It happened again. For the second time in two months a would-be assassin took aim from an unprotected perimeter ready to open fire on former president, and current Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. This time Trump was on a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida where Secret Service agents spotted and opened fire against the alleged would-be shooter, Ryan Wesley Routh, a reportedly radicalized Leftist, before he could get off a single round. While the individual agents protecting Trump that day performed admirably, the incident exposed the degree to which the U.S. Secret Service is broken, and Trump’s life is in danger.
Even before the latest two assassination attempts against Trump, the Secret Service knew Iran had a contract out to kill him. Nonetheless, at times the agency augmented its understaffed ranks with federal investigative agents with little or no protective operations experience, as was done with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents used in Butler, PA, where Trump was shot in the ear and a local supporter was killed. Those HSI agents reportedly received only a two-hour power point training presentation before being deployed to protect the former president.
President Joe Biden has made the obvious observation the Secret Service needs “help” in its mission to protect Donald Trump. He, Vice President Kamala Harris, and their political allies can begin by ditching the Trump is a “threat to democracy” nonsense that inspired and was parroted by Routh. The Secret Service can start by freeing itself from the bureaucratic morass concerning what level of protection Trump should receive depending on his status as a former president versus a sitting one. This irrelevant distinction in the face of the threat environment confronting Trump was supposed to be dropped by the Secret Service, and Trump’s security posture maximized after the Butler, PA assassination attempt. However, the Sheriff of Palm Beach County has noted the perimeter fence at the golf course where Routh set up a shooting nest would have been secured by the Secret Service had Trump been a “sitting president.”
Unfortunately, it seems leaders at the Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security, where the agency is housed, have continued to deny Trump the security he needs. This, despite the fact the Secret Service reportedly told Congress it was now providing Trump the same level of protection as President Biden. It’s extremely unlikely, however, that Biden will hold anyone accountable for failing to provide Trump with adequate protection or for misleading Congress about it. Instead, Biden will probably continue to denounce political violence while doing little to actually stop it.
Rather than spewing platitudes and waiting for Congress to fund additional new Secret Service agents, which cannot be done in time before the election, or using ill trained investigators to protect Trump, President Biden should step up and take executive action and immediately order the Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense to detail agents to the Secret Service that are trained specifically in protective operations. This could include agents from the U.S. Marshalls, Diplomatic Security Service, Protective Services Battalion, FBI, and others. Congress can take immediate action by providing any needed emergency funding to the Secret Service to pay for those detailed agents.
The Hill should also enable the Secret Service to bring back recently retired agents and pay for state and local law enforcement officers trained in dignitary protection to support protecting Trump. This could include a task force (Joint Task Force Trump) where those state and local officers are deputized as U.S. Marshalls and deployable around the country alongside other federal agents. The former president should also look at hiring his own private security personnel to supplement the Secret Service. Everything needs to be on the table. The status quo is clearly failing, and the stakes could not be higher.
The Secret Service is culturally broken and financially under resourced. Addressing those larger institutional issues will have to wait for after the election. In the meantime, there must be a national effort to protect Donald Trump before the next would-be assassin takes their shot.
