WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump gave his Secret Service detail short notice that he would be golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, causing agents to forgo a scan of the perimeter, according to two people familiar with the events.
The decision not to survey the course at Trump International Golf Club, because of a lack of time, before Trump’s outing allowed a man with a gun to sit concealed in bushes for almost 12 hours. The barrel of the gun was noticed by an agent ahead of Trump on the course. The agent shot at the man, who fled. A suspect was later captured.
That swift action was praised by the acting Secret Service director, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., in remarks to reporters on Monday.
But the missed opportunity to find the suspect, identified by the authorities as Ryan W. Routh, as he lurked near the golf course has raised questions about the Secret Service’s ability to protect Trump, who enjoys his freedom and being around adoring fans.
It also heightens pressure on the agency to add resources to protect Trump in the final months of the presidential campaign, even as the Secret Service is straining under its workload in a time of threatened violence. But some lawmakers have questioned whether more money will bring about better protection.
Just two months after a different person fired on Trump at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, grazing the former president’s ear and killing an attendee, the agency once again must examine why it was unable to more decisively forestall an event that could have led to the death of the Republican nominee for president — and a national catastrophe.
Rowe said on Monday that the course had not been vetted because Trump’s golf round had been an “off the record” movement. That is Secret Service parlance for an event that had not been on Trump’s official schedule that day.
Screening a large site like a golf course, which is encircled by city streets and tall bushes like the ones where the suspect hid on Sunday, takes substantial time, Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesperson, said in an interview Tuesday.
“An area of that size, you would need advance time to certainly sweep it and maintain the integrity of the sweeps, which means you would need to put people there, resources there, to make sure it’s kept secure,” he added.
Former Secret Service agents said there still might have been an opportunity to secure the course’s perimeter, even on relatively short notice — especially given how often agency personnel have accompanied the former president to the very same location. Trump routinely plays golf of Sundays, often at his Florida clubs.
“He’s a creature of habit, and I think you sort of lose the element of surprise when he’s using one of his golf courses that are in close proximity,” said Jonathan Wackrow, a longtime Secret Service agent who is now in private security.
During a campaign stop in Sparta, Michigan, on Tuesday, Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, denounced the Secret Service for inadequately protecting the former president. “Donald Trump ought to have the same detail as Joe Biden,” Vance said, “but our federal government has decided that Donald Trump deserves a lesser level of protection.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, who was campaigning in Philadelphia, struck a different tone. “Yes, I feel safe,” she said during an interview with members of the National Association of Black Journalists. “I have Secret Service protection. But that doesn’t change my perspective on the importance of fighting for the safety of everybody in our country and doing everything we can to again lift people up.”
Off-the-record stops, which are common for presidents, vice presidents and other protectees, are typical features of a Secret Service schedule. They are generally impromptu moments in which a protectee wants to change up the schedule to take a needed jog, grab a bite at a restaurant or stop by a friend’s house.
The agency has procedures for handling those situations, current and former agency officials say, including the use of plainclothes agents who do countersurveillance and the strategic positioning of agents around the protected person to keep potential harm doers away.
During an off-the-record stop in July, Harris, who had not yet been named the Democratic nominee for president, walked into an indoor farmers’ market in Philadelphia with Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro. No walk-through metal detectors were posted at the door to sweep members of the crowd to discover concealed weapons, and throngs of shoppers stood nearby as Harris ordered salmon curry at the Little Thai Market.
Despite the number of people in proximity to her, the agency said measures were taken that day to protect her that were unnoticeable to the broader public.
“U.S. Secret Service protectees visit a variety of environments as part of their duties,” Guglielmi said. “Our teams are trained to adapt our protective measures for all events and locations. In this case, U.S. Secret Service determined that the vice president and members of her staff could safely accomplish the visit.”
On Sunday, service members used what service employees call their “layered” approach to keep Trump safe, including posting countersnipers who could shoot at a potential assailant, counterassault teams who could fight off a larger attack and aerial surveillance.
Critically for Trump on Sunday, the service also deployed a small team of agents to walk a hole or two ahead of him on the course. That allowed a site agent in that group to spot and then fire on Routh, who allegedly had a gun trained in the direction of Trump through a thatch of shrubbery. Routh was apprehended less than an hour later, after being pulled over on Interstate 95.
The House task force investigating the July assassination attempt against Trump demanded interviews and documents from the FBI on Tuesday as it began expanding its inquiry to include the second potential attempt on Trump’s life.
In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the leaders of the panel asked the bureau to brief lawmakers by Friday on the more recent assassination attempt.
Speaker Mike Johnson said he planned to alter the structure of the task force to investigate both the shooting of Trump in Pennsylvania and this weekend’s attempt in Florida.
“We’re going to change the emphasis of that to have both events investigated,” Johnson said at an event at the America First Policy Institute.
Johnson added that he did not believe funding issues had hampered the Secret Service. Instead, he said, the problems at the agency stemmed from a “lack of leadership.”
Republican senators held a news conference on Tuesday to condemn the golf course episode, and call on the Secret Service to provide equal protection to Biden and Trump. Former presidents and nominees have a lesser level of security than presidents.
On Monday, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the majority leader, said he would be open to providing more funding to the Secret Service. So far, there has not been a specific proposal for additional funds.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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