Former President Trump is being given the highest level of security, Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told reporters on Monday, praising the agency for preventing an assassination attempt from getting close to the former president on Sunday.
“The suspect did not see the former president and fled the scene. He did not fire any shots or aim at investigators. Upon receiving reports of gunfire, the former president's security forces immediately evacuated the president to a safe location,” Rowe said.
“The Secret Service's defenses were effective yesterday.”
The comments came after the second assassination attempt on Trump within two months, when suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, pointed a rifle through a fence at a Florida course where Trump was playing golf.
The incident comes amid scrutiny of the Secret Service following the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and with several Republican lawmakers calling on Monday for the service to increase the level of security for Trump to the same as that for Biden.
Lowe stressed that Trump had the highest level of protection and that the system was working, and credited Biden's request for extra security for his then-election rival with helping to thwart a potential attack.
“The former president's protective posture enabled early identification of the threat and safe evacuation, and increased assets were deployed yesterday at President Biden's direction,” Rowe said.
“We have a lot of tactical assets in place as a result of what happened 60 days ago. Those elements are working.”
That includes stepping up what he called a “defense-in-depth approach,” such as testing various points along the golf course before Trump's arrival.
“Officers conducting visual surveillance of the area of Screen 6 observed the suspect in possession of what appeared to be a rifle and immediately fired their weapons,” Rowe said, adding that Trump was still “several hundred yards and several holes away.”
But given that Routh was stationed in the area roughly 12 hours before Trump's arrival, the CIA will surely be criticized for not initially spotting him until he was relatively close to the former president.
It's unclear how Routh knew where Trump was, but it was an “unofficial” move that wasn't on the former president's public schedule.
“The fact that they didn't know that this person was there and that this person was there for an extended period of time raises real concerns about how they think about perimeter defense, which can sometimes get very close to the principles that they're trying to defend,” former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said during an appearance on CNN.
Rowe said the agency will be rethinking some aspects of its approach.
“We need to rethink what our defense methodology looks like, move away from reactive to rapid response,” he said, adding that the U.S. should prepare for “new geopolitical events” that could draw the U.S. into conflict.
He also said the Secret Service is in discussions with lawmakers about resource needs and that the agency needs funding to help hire additional officers.
“To do that, we need funding to hire more people. We can't just give us money and say, 'We're going to give everybody overtime,' because right now our Secret Service men and women are stretched to the limits,” Rowe said.
