The presidential candidate who stood and watched as scores of his supporters rampaged through the U.S. Capitol is being proactive about security for the Republican National Convention in July.
The Trump campaign has decided that the Secret Service’s current security plans don’t provide enough clearance between the GOP event and its liberal protesters. In a letter to Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle, the campaign described the current programmed distance between the Milwaukee event and its protesters as an “unacceptable” and “critical flaw.” Specifically, they request that the agency add the inclusion of a nearby park—effectively an extra one-block cushion area—to the security perimeter in a preemptive effort to keep thousands of the event’s anticipated detractors far away from its attendees.
Trump is not the only politico to request the change, though he’s almost certainly the loudest. Some of the biggest GOP lawmakers in the country have already made the special request, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as Senators Ron Johnson and Rick Scott.
“To date, the local USSS team has been unresponsive to the RNC’s reasonable proposal, as set out in my April 26 letter, to alleviate these safety risks through a very modest alteration of the Perimeter—namely, to expand a small portion of the Security Perimeter approximately one block to the East to encapsulate the Park,” wrote Republican National Committee counsel Todd Steggerda in the letter.
The city of Milwaukee did not agree with the Trump campaign’s assessment of the security perimeter. Milwaukee’s director of communications Jeff Fleming told ABC News that it did not identify “any critical flaws” in the security plan and that the city is coordinating with “multiple agencies” to ensure a safe event for everyone involved.
