Biden, at the urging of conspiracy theorist and far-right influencer Laura Loomer.
Additional reporting from Andrew Feinberg
