An assassination attempter was hiding out near former President Donald Trump's Florida golf course, but Secret Service agents did not search the area around the course because the former president's visit was “unofficial,” the agency's acting director in question acknowledged.
Federal prosecutors say Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, built a sniper's nest on the edge of Trump International West Palm Beach and hid there undetected for nearly 12 hours before Trump, 78, began playing golf on Sunday afternoon.
Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said Monday that agents did not thoroughly search the area because the 45th president's official business was not on the president's official schedule.
“The president wasn't actually scheduled to go there. It wasn't on the official schedule,” Lowe told reporters, defending the security measures that had been put in place.
“So we created a security plan, and that security plan worked,” he said of Rotoo's arrest before the shooting.
Rowe did not say whether the “unofficial” inspection meant that investigators did not have enough time to search the former president's golf course.
Still, the acting chief praised the officers who spotted the muzzle of an AK-style rifle protruding from among the bushes along the trail and fired before the suspect could open fire.
According to the criminal complaint, the suspect dropped the rifle when officers fired shots and fled in an SUV, leaving behind the gun, two backpacks and a GoPro camera.
Authorities said he was stopped and arrested about 40 minutes later on Interstate 95.
Rowe's comments come as the Secret Service has come under intense scrutiny since the first assassination attempt occurred during Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Rowe, who took up the role after the agency's embattled head, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned following the first assassination attempt, had previously told Congress she was “ashamed” by security failings in the earlier attacks.
