 "After potential assassination attempt, Secret Service admits Trump's golf course perimeter wasn't secured")
A day after a potential attempt on Donald Trump’s life, the Secret Service has admitted that it had not secured the perimeter of the golf course.
Trump was the target of what “appears to be an attempted assassination” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Trump’s Secret Service agents spotted a shooter purportedly aiming at Trump from shrubbery around 400 yards away. They fired at the shooter who fled the scene. He was later arrested.
Secret Service has now admitted that the perimeter of the golf course was not secured, according to The New York Times.
Separately, the FBI said that cell phone data of the suspect says he was in the bushes at the golf course for around 12 hours. Right until the end when the shooter was allegedly aiming the rifle to fire at Trump, the shooter went undetected.
The revelations are set to fresh scrutiny at Secret Service, which is already facing flak for the July’s assassination attempt on Trump when a shooter fired at him and a bullet grazed his ear.
Even as Secret Service Acting Director Ronald L Rowe Jr hailed the “early” identification of the shooter, immediate evacuation of Trump, and other measures such as the counter-snipers’ actions, The Times reported former agency officials and politicians as questioning the agency’s functioning.
Beth Celestini, a Secret Service agent who protected former President Barack Obama before retiring in 2021, told the newspaper he was “very concerned at reports that the suspect allegedly was in the bushes for 11 hours”.
Impact Shorts
View All“The Secret Service has protocols where if enacted, this suspect should have been discovered before the incident,” said Celestini.
Ronald Layton, a 26-year Secret Service veteran who led divisions with oversight of protection and event security wondered whether it was plain luck that saved the day.
Layton said, “Was this just luck that you caught this guy, or did you have the appropriate mechanisms in place for these kinds of things on the threat spectrum?”
Jonathan Wackrow, a law enforcement expert, told CNN that considering the credible threats against Trump, including from Iran, the protective perimeter should have been expanded.
“The service needs to move away from thinking about Trump as a former president and start understanding the threat environment. The intelligence community knows this [Iran assassination plot] is a credible threat. That alone means the perimeter needs to be pushed out further,” said Wackrow.
Even as Rowe praised his agents, he conceded that the Secret Services needed to relook at its functioning.
“The Secret Service’s protective methodologies work, and they are sound, and we saw that yesterday, but the way we are positioned now, in this dynamic threat environment, it has given me guidance to say you know what, we need to look at what our protective methodology is. We need to get out of a reactive model and get to a readiness model," said Rowe, as per CNN.
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