The U.S. Secret Service is now saying that it repeatedly denied requests from former President Donald Trump for extra security at his frequent public appearances over the last two years, although the Trump team had not specifically asked for more security at the political rally where he was shot and nearly assassinated a week ago.
The acknowledgement by the Secret Service, the chief security agency for current and past presidents and their families and top government officials, came days after it vehemently denied that it had declined to provide more security for Trump’s public events.
The new stance came as House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson joined other Republican officials in calling Sunday for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign or be fired in the aftermath of the security lapse that led to the assassination attempt on Trump.
One of Trump’s sons, Eric Trump, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” that Cheatle “should resign in absolute disgrace.”
Cheatle, who has said she does not plan to quit, is set to face tough questions Monday at a congressional hearing on the shooting at the July 13 rally in rural Pennsylvania.
“She’s got a lot to answer for,” Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union” show. “This will be must-see TV. She is not fit to lead this very important agency.”
The acknowledged security failure at the rally allowed a gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, to climb unimpeded to an unsecured warehouse rooftop at a rally in rural Pennsylvania and fire at least eight shots, from an unobstructed distance of about 150 meters toward the stage where Trump was speaking.
FILE - Republican presidential candidate former president Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents following an assassination attempt at a campaign rally, in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.
The Secret Service had excluded the warehouse from its inner security perimeter it directly controlled while leaving local police to patrol the warehouse area, even as local police told the agency they did not have enough resources to station a squad car adjacent to the warehouse. Crooks possibly climbed onto an air conditioning unit to reach the rooftop, authorities have said.
The would-be assassin apparently was able to walk freely in the outer security perimeter before climbing to the rooftop, even though local officers had spotted him, thought he was acting oddly and notified other law enforcement. But then, police say, they lost track of him.
One shot grazed Trump’s right ear, while a rallygoer was killed and two other spectators critically wounded. A Secret Service sniper stationed on the rooftop of another building quickly killed Crooks.
In the hours after the assassination attempt, some former Secret Service agents said Congress for years had left the agency without adequate funding to hire enough armed agents to protect the growing number of key officials it has been tasked with protecting.
A week ago, the day after the shooting targeting Trump, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said, “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 repeated the same assertion Monday at a meeting in Wisconsin with Trump’s security team as they gathered for the Republican National Convention, where Trump’s fellow Republicans formally nominated him as the party’s presidential candidate in the November election against President Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated Trump in the 2020 election.
FILE - U.S. Secret Service agents surround the stage as other agents cover Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024.
On Monday, Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, whose agency oversees the Secret Service, said the accusation that he had denied extra security for Trump rallies was “a baseless and irresponsible statement and it is one that is unequivocally false.”
But on Saturday, the Secret Service, in a reversal, acknowledged that agents’ requests for more magnetometers and more agents to screen attendees at sporting events, in addition to more snipers and other security teams at other large public gatherings attended by Trump, had been turned down.
The requests for heightened security were sometimes rebuffed by senior Secret Service officials for various reasons, The Washington Post reported, including a lack of sufficient funding at an agency that has long said it is understaffed.
Guglielmi said that after receiving detailed questions from the newspaper, he learned that in fact some extra requests for Secret Service protection from Trump’s security team had been turned down.
“The Secret Service has a vast, challenging, and intricate mission,” Guglielmi said in a statement. “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.”
The agency is currently responsible for security for more than two dozen people. After the assassination attempt on Trump, Biden ordered a protective detail added for a longshot 2024 independent presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy, and father, Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated in the 1960s.
In addition, the Secret Service is now protecting Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and his family after Trump named him as his vice presidential running mate.