The United States Secret Service is facing fresh scrutiny after a report in The Washington Post Saturday claimed the agency has backtracked after denying it rejected requests for additional security for Donald Trump in the two years leading up to his assassination attempt.
Four unidentified sources told the newspaper that top brass at the Secret Service repeatedly refused requests by Trump’s security team for extra resourcing, including more agents to cover security screenings at large gatherings, along with additional snipers.
According to the sources, the requests were rejected for a variety of reasons, though staffing appeared to be the biggest issue. The refusal led to tensions between Trump, his campaign, and the agency.
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Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi initially pushed back against the assertions to The Washington Post in a statement after the shooting. “The assertion that a member of the former president’s security team requested additional security resources that the U.S. Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security rebuffed is absolutely false,” he said.
Yet after receiving “detailed questions,” according to the Post, Guglielmi revealed new information had come to light, confirming the Secret Service may have in fact denied some additional security requests after all.
“The Secret Service has a vast, challenging, and intricate mission,” Guglielmi said. “Every day we work in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protectees are safe and secure across multiple events, travel, and other difficult environments. We execute a comprehensive and layered strategy to balance personnel, technology, and specialized operational needs.”
When asked for comment, the Trump campaign referred the Post to a Truth Social statement from the former president giving thanks to his security team.
In an upcoming interview with Jesse Watters previewed on Saturday, Trump, pictured alongside vice presidential pick J.D. Vance, tells the Fox host he was kept in the dark about a possible threat at the rally.
“Nobody mentioned it,” Trump says in the interview, which it set to air on Jesse Watters Primetime on Monday night. “Nobody said it was a problem.”
“[They] could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15, 20 minutes, 5 minutes.’ Nobody said, I think that was a mistake,” he added.
“How did somebody get on that roof and why wasn’t he reported? Because people saw that he was on the roof… you would have thought somebody would have done something about it.”
The report echoes earlier sentiments by Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL), who last week posted on X that, “I have very reliable sources telling me there have been repeated requests for stronger secret service protection for President Trump.”
On Saturday, after the Washington Post report was published, Waltz took to X to slam United States Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who had also earlier called the report “baseless.”
“Next time you’re going to call me and your own Secret Service agents liars on national TV, make sure that you’re not the one lying to the American people yourself,” Waltz fumed.
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, managed to scale a rooftop and fire multiple shots toward former President Trump with an AR-15-style rifle at the rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday.
Trump escaped with a minor injury to his ear, though two other people in the crowd were injured and one was killed. The Secret Service and its operations have been under the spotlight ever since.
“I hate to dumb it down this much, but it is a simple case of supply and demand,” ex-Secret Service agent Bill Gage told the Post. “The requests get turned down routinely.”
“A director has to finally come forward to say we are way understaffed and we cannot possibly continue with this zero-fail mission without a significantly bigger budget.”
The denied requests reviewed by the Post did not include the Pennsylvania rally, the newspaper confirmed.
Read it at The Washington Post
