Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Monday called for a “rethink” of how former President Trump is protected following the second assassination attempt this weekend.
In an interview with CNN, McCabe said the systems put in place to protect Trump were working as they were supposed to, but raised concerns that the methods needed to be improved.
“They need to rethink the so-called methodology that they use to protect the president in these situations,” McCabe said, referring to the Secret Service's methods.
“The fact that they didn't know the individual was there and that individual was there for an extended period of time raises real concerns about how they think about protecting the perimeter with their security perimeter, which sometimes gets very close to the principles they're trying to protect,” McCabe continued.
The former president was playing golf at a West Palm Beach course on Sunday when Secret Service agents stationed at a few nearby holes noticed a man with a rifle pointing it around the perimeter of the course, the rifle protruding from a patch of bushes about 300 to 500 yards away.
Secret Service agents fired at the man, who then dropped an AK-47 rifle and fled in a vehicle. Authorities later arrested the suspect, identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58.
The president was arrested before he could do any harm — a big improvement over the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, that drew intense scrutiny over the Secret Service's failure to protect him from a bullet that grazed his ear.
But federal prosecutors said phone records showed the suspect was near the golf course about 12 hours before the attack, raising questions about why he was never spotted.
“It raises some very important questions for the Secret Service, because they're in a tough spot right now, because they've been trying to do a better job and really increase the level of protection for former presidents in the wake of the Butler attack,” McCabe said. “And it appears that they have, because the system that they had in place as of yesterday worked as it was supposed to.”
He said agents followed procedure and appeared to do everything by the book: “The advance team found the threat, eliminated the threat and removed the president from danger.”
“The problem was that the systems they had in place were inadequate to identify an assailant with a rifle hiding maybe 20 yards from the tee box on the seventh hole,” he said.
