The Secret Service is facing new scrutiny after a gunman came within range of former president Trump for the second time in less than 10 weeks on Sunday, raising concerns about whether the elite protective agency is stretched too thin in a politically polarized nation where many people have ready access to guns.
“Thank God the president’s OK,” President Joe Biden said Monday to reporters. “One thing I want to make clear: The service needs more help.”
Biden declined to provide additional details about the agency’s needs but urged Congress to consider increasing the agency’s funding and allowing it to hire more staff.
Secret Service agents’ quick actions likely prevented Sunday’s incident in Florida from escalating, law-enforcement officials said. Authorities quickly detained Ryan Wesley Routh and charged him Monday with two gun-related crimes at a federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Fla.
But 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, said agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
The Washington Post reported last week that the internal review had confirmed security failures that led to the July assassination attempt, including that the service 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 bombings, 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, and 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 just as the Secret Service is preparing for one of its most challenging events, the United Nations 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. On Monday night, Trump is scheduled to unveil a new 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, over time — 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’ve 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, Pa.
Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.) is one of the few House Republicans who has publicly suggested that Secret Service might require more funding. Although he did not specify how much money might be required, he co-authored 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 protect Trump and Harris for the remainder of the election. Congress must approve a government funding bill by Oct. 1 to avert a government shutdown.
Carol D. Leonnig and Lori Rozsa contributed to this report.