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A week after the attack, the Secret Service admitted it had rejected several requests to increase security for the former president.
The Secret Service is now admitting that it rejected several requests from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's campaign team for increased security at his events in the days leading up to last week's assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
After the July 13 attack, the law enforcement agency had denied rejecting such requests. But on Saturday, a week after the attack, the Secret Service admitted it had rejected several requests to increase security for the former president.
The statement is likely to be at the center of a congressional hearing on Monday, where Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is expected to answer questions from lawmakers who have expressed outrage over security failures that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to year-old to climb a building near the podium where former President Trump was during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and open fire on him.
Mr. Trump was wounded in the right ear, one rally participant was killed and two others were injured.
"The Secret Service has a broad, dynamic and complex mission. We work every day in a dynamic threat environment to ensure the safety of those we protect in multiple activities, travel and other challenging environments," the agency's chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said in a statement released late Saturday to the newspaper. "The Washington Post ", which was the first to announce the change in the agency's statements, which it said came as a result of detailed questions sent to the agency, " VOA " reports.
" We execute a comprehensive and multi-tiered strategy to balance personnel, technology and specialized operational needs ," said spokesman Guglielmi.
He said the agency sometimes relies on state and local law enforcement when the Secret Service's specialized units are insufficient.
" In some cases where specific units or specialized Secret Service resources could not be secured, the agency has made modifications to ensure the safety of the protected ," said spokesman Gugliemi.
After the assassination, as news began to circulate that the agency had rejected requests from Mr. Trump's campaign team, Mr. Guglielmi denied such a thing.
There is "an untrue claim that a member of the former President's team requested additional security resources and received a negative response," Gugliemi said in a social media post.
" This is absolutely false. In fact, we added resources and technology and defensive capabilities as part of increasing the intensity of the campaign ."
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has called what happened a "failure," while some lawmakers have called for Ms. Cheatle to either resign or be fired.
President Biden has ordered an independent investigation. A Department of Homeland Security and a congressional committee are also investigating.
Former President Trump says there was no indication that law enforcement had identified a suspicious person when the former president took the podium in Pennsylvania. He also raised questions about security measures and how the gunman managed to get into the building.
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