The Secret Service thwarted a new assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a Florida golf course on Sunday, with the local sheriff saying security was lax because Trump is only a presidential candidate and not commander in chief.
Investigators opened fire on the gunman, identified as Ryan Routh, 58, who approached the Republican presidential candidate as he was playing golf at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course.
Trump emerged unharmed after the attack, but West Palm Beach Sheriff Rick Bradshaw said security would have been tighter if Trump were in office.
“At the level he's at right now, he's not a sitting president,” Bradshaw said. “If he was, they'd be building this whole golf course around him.”
“However, because he is not, security will be limited to areas the Secret Service deems feasible.”
“I think the next time he's on the golf course there will probably be a few more people around, but the Secret Service did exactly what they were supposed to do.”
The Secret Service, of course, doesn't leak information. Visit website for more details How to protect national politicians.
However, it specifies that the major presidential and vice presidential candidates designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security will be eligible for protection within one year after the general election.
The Secret Service conducts threat assessments to determine whether candidates are eligible, and as part of that it considers “general or specific threats directed at the candidate.”
But the website says little about what level of protection candidates would receive or how it compares to the protections enjoyed by the actual president.
Here's what we know about the assassination attempt on President Trump in Florida.
The Secret Service increased its security presence after Trump's first assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in July that the Secret Service had also offered protection to then-independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Following the deadly shooting at the rally, the Secret Service has demanded that President Trump conduct all future outdoor campaign events behind bulletproof glass.
Former Secret Service agent Tim Miller said: He told CBC News He said last year that security levels for former presidents are “based on what the Secret Service determines through its intelligence and coordination capabilities is appropriate for protection.”
The number of investigators assigned to a former president also depends on the potential threat and how long he has been away from office, the outlet said.
For example, after President George W. Bush left office in 2008, he had about 75 agents providing round-the-clock protection for him and his wife, Laura, according to Ronald Kessler, author of “Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents on the Front Lines and the Presidents They Protect.”
“Even a former president could be a terrorist target,” Kessler told CBC. “For example, he could be taken hostage.”
“If the president goes to a restaurant, they go there first, check the employees, check their backgrounds, make sure nobody has been convicted of violence,” Kessler said, adding that Bush typically has four agents accompany him wherever he goes.
We bring you the latest on the thwarted assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Florida.
“If they were going to a convention or something like that, they would definitely be checking the convention site,” Kessler said. “They would have bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling.”
Miller, the former agent, said Trump's status as both a former president and a current candidate complicates things.
“[That] “He'll be moving from site to site and back again, so that will add a different dynamic,” he told CBC.
“If you look at George W. Bush, he went to the ranch, his father went to Kennebunkport, and from that point on they lived relatively low-profile lives,” Miller said. “That's not true of former President Trump.”
The site explains that major candidates have been able to receive protection since Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on the campaign trail in 1968. Before that, candidates and their families had no federal protection at all.
“Candidate/nominee protections are designed to preserve the integrity of the democratic process and continuity of government,” the site reads.
Sources told The Washington Post that the former president was on the golf course at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach around 2 p.m. on Sunday when advance guards spotted the shooter.
Bradshaw stressed that “brush and brush” made it difficult to initially identify the suspect, but his officers then conducted a traffic stop on Interstate 95 and detained the unidentified man.
The Secret Service has not yet determined a motive for Sunday's shooting, but sources told The Washington Post that the suspect frequently posted in support of Ukraine and Taiwan.
