New scrutiny is falling on the shoulders of the Secret Service and its chief, Sean Curran, after Saturday night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Publicly, members of the administration praised the Secret Service for agents’ quick response on Saturday after a suspected gunman charged the ballroom in the basement of the Washington Hilton, where hundreds of journalists and administration VIPs including the president and vice president were seated for the annual event. No persons inside the ballroom were injured, and the suspect, Cole Tomas Allen, was tackled before getting inside.
In private, however, Real Clear Politics reports that seasoned security officials are raising alarms over the Secret Service and the agency’s ability to protect the president. Numerous sources familiar with presidential security protocols bashed Saturday night’s security apparatus at the Hilton in comments to the publication, echoing some criticism leveled by attendees and politicians on social media after the event.
The report also claimed that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles plans to blame the president’s sons, who reportedly pushed for Curran’s appointment, if the president decides to fire him. Wiles, as Trump’s top aide, oversees the Secret Service and also faced some criticism for allowing Curran to remain in his job this long.
Curran took over the agency last year, just months after the president was nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania during a campaign event.
Multiple sources reportedly told Real Clear Politics that Wiles has told other administration officials that “it’s on the boys” – supposedly referring to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump – if Curran screws up.
“It’s failure after failure after failure, and she gets no blame,” one source complained to the publication.
The new report of a rift between Wiles and the presidents’ sons could be blown open if Saturday evening’s incident results in turnover at the Secret Service. Attendees at the White House Correspondents Dinner were required to show tickets and pass through a metal detector, but CNN’s Wolf Blitzer reported that the suspect appeared to make it through a metal detector with his weapon.
A witness who described the scene to The Independent on Saturday evening said that a man withdrew a “long gun” and began firing just inches away from where she and another worker were pushing a service cart into an elevator.
Wiles is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer. She previously served as one of the heads of Donald Trump’s successful 2024 election campaign, where she earned a reputation for running a tight ship and being a no-nonsense boss.
The Secret Service, however, has been facing growing scrutiny and criticism for years. The near-assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024 was another incident wherein the agency was sharply criticized afterwards for not establishing a proper perimeter around a stage where Donald Trump was set to speak.
As Saturday night’s event concluded with a lockdown and confused attendees spilling out into the city, numerous pro-Trump figures and others described the Hilton’s layers of security as lax and porous, with some claiming they weren’t asked to show a ticket. The Independent attended the dinner, and its reporters were asked for tickets at multiple checkpoints.
That lax image is likely to prevail, however, given that the suspected gunman Cole Tomas Allen himself is alleged to have written extensively about the Secret Service’s security failures in a purported manifesto obtained by authorities and published by news outlets on Saturday.
“The security at the event is all outside, focused on protestors and current arrivals, because apparently no one thought about what happens if someone checks in the day before. 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. Like, if I was an Iranian agent, instead of an American citizen, I could have brought a damn Ma Deuce in here and no one would have noticed shit,” Allen wrote in his alleged manifesto.
Another incident in recent weeks saw the Secret Service fail to locate a vehicle its officers were tracking after gunshots were reported near the White House. Rifle casings were recovered, according to Real Clear Politics, and a vehicle identified, but no images of the suspected shooter were recovered and the case reportedly went cold after agents were unable to track the vehicle due to it bearing stolen tags.
The Independent has contacted the Secret Service for comment.
“President Trump continues to have confidence in the United States Secret Service and all of his top law enforcement personnel, as the president mentioned last night. These brave men and women took swift action and quickly neutralized the perpetrator who sought to seek harm to the president and other top officials,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle in response to an emailed request for comment.
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