WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 — Two months after Donald Trump nearly assassinated him , a gunman who hid for nearly 12 hours along the golf course where Trump played on Sunday was arrested by a security agency, and the agency is being urged to investigate the case.
As the 2024 presidential election enters its final stretch, government records show the US Secret Service has roughly 400 fewer personnel than authorized by Congress.
The issue is unlikely to be resolved before the Nov. 5 election , as it typically takes more than 200 days for the agency to fill vacancies.
The Secret Service has had to expand its protection to a broader group of officers since President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid in July and Vice President Kamala Harris took over as the Democratic presidential nominee in a tight race against Republican Trump.
This has put unprecedented pressure on the agency, according to interviews with three former Secret Service agents and a former Secret Service chief.
“The pace, expectations and pressure have never been higher,” former agent Kenneth Valentine said in a phone interview.
Trump’s desire to golf privately at his Florida club on Sunday also meant that agents were not conducting routine on-site checks, which could have put them within a few hundred yards of the shooting site before finding the suspected gunman.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, who took over as leader of the Secret Service in July after Trump narrowly survived an earlier assassination attempt, said his agents were working under high pressure.
“We are revising them,” Luo said at a news conference on Monday.
Democrats and Republicans in Congress have said they could sign off on additional funding in the coming weeks. But that will do little in the short term to address staffing shortages that force agents to work long hours in stressful conditions.
On July 13, at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, a gunman fired six shots from the roof of the building, killing a rally spectator and injuring the Republican candidate’s ear.
Secret Service agents quickly moved Trump to safety and killed the gunman, but Secret Service leaders acknowledged he never should have fired in the first place.
Agency ‘ashamed’
On July 30, Luo told lawmakers he was “ashamed” of the security breach at the incident.
A Secret Service agent spotted the suspected shooter at a Florida golf course on Sunday and caught a glimpse of the muzzle of his AK-47-style rifle. Agents shot him before he could look directly at Trump or fire the weapon.
The suspect, Ryan Ross, was arrested a short time later.
Still, security experts question why the agency didn’t find him sooner.
“How was Rouse not seen by the advance team? Did the (Secret Service) use a drone over the golf course? A dog? If not, why not?” said Lora Reese, who worked in the Trump administration during that time as a senior official in the US Department of Homeland Security, overseeing the Secret Service.
Rowe told reporters Sunday that Trump’s golf trip had not been announced to the public. That means the agency had not conducted rigorous security checks beforehand, which could have signaled his imminent arrival.
Former agents say Trump’s preference for playing golf at his own courses, which are open to members, poses greater security challenges than past presidents such as Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who often golf whenever possible, playing on military courts that are not open to the public.
Trump said Monday that he wanted more agents to protect him. As a candidate and former president, he had access to fewer agents and fewer resources than the current president.
lack of staff
The Secret Service employed 7,879 people as of February, according to the latest available data.
This comes after former agency director James Murray proposed a plan to Congress in 2022, when he said his goal was to have 8,305 employees within a year and 10,000 by 2027.
Although Congress increased the Secret Service’s budget by 9% this year to prepare for the 2024 elections, the agency has been unable to replenish personnel quickly. Rowe told Congress in July that high job demands meant that typically only about 2 percent of applicants were hired.
In recent years, he said, the agency has also struggled to retain agents who have been attracted to more lucrative private-sector jobs.
This shortage makes it harder for agents to stay on task as they have to rush from one assignment to the next.
“The Secret Service had no resources and no bodies,” former agent Bill Gage said in an interview.
