Bloomberg: Jason Leopold July 17, 2024 [also read via Twitter Thread] “Long before the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Saturday, I spent years looking into the way the Secret Service responded to threats against its protectees. In 2022, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency for records of threats and security breaches at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump spent much of his time during his first term in office. Keep reading to learn more. Last week, the Secret Service finally responded to my Mar-a-Lago security request. The agency’s Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division turned over more than 100 pages of documents, the details of which have not been previously reported. The 159 pages of records provide a behind the scenes look at how the agency responds to potential threats against presidential protectees. The Secret Service, which has long been plagued by scandal, is now under intense scrutiny over potential security lapses during Trump’s Saturday campaign rally. Despite the agency’s presence, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle was able to crawl atop a nearby roof and take clear aim at Trump. A bullet grazed the former president’s ear. Long before the incident, dating to his first day in office, Trump has been uniquely vulnerable, partly because he spends a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago, his private Palm Beach resort. The Secret Service doesn’t have any say in who gets welcomed to the so-called Winter White House. Although there are additional screening protocols for guests afforded close access to him, Trump is known to frequently socialize with guests who pay for an annual membership, sometimes making surprise appearances at weddings or parties. In January 2019, the Government Accountability Office released a report about the Secret Service’s security procedures for Mar-a-Lago. It said that the Secret Service, Coast Guard and local police patrol waterways and entrances around Mar-a-Lago, and that guests may be subject to physical screening. The FOIA records I recently received provide a little more insight. Taken together, they reveal dozens of incidents where people gained access to Mar-a-Lago while Trump was at the resort, despite not having the authorization to be there. In a couple instances, those individuals were mistakenly waived through checkpoints by Secret Service or Mar-a-Lago security. It doesn’t appear that any of the individuals who gained access to Mar-a-Lago posed an immediate threat to Trump, according to the documents. Still many of the offenders were charged with trespassing and resisting arrest, and several were sent to mental health facilities…”