Secret Service Missed Glock in Bag at Trump Golf Course

White House officials expressed confidence in the Secret Service’s abilities to protect President Trump hours before rowdy protesters stood just a few feet away from Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, screaming “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” The outburst occurred Tuesday night inside Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, a swanky D.C. restaurant a block and a half from the White House.

The pro-Hamas far-left Code Pink demonstrators held Palestinian flags and unfurled smaller banners disrupting Trump’s and his entourage’s arrival for the president’s first dining out experience in a D.C. restaurant since his second term began in January. Trump was captured on video, visibly angry, asking for protesters to be removed from the restaurant.

“C’mon, c’mon,” the president said, waving his hand. An unidentified male voice is then heard prodding the protesters, “Let’s go, let’s go.”

Among those who accompanied POTUS to the restaurant: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, presidential press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and top White House aides Dan Scavino, Stephen Miller, James Blair, and James Braid. 

Videos of the protesters shouting at Trump for more than 30 seconds from just steps away before Secret Service led the group out of the restaurant sparked angry rebukes from the MAGA faithful.

“Where the hell is the @SecretService?” far-right activist Laura Loomer demanded in an X.com post. “How did they get within inches of him? This is insane. Palestinian ‘activists in DC go around shooting people. How did this happen!? Unacceptable!”

Newsmax host Todd Starnes also demanded to know how the Secret Service allowed “a bunch of pro-Hamas protesters” to access the restaurant Trump chose for his first dining out experience in D.C. this year.

“Not a good look for the Secret Service tonight,” Starnes remarked.

Trump’s decision to head to the nearby restaurant, a frequent eatery for high-end lobbyists and tourists alike, was intended to focus on how safe D.C. is amid the administration’s crackdown on crime.

The decision to go out for the dinner and include Vance, Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, was made just hours before, so there was very little advance Secret Service planning, sources tell RealClearPolitics. These last-minute presidential outings are known as Off the Records in Secret Service parlance, meaning that protection decisions are made more on the fly and in the moment than other planned events requiring days or weeks of preparation. The USSS deals with these last-minute presidential movements by using security hand wands to clear everyone dining when the president is in the room. The Secret Service Uniformed Division officers then usually go through any suspicious-looking bags with wands.

The last assassination attempt against Trump by Ryan Routh at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach last September also happened during an OTR. Sources tell RCP that Trump’s campaign detail agents knew he was planning to golf at the course the night before and should have had the outer perimeter of the golf course swept by wands and canine teams with a roving agent or team of agents monitoring the courses perimeter while Trump golfed.

USSS Director Sean Curran has never spoken publicly or to Congress about Routh’s attempts on Trump’s life in West Palm Beach. The same silence is true of Curran’s former deputy director of Trump’s campaign Secret Service team, Matt Piant, and any other senior GS-15 employee or supervisor.

As far as Trump’s encounter with Code Pink Tuesday night, it’s unclear if the protesters had undergone any security screening at the restaurant before approaching Trump and yelling at him.

Just a few hours earlier, Leavitt was defending the Secret Service to RCP over a security breach last week at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, in which a club member was able to get a semi-automatic Glock handgun through security checkpoints and into the club. The gun was not located anywhere near Trump, who was on the golf course, and the firearm never posed a danger to the president, several sources familiar with the breach asserted.

The club member who inadvertently had the Glock in his bag that day when he entered the golf club was chagrined that the Secret Service had manually searched the bag without finding the gun.

The shaken and incensed club member took the initiative to tell the Secret Service that he accidentally got the gun through security and pressed the agents and officers protecting Trump at the golf course as to how they could have failed to find it. Other club members also wanted to know how the Secret Service could be sure there were no other weapons brought into the club that day, several sources told RCP.

Secret Service agents interviewed the man about his experience, and the agency launched an investigation into the breach, placing the Uniformed Division officer who had screened the man with the Glock on administrative leave while the probe takes place.

The incident caused such a fuss among golf course club members and the Uniformed Division officers that Curran and Quinn visited the course last week to review the process used for screening cars, bags, and individuals when Trump is on the premises.

The Secret Service referred RCP’s questions about the Glock getting past security at Trump’s Sterling golf course to the White House. Leavitt told RCP that the Secret Service has “opened an investigation into the incident to figure out exactly how the gun made it onto the property.”

“As for the president, in the past he has said he trusts USSS and the job they do to protect him,” Leavitt added.

The press secretary did not say whether his trust in the Secret Service remains after the breach involving the Glock – or whether magnetometers would be required at his golf clubs in the future.

The latest security breach at a Trump golf course took place nearly a year after Routh’s attempt on the president’s life at the president’s West Palm Beach golf club. Sources in the Secret Service community warn that under Curran’s leadership this year, the agency has failed to pursue and implement enough reforms, even though the Iranians’ desire to assassinate Trump on one of his golf courses is  well known, according to sources in the Secret Service.

“How do you miss a weapon in a bag? Either you search it, or you don’t,” former USSS special agent Richard Starapoli told RCP.

There are signs posted in Secret Service workspaces urging agents and officers to pay attention to detail, he added.

“Given the threat level of Trump and the fact that he was shot once, almost shot a second time in Florida, I don’t care where you get the assets from,” Starapoli argued. “It seems to me, you want to get those assets to every site that this guy visits, and that includes magnetometer, dogs and everything else.”

“Why you would hold those assets back is beyond me,” Starapoli added. “It’s just poor management.”

If Starapoli were in charge, he says he would put a magnetometer at the entrance of all of Trump’s golf courses where golfers start to play and would send that USSS agent shift and post-standers assigned to the event to position themselves three or four holes ahead “to see what you’re walking into,” he said.

“I don’t know what the break down is here – why this basic stuff isn’t being done,” Starapoli added.

Several sources in the Secret Service suggested that the long security screening lines that delayed the U.S. Open tennis tournament  Sunday was linked to the failure of the Uniformed Division officer to the latest breakdown in security.

Some ticketholders who were still outside in the screening lines booed as the match between rivals Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner began a little before 3 p.m. The match was supposed to start at 2 p.m. EDT but was pushed back 30 minutes because of Trump’s attendance.

The Uniformed Division officers who conduct screenings of cars, people, and bags entering the property at the golf course in Sterling said the Glock breach the week before had made Uniformed Division officers at the U.S. Open matches more cautious because they just saw one of their own fail and become the subject of an internal USSS investigation.

At the time, a Secret Service spokesperson said in a statement, “We recognize that enhanced security for the president’s visit to the U.S. Open have contributed to delays for attendees. We sincerely thank every fan for their patience and understanding.”

Other Secret Service sources said the Glock incident had nothing to do with the screening delays at the U.S. Open, which they stressed were simply a result of ticketholders flouting the urgings from the U.S. Open’s host, the United States Tennis Association, to get to the venue early and get through screening.

A spokesperson for the United States Tennis Association, which runs the event, said the tournament had taken steps to mitigate any delays by including sending messages to ticketholders over the weekend, urging them to arrive early and use mass transit if possible.

“We understand the frustration of fans that were delayed in their entrance to Arthur Ashe Stadium,” spokesperson Brendan McIntyre said in a statement. “The added security protocols were put in place by the United States Secret Service.”

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.