The U.S. Secret Service is in the business of protecting the president, whether he’s inside the Oval Office or visiting a foreign war zone.
But protecting a former president in prison? The prospect is unprecedented. That would be the challenge if Donald J. Trump — whom the agency is required by law to protect around the clock — is convicted at his criminal trial in Manhattan and sentenced to serve time.
Even before the trial’s opening statements, the Secret Service was in some measure planning for the extraordinary possibility of a former president behind bars. Prosecutors had asked the judge in the case to remind Mr. Trump that attacks on witnesses and jurors could land him in jail even before a verdict is rendered.
He’d be too hard to protect in gen pop. The most realistic way to put Trump in prison is to make the entire SHU into a “presidential suite” for Trump and his security detail. Everything else goes through regular prison security as normal, anything or anyone entering or leaving the SHU goes through SS in addition.