Current and former Secret Service agents are speaking out about what they view as security failures at this year’s ill-fated White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Cole Tomas Allen, 31, allegedly attempted to storm into the dinner on Saturday and kill Trump administration officials. He was stopped before he could reach the actual event space, but how he was able to get so close has raised questions about security at the function.
“If he had gotten through those ballroom doors, it would have been catastrophic,” Rich Staropoli, a former Secret Service agent who protected four presidents, told RealClearPolitics.
Allen is said to have traveled from his home in Torrance, California, to Washington, D.C., by train, stopping in Chicago along the way. He stayed at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner was being held.
“The Secret Service got incredibly lucky again, and luck isn’t a security strategy,” Staropoli added. “What if it had been multiple attackers or an explosive device, so how do you counter that? The obvious nature of the deficiencies here is ridiculous.”
Federal law enforcement sources were quoted telling RealClearPolitics that three of the federal officers seen standing by when Allen made a break for the ballroom appeared to be Transportation Security Administration staffers who were there to help with screening bags. They crouched down and crawled around a corner upon seeing that Allen was armed.
Even in his manifesto, sent just minutes before he allegedly attempted to open fire, Allen is said to have written his own criticisms about the high-profile event’s security.
“I walk in with multiple weapons and not a single person there considers the possibility that I could be a threat,” he allegedly wrote, adding, “What the hell is the Secret Service doing?”
“Like, this level of incompetence is insane, and I very sincerely hope it’s corrected by the time this country gets actually competent leadership again,” he raged.
The Daily Beast reached out to the Secret Service for comment. Publicly, Secret Service Director Sean Curran has stood by how the agency handled the security threat on Saturday.
But the close call has some questioning Curran’s leadership at the agency, including his decision to remove several senior leaders from both the Presidential Protective Division and Vice Presidential Protective Division.
One agent pointed to Curran’s removal of David Yamin, who served as the last Senior Executive Service-credentialed Deputy Special Agent in Charge on PPD. Some said that Yamin’s exit was forced by Curran so he could install Matt Piant, a Curran loyalist, to the role.
“David Yamin was exactly the kind of person you want in that role,” one veteran agent told RealClearPolitics. “SES, deep experience, knows how to run a detail. He didn’t leave voluntarily.”
Sources told the outlet they believe Curran’s decision to remove senior leaders likely led to flaws in planning for the event, with some parts of the hotel left completely unsecured, like the stairwell Allen used just before the confrontation. They described a dangerous dynamic in which the Secret Service director, by their telling, is too focused on appeasing the president and his team rather than enforcing strict protocols, with one source saying: “Curran has a pattern of being complacent and taking care of his buddies instead of doing the right thing.”
Some former and current Secret Service agents also said it would be wise for the president, who has been the target now of three attempted assassinations, to wear a bulletproof vest in certain outings.
When asked by reporters on Thursday if he would be willing to resort to that, however, Trump indicated he was concerned about the visuals.
“I don’t know if I can handle looking 20 pounds heavier,” he quipped, adding more seriously: “I guess it’s something you consider. In one way you don’t like to do it because you’re giving in to a bad element.”
