The U.S. Secret Service, after denying it for days, admitted on Saturday that it refused requests for additional security sought by Donald Trump for two years prior to the attempted assassination on July 13.
Last Sunday, the spokesman for the Secret Service took to X/Twitter to deny the allegations being made that Trump had been starved of federal security.
“We did not divert resources from FPOTUS Trump & protection models don’t work that way. As far as ‘field office teams’ these are the candidate nominee operations teams that are added during election years for the heavy travel tempo,” wrote Anthony Guglielmi last Sunday, in response to something written by a RealClearPolitics White House correspondent Susan Crabtree.
“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional resources and that those were rebuffed,” he wrote on X later.
On Monday, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas also said the accusation that he had issued the denials was “a baseless and irresponsible statement and it is one that is unequivocally false.”
But by Saturday, July 20, the official tune had changed. Guglielmi now admits, in a report first published in the New York Times, the Secret Service turned down requests for additional federal security for Trump.
According to the newspaper, which is historically hostile to Trump, two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Trump had been out of office.
The denied requests for additional resources were not, however, specifically for the rally in Butler.
According to other officials, the Secret Service had actually added security for Trump at Butler due to intelligence it had received about an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump.
Questions still remain about why the rooftop that was clearly a possible danger to Trump was left unguarded and why the gunman, who was identified as suspicious, was not contained before he took his shots. Director of the Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle will face those questions and others during a hearing called by Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, on Monday.
The Secret Service also released a defensive statement about the use of women in its protection details, even after extensive video from Butler, Penn. showed the women assigned to Trump did not perform to expectations.
“In the days following the attempted assassination of former President Trump, some people have made public statements questioning the presence of women in law enforcement, including in the United States Secret Service,” the agency wrote in a statement on its website.
“These assertions are baseless and insulting,” said the official statement.
“Every single day, in communities big and small across our great country, women are serving in federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and campus law enforcement. They are highly trained and skilled professionals, who risk their lives on the front lines for the safety and security of others. They are brave and selfless patriots who deserve our gratitude and respect,” the agency continued.
“We in the United States Department of Homeland Security — the largest law enforcement organization in the federal government — will, with great pride, focus, and devotion to mission, continue to recruit, retain, and elevate women in our law enforcement ranks. Our Department will be the better for it, and our country more secure,” the Secret Service said, without providing data to support its assertion that women Secret Service agents are being placed in jobs because of merit, rather than because of “diversity, equity, inclusion” goals that the agency has prioritized under President Biden.
The hearing on the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt takes place at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday, and can be watched at this link or here:
On Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi acknowledged that the Secret Service had turned down some requests for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump’s detail. Two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Mr. Trump had been out of office. The denied requests for additional resources were not specifically for the rally in Butler, Mr. Guglielmi said.
U.S. officials previously said the Secret Service had enhanced security for the former president before the Butler rally because it had received information from U.S. intelligence agencies about a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump.