The Secret Service admitted it did not sweep the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club prior to former President Donald Trump‘s golf outing, which was targeted by a would-be assassin hiding in the bushes.
The suspect in the attempted assassination of Trump on Sunday, Ryan Wesley Routh, was spotted by a Secret Service agent after the agent noticed Routh’s “AK-47-style rifle with a scope” peeking out of the bushes along the golf course. Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe confirmed at a press conference on Monday that the agency did not sweep the perimeter of the golf course prior to Trump’s outing, noting that it was not on the former president’s schedule for the day.
Rowe did stress that the agent who swept the hole ahead of Trump and noticed the gunman was responsible for preventing Routh from having a line of sight of Trump.
“There was a front element. It did its job of sweeping ahead of the president. That’s what identified this individual, who was in that wood line. The swift action of that agent — doing his job, pushing out ahead, sweeping, while the president was behind him, several hundred yards and several holes away, out of sight from the gunman — did his job, and that was what alerted the detail and the swift action of what took place,” Rowe said.
The agency has been under scrutiny since the last Trump assassination attempt in July, in which a gunman was able to shoot Trump in the ear and kill a rally attendee, Corey Comperatore. The head of the Secret Service when the July attempt on Trump’s life occurred resigned after mounting pressure over the mishandling of the situation.
Rowe took over as the acting head of the Secret Service in July.
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Routh is facing federal gun charges and is expected to face additional state and federal charges as multiple investigations into the Sunday incident continue.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) insisted on Tuesday while speaking at a press conference that the state should take the lead on the prosecution of Routh, arguing that the would-be assassin committed “a violation of state law” rather than federal law.