A 19-year-old and an unidentified minor have been arrested in connection to the late-2023 break-in of a Secret Service vehicle situated outside the Georgetown home of the president’s granddaughter, Naomi Biden, 30, who is the daughter of Hunter Biden.

The announcement of the arrests, made in a court filing in the Superior Court of D.C., disclosed that Ms. Biden is no longer living in the White House. A New York Times article about her high-profile White House wedding in 2022 said that Ms. Biden was living in the executive mansion, along with her new husband. 

That Ms. Biden, who as her father’s vocal defender requires Secret Service protection, is living outside the White House in a city that’s been plagued by violent crime, including in its affluent Northwest quarter that is usually insulated from the violence that tars the rest of the District, could raise concerns for her safety.

Robert Kemp, 19, was arrested earlier this month on charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle, which is a class two felony that carries a prison term of up to four years. 

“On or about November 12, 2023, within the District of Columbia, Robert Kemp did feloniously take, use, operate, and remove one certain motor vehicle … and did operate and drive that motor vehicle for his own purpose, without the consent of” the vehicle’s owner, the charges filed in the D.C. Superior Court state. 

In November, Mr. Kemp and his juvenile partner allegedly broke into a Secret Service vehicle that was used to transport Ms. Biden. The burglars made off with more than $1,000 worth of equipment, including expensive night-vision goggles, before Secret Service agents tried to stop them. Mr. Kemp and his co-conspirators absconded with their loot in a separate stolen car — it was not a Secret Service vehicle — and nearly drove into one of the agents, leading the officer to fire one shot. 

According to the Washington Post, Mr. Kemp had stolen “a protective vest, night-vision goggles, a first aid bag, and a computer router.”

Ms. Biden was made aware of the situation after it occurred, the Secret Service said in November. 

It’s the second recent embarrassing incident of the Secret Service being caught unawares by miscreants. In May, an “intoxicated” intruder broke into the home of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who has round-the-clock protection due to threats against one of his predecessors, John Bolton. The Secret Service wasn’t aware of the intrusion until the intruder had left the building.

Crime has skyrocketed at the District, even though nationwide crime rates are falling from their highs in 2020 and 2021. In 2023, there were 274 murders and more than 950 carjackings at the nation’s capital. In December of last year, the Department of Justice arrested 10 teenagers for operating a carjacking ring that was responsible for at least 15 carjacking or armed robbery incidents in the region. 

While the District has long been known as one of the most crime-ridden and dangerous cities in the country, this current crime wave stands out in that the violent crime has perforated the extremely affluent Northwest area of the city, where many senior government officials, as well as wealthy technology executives, live.

Just in February, a former senior Trump administration official, Mike Gill, was murdered by a carjacker on K Street, at the heart of D.C.’s lobbying and lawyering community, while he was waiting to pick up his wife from work. In October, Congressman Henry Cuellar was held up by a group of robbers outside of a restaurant and had his car stolen less than a mile from the Capitol building. 

Ms. Biden previously lived in the White House with her then-fiance Peter Neal, whom she later married in a White House ceremony and then appears to have moved to Georgetown. 

By law, the Secret Service is required to protect the president, vice president, members of the Cabinet, and other high-ranking government officials. The sitting president’s immediate family, including his or her children, are also granted Secret Service protection. Other relatives, such as grandchildren, are given protection on a case by case basis depending on whether the Secret Service determines there is a threat to their safety.

For former presidents, their children are only granted Secret Service protection until they turn 16 years old, and their widows or widowers are given protection until they either die or remarry, according to federal statutes. 

President Biden’s nuclear family all receive Secret Service protection, including his two surviving children, Hunter and Ashley. The first son is forcing the service to pay $30,000 a month on a mansion near his own home in Malibu, the extremely expensive Southern California town. The mansion acts as a home base for the first son’s protective detail. Mr. Biden himself is paying just less than $20,000 in rent at his own Malibu home, which has been largely financed by his multimillionaire friend Kevin Morris. 

The younger Mr. Biden’s children have all been seen with Secret Service protective details since their grandfather became president in 2021 — except for his daughter, Navy Roberts, who was born out of wedlock to Mr. Biden and a former stripper, Lunden Roberts. Last year, Mr. Biden came to a child support agreement which includes giving Navy some of his paintings.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Ms. Biden has become a lightning rod after she started vocally defending her father on X and also began calling out senior Democrats who doubted her grandfather had what it took to serve as president. She also spoke to the New York Times in December for a sympathetic article that sought to explain away her father’s comment to her, in an email found on his abandoned laptop, that he was being compelled to give his father half of his income. Ms. Biden insisted to the Times that Hunter Biden was somehow referring to how he had to hold a job decades earlier, during college.