A senior official in the Defence Department said it “continues to provide enhanced support to the US Secret Service for the protection of the 2024 presidential and vice presidential campaign candidate”. A Secret Service spokesperson noted that the Pentagon was already providing military cargo planes to help move heavy equipment required by the Trump campaign.
In her own push for additional security resources, Wiles cited several episodes that showed the need for more help, a person familiar with the matter said.
They included one event in Wisconsin, where the campaign had encountered a shortage of Secret Service agents because they were busy handling the UN General Assembly in New York.
The Trump campaign in WisconsinCredit: AP
Another was a second event in Wisconsin that could not be held in the original venue because the bullet-deflecting glass that is now being used to protect Trump was too heavy to safely place inside the structure, an issue that had forced the former president to relocate his event to a smaller venue and refashion it into a news briefing rather than a public rally.
In the conversations and messages with White House officials and Rowe, Wiles noted that more security assets would be needed if the former president were to be able to finish the campaign season in the way that he wanted to, these people said.
Asked about the calls to the White House, its communications director, Ben LaBolt, said, “President Biden has directed the Secret Service to provide the highest level of protection for former President Trump.”
And asked by reporters later about the request for Trump to use military aircraft, Biden said he had told his administration to give Trump everything he needed for security “as if he were a sitting president”.
“Give him all he needs,” Biden said. “If it fits within that category, that’s fine. But if it doesn’t, he shouldn’t.”
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Evan Vucci’s photo of Donald Trump after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.Credit: AP
The Secret Service’s resource constraints have been a growing issue as the agency has coped with an exodus of agents.
Given the agency’s finite number of trained agents and specialists, magnetometers, bomb-detecting dogs and other equipment, turning down candidates who request additional resources is not uncommon during busy periods like the final stretch of a presidential campaign.
In a statement, the Secret Service said that “since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, the US Secret Service has made comprehensive enhancements to our communications capabilities, resourcing and protective operations. Today, the former president is receiving the highest levels of protection”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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