Secret Service seeks help for next Trump rally as GOP fumes at director
MILWAUKEE — A top adviser to Donald Trump called for the Secret Service director’s resignation on Thursday, as the agency took steps to bolster security for the Republican nominee’s next rally on Saturday.
Senior adviser Chris LaCivita demanded the resignation of Director Kimberly Cheatle in remarks hosted by Politico, after she was recorded fleeing angry questions from Republican senators here on Wednesday. Lawmakers were outraged by a briefing where they said she failed to address urgent questions about how the agency allowed a 20-year-old man with an AR-style rifle to take shots at Trump from an unsecured rooftop bordering his rally at a fairgrounds in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.
“There are not enough facts,” LaCivita said. “Clearly, the director has no intention of saying s—.”
Trump spokesman Brian Hughes said LaCivita was expressing a personal opinion and hasn’t discussed the question with the former president.
Tensions have been mounting in recent days between Trump aides and Secret Service leadership, people familiar with the matter have said.
In addition to outrage over the lapses at last weekend’s rally, Trump aides were angered when officials revealed Tuesday that Trump had been briefed on an unspecified threat by Iran, unrelated to the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. They said the campaign had been warned to expect stepped-up security due to that threat against the former president but had not been informed of the threat related to Iran, a hostile foreign power.
On Monday, Cheatle met with senior Trump campaign aides in a hotel suite in Milwaukee to brief them on the investigation into the rally shooting, but the meeting was acrimonious at times, people familiar with the matter said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private meeting. The RNC has clashed with the Secret Service this week over security and logistics, they said.
A spokesman for the Secret Service did not respond to questions about tensions with Trump aides.
Trump is set to return to the campaign trail on Saturday with a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., his first since the attempted assassination and his first joint campaign event with Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), his running mate. After the shooting, the event was moved to an indoor arena that is easier to secure than open air, said people familiar with the plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. They said the campaign is not expecting to do outdoor rallies again for the foreseeable future.
For this Saturday, the Secret Service is asking for additional help from local law enforcement, some local officials said.
Kent County Undersheriff Bryan Muir said at a board of commissioners meeting that the sheriff’s office received a “last-minute request” for assistance and planned to dispatch 50 to 60 officers to the rally. A spokeswoman specified that the request came from the Secret Service. A spokesman for the Grand Rapids Police Department said the department is also working with federal agencies to plan Saturday’s event.
The Trump campaign declined to comment on security and referred questions to the Secret Service, which also declined to comment on rally preparations, citing the need to protect operations.
Kent County commissioner Walter Bujak, a Republican, said that he plans to attend the Trump rally in Grand Rapids and that he expects the security staffing will be “unbelievable.”
“They will be on heightened security obviously,” Bujak said. “They’re going to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for this one.”
Federal investigators are still urgently combing through the security failures at last Saturday’s rally that led to the wounding of the former president, the death of one attendee and two other critical injuries. The FBI said this week it is investigating the assassination attempt as “potential domestic terrorism.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this week the nation is in a “heightened” threat environment.
Investigators have not identified a motive or indicated they have any evidence pointing to an ideological connection to the assassination attempt.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are also demanding answers from FBI Director Christopher A. Wray after the lawmakers said they were contacted by whistleblowers claiming the Secret Service was under-resourced for the Pennsylvania rally because of last week’s NATO summit in Washington.
A spokesman for the Secret Service declined to comment on the letter, citing ongoing investigations into the shooting, and said the agency will cooperate with congressional reviews, as well as a probe that has been launched by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.
On Monday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security put out a joint intelligence bulletin, first reported by Politico, warning about possible attacks.
“The FBI and DHS remain concerned about the potential for follow-on or retaliatory acts of violence following this attack, particularly given that individuals in some online communities have threatened, encouraged, or referenced acts of violence in response to the attempted assassination,” the bulletin said.
Carrie Cordero, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security think tank and a member of Mayorkas’s Homeland Security Advisory Council, said she would expect the Secret Service to surge resources and people to events such as the Grand Rapids rally to safeguard politicians and the public. She said she also would expect “more hands-on management by higher levels to make sure plans are in place.”
The Michigan State Police referred questions to the Secret Service. “They are the lead agency for these events and we only assist,” spokesperson Kim Vetter said in an email Wednesday.
Another Kent County commissioner, Iván Diaz, a Democrat who represents parts of Grand Rapids, said he was not informed of any Secret Service preparations for the rally. He said that in February, Vice President Harris visited a church near the Van Andel Arena, where the rally will be held, without incident.
Diaz said he planned to join protests outside the arena in hopes that Americans would pick other candidates to represent them.
“The more that we have these candidates who are demonizing people, who are making it seem like political opponents are enemies to be destroyed, the more likely it is that we’ll have political violence,” he said.
At the White House this week, Mayorkas sought to reassure the public that the Secret Service is at high capacity, even with questions swirling around the agency.
“I have 100 percent confidence in the United States Secret Service,” he said Monday. “And what you saw on stage on Saturday with respect to individuals putting their own lives at risk for the protection of another is exactly what the American public should see every single day. It is what I indeed do.”
After the shooting, he said, the service boosted security for Biden, Trump and Vice President Harris, and granted Secret Service protection to Vance as well as independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Mayorkas said officials added personnel and technology to safeguard the officials but declined to provide details because they involve “sensitive tactics and procedures.” He emphasized that the service gets support from other federal agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, which fall under the DHS, as well as state and local law enforcement.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a September report that the 2024 election season remains one of its top concerns. Campaign rallies, polling places, government offices and other locations could be attractive targets for “violence or threats,” the department wrote in its 2024 threat assessment, an annual report on the most pressing terrorism threats facing the United States.
Jacqueline Alemany and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.