The United States Secret Service is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to U.S. political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government. The Secret Service was, until 2003, part of the Department of the Treasury, due to their initial mandate of combating counterfeiting of U.S. currency. The agency has protected U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since 1901.
Kimberly Ann Guilfoyle is an American television news personality and former prosecutor in San Francisco and Los Angeles. She served as an advisor and led the fundraising division of Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign.
The United States Secret Service Uniformed Division is the federal police force of the U.S. Secret Service, similar to the U.S. Capitol Police or DHS Federal Protective Service. It is in charge of protecting the physical White House grounds and foreign diplomatic missions in the District of Columbia area.
On June 18, 2016, at a rally for Donald Trump's 2016 United States presidential campaign in Paradise, Nevada, Michael Steven Sandford, a 20-year-old British citizen, attempted to grab the service pistol of a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer providing security for the event. Having failed to do so and having been arrested, Sandford claimed that he had wished to kill Trump to prevent him from being elected U.S. president.
William Richardson Timmons IV is an American attorney, entrepreneur, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional district since 2019. His district is in the heart of the Upstate and includes Greenville, Spartanburg, and most of their suburbs. A member of the Republican Party, Timmons served as a South Carolina state senator from 2016 to 2018.
This section of the timeline of United States history includes major events from 2010 to the present.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 2024. The Republican Party's ticket—Donald Trump, who was the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, and JD Vance, the junior U.S. senator from Ohio—defeated the Democratic Party's ticket—Kamala Harris, the incumbent vice president, and Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota. Trump and Vance are scheduled to be inaugurated as the 47th president and the 50th vice president on January 20, 2025, after their formal election by the Electoral College.
2020s in United States history is a narrative summary of major historical events and issues in the United States from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2029. The first part is divided chronologically by Congressional sessions and the second part highlights major issues that span several years or even the entire decade. There are links for further information.
This is a timeline of major events leading up to, during, and after the 2024 United States presidential election, which was the first presidential election to be run with population data from the 2020 census. In addition to the dates mandated by the relevant federal laws such as those in the U.S. Constitution and the Electoral Count Act, several milestones have consistently been observed since the adoption of the conclusions of the 1971 McGovern–Fraser Commission.
On January 6, 2021, the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., was attacked by a mob of supporters of, at the time, the 45th U.S. president Donald Trump in an attempted self-coup d'état, two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. They sought to keep him in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the Electoral College votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. The attack was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing the certification of the election results. According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a seven-part plan by Trump to overturn the election. Within 36 hours, five people died: one was shot by Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose, and three died of natural causes, including a police officer who died of natural causes a day after being assaulted by rioters. Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months. Damage caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million.
Donald Trump, the 45th president and current president-elect of the United States, has been involved in security incidents during his presidential campaigns and his first term in office, including assassination threats and attempts. The first known attempt occurred at a campaign rally a few weeks before Trump became the official nominee of the Republican Party in the 2016 presidential election. The most significant incident was an attempt to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally during the 2024 presidential election, which resulted in two deaths and an injury to Trump's ear. Another assassination attempt took place in September 2024 at the Trump International Golf Club.
Anthony M. Ornato is the former assistant director of the United States Secret Service Office of Training. He was the service's 34th special agent in charge who headed the security detail of president Donald Trump until being detailed to the White House where the president named him White House Deputy Chief of Staff for operations in December 2019. After his tenure as a government SES detailee in the Trump administration, he returned to the Secret Service where he worked as the assistant director in the office of training until August 29, 2022.
In July 2023, the United States Secret Service found a small plastic bag containing less than a gram of powder cocaine inside the White House. The initial discovery prompted an evacuation of the White House. President Joe Biden and his family were at Camp David in Maryland at the time the cocaine was discovered. The Secret Service initiated an investigation as to how the cocaine entered the White House. The investigation yielded no forensic evidence and the Secret Service could not narrow below 500 the number of staff or visitors who may have left the cocaine; the investigation was closed after eleven days.
On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump, a former president of the United States and then the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the 2024 presidential election, survived an assassination attempt while speaking at an open-air campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was shot and wounded in his upper right ear by Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who fired eight rounds from an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Crooks also killed one audience member and critically injured two others. He was shot and killed seconds later by the United States Secret Service's Counter Sniper Team.
Thomas Matthew Crooks was an American man who attempted to assassinate former U.S. president Donald Trump, who at the time was the presumptive Republican Party nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
Ronald L. Rowe Jr. is an American law enforcement officer who serves as the acting director of the United States Secret Service. Rowe was appointed to the position after former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in 2024, amidst intense criticism of the Secret Service following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.
On September 15, 2024, Donald Trump, a former president of the United States and then-nominee of the Republican Party in the 2024 presidential election, survived an assassination attempt while golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. A suspect, later identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, was spotted hiding in nearby shrubbery while aiming a rifle at a member of Trump's security detail. A Secret Service agent fired upon Routh, who fled the scene and was later captured in Martin County. No injuries were reported. Officials say that Routh intended to shoot Trump, and Routh had been indicted on five federal charges by September 24, including attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate. The incident occurred two months after Trump survived a previous assassination attempt while speaking at a campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania. Routh has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and a preliminary trial date has been set for February 10, 2025.
Political violence has occurred leading up to the 2024 United States presidential election.
