A high-profile MAGA activist has alleged that President Donald Trump’s life is being put at risk by careless conduct within his Secret Service detail.
Tom Fitton, who leads Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog organization, told The New York Post that one episode in particular stands out to him as a serious breach of security.
On September 9, Trump’s dinner at a Washington, D.C. restaurant was disrupted by Code Pink protestors, who managed to get within a few feet of the president and other Cabinet officials, video footage shows. The protesters — who were chanting “Free Palestine” and calling Trump “Hitler” — were eventually escorted out.
“These people were allowed to get within arm’s length of the sitting president with knives and who knows what else in the restaurant available to them,” Fitton told the newspaper.
“I’m just really concerned about the president’s safety,” Fitton added. “He was almost killed twice supposedly under the protection of the Secret Service and then they walked him into a potentially dangerous ambush,” he said of the September incident, which took place at Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab.
The protesters were not violent, but Fitton expressed worry that they had apparently been able to obtain accurate information about Trump’s private dinner.
Fitton, whose watchdog group has over 2 million followers on social media, isn’t the only one to criticize the Secret Service over Trump’s brush-in with Code Pink.
Christ Swecker, a former FBI assistant director, described the episode as “an unbelievable security lapse.”
“I can’t believe they would let random people sit in that close proximity to them,” he told the Post, adding, “That’s crazy. That’s like’s like the days when Abraham Lincoln would ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in his coach and buggy with no protection.”
Code Pink’s D.C. organizer previously told The Daily Beast that getting within close range of the president was as simple as making a reservation at the restaurant.
“We thought it was just going to be Trump, we didn’t know it was all of his Cabinet, and we didn’t think they would be in such an open room — we thought he’d be in a different area — and we were placed really close to them,” Olivia DiNucci told the outlet in September.
On December 18, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in federal court attempting to obtain access to “all internal emails and text messages among USSS officials in the Presidential Protective Division regarding the presence of Code Pink protestors” at the restaurant.
It also seeks any correspondence between the Secret Service and accounts affiliated with Code Pink, a feminist, anti-war organization.
The suit was filed after the Secret Service reportedly failed to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch in September.
“We do not comment on pending or proposed litigation,” a spokesperson for the Secret Service told The Independent. “Any official communication will be made via applicable court filings.”
Judicial Watch has also filed FOIA requests related to the two assassination attempts made against Trump on the 2024 campaign trail.
The first incident happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when a gunman opened fire at Trump during a rally. One bullet grazed his ear, narrowly missing the president’s head. The second event occurred at Trump’s Florida golf club on September 15, when a man was discovered carrying a rifle on the premises.
Another apparent lapse occurred in August at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, when the Secret Service failed to spot that a guest was carrying a handgun while the president was on site.
“The US Secret Service takes the safety and security of our sites very seriously and there are redundant security layers built into every one,” a Secret Service spokesperson said at the time, adding that the individual with the weapon was never in close range to Trump.
