Secret Service acknowledges denying some past requests by Trump’s campaign for tighter security
Published 4:13 pm Sunday, July 21, 2024
- President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in the Oval Office of the White House on Oct. 16, 2018, in Washington. (Associated Press Archives)
The Secret Service has acknowledged it denied some requests by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign for increased security at his events in the years before the assassination attempt on him at a recent rally.
In the immediate aftermath of the July 13 attack, the law enforcement agency had denied rejecting such requests. But the Secret Service acknowledged late Saturday, a week after the attempt on Trump’s life, that it had turned back some requests to increase security around the former president.
The reversal is likely to be a key focus of a congressional hearing Monday where Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is expected to appear before lawmakers who have been expressing anger over security lapses that allowed a 20–year–old gunman to climb atop the roof of a nearby building at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and fire his weapon.
Trump was wounded in the right ear, one rallygoer was killed and two others were injured. Secret Service gunmen killed the shooter.
The attack on Trump was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It was the latest in a series of security lapses by the agency that has drawn investigations and public scrutiny over the years.
“The Secret Service has a vast, dynamic, and intricate mission. Every day we work in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protectees are safe and secure across multiple events, travel, and other challenging environments,” the agency’s chief spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a statement released late Saturday to The Washington Post. The newspaper was first to report on the agency’s reversal, which it said was based on detailed questions submitted to the agency.
“We execute a comprehensive and layered strategy to balance personnel, technology, and specialized operational needs,” Guglielmi said.
He said the agency will rely on state and local law enforcement departments in some cases where specialized Secret Service units are unavailable.
“In some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications to ensure the security of the protectee,” Gugliemi said. “This may include utilizing state or local partners to provide specialized functions or otherwise identifying alternatives to reduce public exposure of a protectee.”
After the assassination attempt, as reports began to circulate that the agency had denied the Trump campaign’s requests, Guglielmi issued a denial.
There is “an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed,” Gugliemi saidin a social media post. “This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has called what happened a “failure” while several lawmakers have called on Cheatle to resign or for President Joe Biden to fire her. The Secret Service has said Cheatle does not intend to step down. So far, she retains the support of Biden, a Democrat, and Mayorkas.
But the agency’s acknowledgement that it had denied some of the campaign’s requests sparked fresh condemnation on Sunday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R–La., said on CNN’s “State of the Union, that the reversal “is just beyond the pale” and that Cheatle’s “got a lot to answer for.”
Johnson said lawmakers on Monday would release details about a bipartisan congressional task force that will investigate the Secret Service.