The U.S Secret Service has confirmed that an agent failed to detect a weapon being carried by one of the members of the golf club of President Donald Trump when he was paying a visit to the facility in the northern part of Virginia.
The accident occurred on August 31 at Trump National in Washington, D.C., in Sterling, when a club member entered the premises with a hidden gun, according to a senior official at the Secret Service. The individual subsequently reported the gun to himself after realizing that it had passed through security unnoticed.
The U.S. Service agency said, “The U.S. Secret Service takes the safety and security of our sites very seriously and there are redundant security layers built into every one.”
As soon as the incident was reported, an internal probe was initiated. The U.S. Secret Service employee who personally conducted the first screening using a hand-held magnetometer was relieved of working responsibilities and suspended on administrative leave pending the investigation. The Secret Service Director, Sean Curran, and the Deputy Director, Matt Quinn, visited the club after the incident and were fully briefed.
The news was first reported by Real Clear Politics, which revealed that the member had a Glock semiautomatic pistol in a bag that was not collected during screening. The magazine also cited that the man was shaken and angry on realizing that the gun had slipped through security. The decline follows a year after two high-profile efforts to kill Trump.
The U.S. Secret Service States, “Video surveillance indicates the club member was never in close physical proximity to the President’s location at any point while at the golf club.” The Secret Service agent who inspected the gun by the member who used the hand-held magnetometers to screen reported, “was immediately removed from operational duties and has since been placed on administrative leave, pending the outcome of the review.”
President Trump almost escaped a gunfire incident on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, at a campaign rally in which gunman Thomas Crooks killed one man and wounded two others with a gun before being killed by a Secret Service sniper. This assault saw the resignation of then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle as growing criticism was directed at the agency and its failures.
President Trump was also confronted with a threat just two months earlier, on September 15, 2024, as he was playing golf at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Police indicate that a North Carolina man, Ryan Routh, was found with a rifle outside the premises.
Before he was arrested, a Secret Service agent fired at him, and he was arrested by the police. The case against Routh is in the U.S. District Court in Fort Pierce, Florida, where he is charged with attempting to kill a leading presidential candidate and assaulting a federal official, and other gun crimes. Jury selection began Monday in the case of Routh.
The U.S. Secret Service reiterated that, even though the incident on the recent occasion at the golf club in Virginia did not pose any direct threat to Trump, it was a wake-up call to exercise more caution in the presidential security operation.
