The Secret Service reportedly allowed a "semi-automatic Glock handgun" to slip through a checkpoint at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, last week.
This alarming breach occurred just days before the trial of Ryan Wesley Routh, who faces charges for a second assassination attempt on President Trump, began. Routh had brought a rifle near Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, and held a shooting position for hours, awaiting the then-presidential candidate almost precisely one year ago.
The latest harrowing revelation comes via a report from RealClearPolitics political correspondent Susan Crabtree, who was covering another concerning incident on Monday, in which obnoxious pro-Palestinian protesters were somehow able to locate the President as he visited a D.C. restaurant, getting within mere feet while shouting at him and his entourage.
Crabtree reports that "a club member was able to get a semi-automatic Glock handgun through security checkpoints and into the club" in Sterling, though it posed no threat to the President according to her sources.
The weapon was somehow missed "even though a USSS Uniformed Division officer had screened the bag by hand and wanded the man carrying it."
Would-Be Trump Assassin Ryan Routh Makes Bizarre Court Appearance, Asks Jurors About Turtles
This latest security lapse amplifies ongoing scrutiny of the Secret Service agency's protective measures for President Trump, especially as this week's trial focuses on how Routh evaded detection while lying in wait with a rifle for hours.
Routh had been in his shooting position since 1:59 a.m. on September 15th, 2024. Trump arrived at the golf course around 11 a.m. and had been on the links for two hours before the Secret Service located Routh via a sweep and apprehended him.
According to a timeline established by ABC News, Trump at the time had been making his way down the fifth fairway, while Routh had been staked out near the sixth green. He was little more than 20 minutes away from achieving his objective and throwing the United States into chaos.
With that in mind, you'd think the USSS would have shored up their efforts when it comes to sweeps and weapons checks. Apparently, that is not the case. Even the club member who brought the gun "inadvertently" was beside himself that agents had missed it.
"The club member who inadvertently had the Glock in his bag that day when he entered the golf club was chagrined that the Secret Service had manually searched the bag without finding the gun," Crabtree writes.
"The shaken and incensed club member took the initiative to tell the Secret Service that he accidentally got the gun through security and pressed the agents and officers protecting Trump at the golf course as to how they could have failed to find it."
Other club members were equally enraged that President Trump would have been vulnerable had the person with the Glock exhibited ill intentions. They openly wondered how the Secret Service could guarantee no other weapons passed through that day.
The agency has since opened an investigation into the incident and placed the officer who screened the individual with the weapon on administrative leave.
Days later, President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth were accosted at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab earlier this week, creating a tense scene. They should never have been able to get this close to a man who already faced two significant assassination attempts (we haven't even mentioned Butler!), along with countless other threats.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told RealClearPolitics that an investigation is ongoing as to "exactly how the gun made it onto the property.”
Still, she reaffirmed President Trump's consistent faith in the Secret Service.
“As for the president, in the past he has said he trusts USSS and the job they do to protect him,” Leavitt said.
Multiple agents in July were suspended without pay in connection with their response to the attempted assassination in Butler. Earlier in Trump's term, he nominated Sean Curran as his Secret Service director, the man who helped him stand up and shielded him after the would-be assassin in Butler missed killing him by millimeters.
"Changes have been made at the Secret Service," writes RedState Editor Bob Hoge in his coverage of the Routh trial, "but we’re going to need them to perform a whole lot better than they did in Florida and Pennsylvania in order to avoid tragedy."
Instead, we're discussing raging protesters getting in his face during a visit to a local restaurant and a gun making its way onto another one of his golf courses.
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