A source in the Trump campaign said that the Secret Service had tried to deny metal detectors at the graduation ceremony for Donald Trump's son Barron.
A ceremony attended by the Republican presidential nominee and his wife, Melania.
Among the initially denied security forces were metal detectors to potentially stop a gun-toting assassin, including at Barron's high school graduation ceremony because it was not a "political" event, The New York Times reported.
The lack of metal detectors at Trump events have long been a point of concern and a potential vulnerability, according to the report.
The security requests were ultimately honored, but Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi was left out of the loop on the denial of Secret Service resource requests from Trump campaign and was forced to admit the claims of denied security for Trump and his entourage Saturday.
Trump's landmark South Bronx rally in May featured long lines and delays for rallygoers because of the limited metal detectors provided by Secret Service, potentially denying Trump a larger political rally crowd in the historically Democrat-controlled city that had been reliably in President Joe Biden's favor in the polls.
Myriad reports exposed the Secret Service's failing to stop a would-be assassin from taking multiple shots at the former president, registering one shot hitting his ear, and other shots killing one rallygoer behind him and apparently hitting two other victims in the line of fire between the shooter and the president.
The location of the two other victims suggest those shots fired were lower, potentially aiming for Trump as he ducked down and waited for the Secret Service.
Notably, that Butler, Pennsylvania, rally shooting came with the understaffed Secret Service having to rely more on local law enforcement. The building where the Trump assassin launched his attack was reportedly to be covered by those replacement local officials.
"In some instances where specific Secret Service specialized units or resources were not provided, the agency made modifications to ensure the security of the protected," Guglielmi told the Times.
"This may include utilizing state or local partners to provide specialized functions or otherwise identifying alternatives to reduce public exposure of a protectee."
It was reported that those local officials had the shooter spotted long before he fired the fatal shot, but failure to communicate between local police and Secret Service has been potentially blamed for allowing the shooters to take multiple shots at the president — at least three.
The shooter was struck by a countersniper that video showed had been locked in on the target long before shooting started.
The impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose duties rule over the Secret Service, claimed Monday the denial of Secret Service protection is "a baseless and irresponsible statement, and it is one that is unequivocally false."
Business Insider, which also picked up the Times' report, reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment but had not heard back.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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