- Acting Secret Service chief says golf outing was ‘off the record’
- The charging document says the suspect was in the area for nearly 12 hours.
The acting head of the Secret Service said Tuesday that Donald Trump’s fateful golf outing on Sunday was an “unofficial” event that was not part of his official schedule and did not prompt widespread security sweeps for that reason.
Acting Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe Jr. made the comments at a news conference for reporters in Florida amid a growing investigation and ongoing questions about how a would-be assassin could remain on the perimeter of the president’s golf course for hours and brandish an assault weapon.
Rowe was asked if agents had searched the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Course on Sunday.
“It wasn’t part of his schedule, so nothing was posted about it, because he wasn’t supposed to go there,” Rowe said.
A new charging document states that suspect Ryan Routh spent nearly 12 hours in the area in what the FBI says was an attempted murder. He was seen fleeing the scene at 1:31 p.m.
Rowe defended the level of protection at Trump’s international golf course, saying it was essentially the same as in 2017 when he was in office.
Ronald Rowe Jr., acting director of the Secret Service, speaks during a law enforcement news conference. He was asked why Trump’s entire golf course had not been inspected while an alleged assassination attempt was there for 12 hours. Trump’s golfing was an “off-the-record” move, he said.
“There was an unofficial move yesterday. The president wasn’t even scheduled to go there. It wasn’t on his official agenda,” Rowe said. “So we put together a security plan that worked.”
The officer who authorities say shot Ryan Wesley Routh was walking across the course ahead of Trump, who was moving from the fifth hole to the sixth when the shooting occurred.
The Secret Service is under increasing pressure despite a change in leadership following two attempts on the life of the former president and Republican nominee in a matter of weeks.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw raised eyebrows when he suggested Sunday that Trump was receiving a reduced level of protection.
“At the level he’s at right now, he’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would have surrounded the entire golf course. But since he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible,” Bradshaw said. “I imagine the next time he comes to a golf course, there will probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter.”
A charging document states he was positioned near the tree line on Trump’s golf course for nearly 12 hours.
The suspect managed to smuggle a rifle into the vicinity without anyone officially knowing that Trump would be there.
A former senior FBI official questions how Ryan Wesley Routh knew to set up shop near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course, and asks if he had inside information.
Asked by a reporter Monday whether there had been a “miscommunication” since President Joe Biden ordered the “highest level of protection” for Trump, Bradshaw asked Rowe if she wanted to answer the question and deferred.
“If you look at the footprint now and you look at it today, there’s not a whole lot of difference,” Rowe said, adding that the presence of uniformed officers was roughly the same as when Trump was in office.
Rowe said she spoke with former President Trump and told him she was “aware that he has the highest levels of protection” provided by the Secret Service. “If we need to further increase protection, we will do so,” she added.
The comments came on a day when former FBI Deputy Director Chris Swecker told DailyMail.com that Routh may have had access to “privileged” information, given that he was duped on a day when golf was not on Trump’s public agenda.
Swecker said: “I guarantee you right now the FBI is going to muzzle that sheriff and they’re not going to talk much about the details because they’re in protection mode, particularly the prosecution.”
Jeffrey Veltri, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, said investigators were still looking into the matter in the early stages of the investigation. “We have no information that he was acting with anyone else at this time,” he said.