REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. O Secret Service now acknowledges that he denied some requests from the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign for greater security at its events in the years prior to the assassination attempt about him at a recent rally.
Immediately after the July 13 attack, the law enforcement agency denied rejecting such requests. But the Secret Service acknowledged late Saturday, a week after the attempt on Trump’s life, that it had refused some requests to increase security around the former president.
The reversal will likely be the main focus of a congressional hearing on Monday, where Director of the Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle is expected to appear before lawmakers who have expressed anger over security failures that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to climb onto the roof of a nearby building at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and fire his weapon.
Trump was injured in his right ear, a rally attendee was killed and two others were injured.
“The Secret Service has a vast, dynamic and complex mission. Every day we work in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protectees are safe and secure in a variety of events, travel and other challenging environments,” the agency’s chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a statement released Saturday night to The Washington Post. The newspaper was the first to report the agency’s reversal, which it said was based on detailed questions submitted to the agency.
“We execute a comprehensive, layered strategy to balance people, technology and specialized operational needs,” said Guglielmi.
He said the agency will rely on state and local law enforcement departments in some cases where specialized Secret Service units are not available.
“In some cases where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency has made modifications to ensure protectee safety,” Gugliemi said. “This may include utilizing state or local partners to provide specialized functions or otherwise identify alternatives to reduce a protégé’s public exposure.”
After the assassination attempt, when reports began circulating that the agency had denied the Trump campaign’s requests, Guglielmi issued a denial.
There is “a false claim that a member of the former president’s team requested additional security resources & that they were rejected”, Gugliemi said in a social media post. “This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protection features & technology & capabilities as part of the increased pace of campaign travel.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said what happened was a “failure,” while several lawmakers called for Cheatle to resign or be fired. So far, Cheatle maintains the support of Democratic President Joe Biden and Mayorkas.
Biden, who is campaigning to deny Trump a second term in the White House, ordered an independent investigation. The Department of Homeland Security and the congressional committee are also investigating.
Trump says he received no indication that law enforcement authorities had identified a suspicious person when the former president took the stage in Pennsylvania. Some rally attendees said in interviews after the assassination attempt that they saw the shooter on the roof before Trump took the stage and alerted law enforcement authorities at the scene.
In an interview with Fox News host Jesse Waters set to air on Monday, Trump said, “No, nobody mentioned it, nobody said there was a problem” before taking the stage and a gunman opening fire . “They could have said, ‘Let’s wait 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 5 minutes, something.’ Nobody said. I think it was a mistake.”
Trump also questioned security lapses and how the shooter was able to access the building’s roof.
“How did someone get on that roof? And why wasn’t he reported? Because people saw he was on the roof,” Trump said. “So you would think someone would do something about it.”
Local police officers saw the man and considered him suspicious enough to release his photo and witnesses reported seeing him climbing the building.
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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
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