Secret Service under Scrutiny after Potential Second Attempt on Trump’s Life

The Washington Post / Maria Sacchetti, Jacqueline Alemany

17:41 JST, September 17, 2024

The acting head of the U.S. Secret Service defended his agents’ work and called for more resources for the elite protective agency after meeting with former president Donald Trump on Monday afternoon.

Acting Secret Service director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. and his agency are facing new scrutiny after a gunman on Sunday came within range of Trump for the second time in less than 10 weeks, raising concerns about whether the Secret Service is stretched too thin in a politically polarized nation where many people have ready access to guns.

Rowe, however, maintained in a news conference Monday that the “highest levels” of protection – including increased security ordered by President Joe Biden in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pa., on July 13 – were in place for Trump’s visit to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday.

Rowe praised the work of Trump’s protective detail, which he said included countersnipers, countersurveillance agents and counterassault teams. “Early identification of the threat,” Rowe said, “led to a safe evacuation.”

Authorities quickly detained Ryan Wesley Routh and charged him Monday with two gun-related crimes at a federal courthouse in West Palm Beach. The suspect did not fire any gunshots at agents and did not have “line of sight” to Trump, whose movements on the golf course were not disclosed to the public or the media in advance, Rowe said.

Rowe said that after the Butler assassination attempt, he ordered a “paradigm shift” to push the agency to become less “reactive” and adopt a “readiness model” for its protection planning.

But the agency also needs more resources, he argued.

“We have done more with less for decades – and this goes back many, many, many decades,” Rowe said.

“We cannot have failures,” he added. “And in order to do that, we’re going to have some hard conversations with Congress.”

Biden on Monday told reporters that the Secret Service “needs more help,” urging Congress to consider increasing the agency’s funding and allowing it to hire more staff.

“Thank God the president’s okay,” Biden said.

Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan task force investigating the attempted assassination of Trump, said in an interview on CNN that Trump should receive whatever protection he needs – and if the agency needs more resources, agency leaders should come to Congress. “You need to give [Trump] whatever protection he needs – period – to match the threat,” Waltz said.

The latest potential attempt on Trump’s life happened before the agency, Congress and other oversight bodies had completed their assessment of the security breakdowns ahead of the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania. In that incident, a gunman armed with an AR-style weapon climbed atop an unmonitored roof and fired several shots at a campaign rally, killing one attendee and injuring others, including Trump.

Multiple federal investigations are underway into the July 13 attack, including a 60-day “mission assurance” review by the Secret Service – an independent investigation ordered by Biden and the Department of Homeland Security that is expected to conclude in early October – as well as probes by Congress and the DHS inspector general, the agency’s internal watchdog.

The Secret Service plans to launch another mission assurance review of Sunday’s attack, though it has not yet published the findings of its July 13 internal review, spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

The Washington Post reported last week that the internal review had confirmed security failures that led to the July assassination attempt, including that the agency never directed local police to secure the roof of the building used by the gunman. Agency officials said they increased equipment and personnel for Trump and other protectees – more than 40 officials and their family members – in response to the attack.

In contrast, the Secret Service won praise for its handling of Sunday’s incident.

A sharp-eyed agent scouting ahead as Trump golfed at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach spotted a gun barrel poking through a tree-shaded chain-link fence and opened fire, giving the team accompanying the former president time to rush him to safety.

Rep. Bill Keating, a Democrat from Massachusetts who investigated the government’s failure to prevent the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, said in an interview Monday that Congress and others should increase the Secret Service’s resources and beef up its policies and procedures to allow it to more quickly identify and neutralize threats.

He said officials should consider surging resources to protectees such as Trump based on the threat levels they are facing, not on whether they are a sitting president or only a candidate for office. He said lawmakers also should consider jettisoning some of the agency’s nonprotective duties, such as investigating some financial crimes.

“The index for increased violence is clearly going up,” Keating said.

He said Congress should urgently examine the agency’s needs and resources, as well as its organizational structure.

“With two instances so close together, we may not be as fortunate in the future,” he said.

The second attack on Trump occurred as the Secret Service is preparing for one of its most challenging events, the U.N. General Assembly, which draws scores of world leaders to New York, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

And the presidential campaign is in full swing, with under two months to go before the November elections. Trump is expected to meet Monday with the acting director of the Secret Service, and that night, he is scheduled to unveil a cryptocurrency business. Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to meet with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a union that has not endorsed a presidential candidate.

Multiple Democratic members of Congress have called for increasing Secret Service funding in the weeks since the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life.

“We have a heightened threat environment. … We have a current president, we have a former president running, we have a vice president who’s a presidential candidate, and we have all their families, and that’s not even to mention all the vice-presidential candidates,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a member of the bipartisan House committee investigating the July 13 assassination attempt, said on Fox News on Monday. “The Secret Service told us very clearly last week that they are redlined. They are working overtime, overtime – double overtime. These folks are burning out; they need new resources. We need to get them help so that they can do the job that the Americans, people expect them to do.”

But House Republicans have consistently stymied additional funding for the Secret Service over the past year as a right-wing bloc of the GOP conference has rebelled against funding bills they have argued have bent to Democratic priorities.

“President Trump needs the most coverage of anyone,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday on “Fox & Friends.” “We are demanding in the House that he have every asset available, and we will make more available, if necessary.”

“I don’t think it’s a funding issue,” Johnson added.

Instead, the House GOP has focused its criticisms on DHS, slamming the agency for delaying the release of an inspector general report related to its failures ahead of and during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. If the report had been released earlier, Republicans have argued, it could have provided insight into Secret Service deficiencies before the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler.

Rep. Michael Lawler (N.Y.) is one of the few House Republicans who has publicly suggested that the Secret Service might require more funding. Although he did not specify how much money might be required, he co-wrote a bill with Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) that calls for the Secret Service to increase the number of agents protecting presidential candidates and allows for the appropriation of money “necessary to carry out” the change.

House Republicans face a key decision on Secret Service funding this month. In recent weeks, the White House Office of Management and Budget urged lawmakers to ensure the protective agency has enough money to secure National Special Security Events such as the presidential inauguration and to protect Trump and Harris for the remainder of election season. Congress must approve a government funding bill by Oct. 1 to avert a government shutdown.