Sheriff on Assassination Attempt: Trump Would Have Had More Protection as Sitting President

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters Sunday evening that a gunman was able to gain access to former President Donald Trump’s golf course at Mar-a-Lago because he had less security as a former president.

Bradshaw revealed details of the assassination attempt — the second on Trump in the past three months — which was foiled by the Secret Service when they saw a rifle poking through the fence of the next hole Trump was to have played.

Bradshaw said that had Trump been the sitting president, local police would have had the property surrounded:

Well, you’ve got to understand. The golf course is surrounded by shrubbery. And when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they’re pretty much out of sight. And at this level that he [Trump] is at right now, he’s not the istintg president. If he was, we would have had this entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible. So I would imagine the next time he comes to the golf course, there’ll probably be a little more people around the perimeter. But the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done. They provided exactly what the protection should have been. And their agent did a fantastic job.

The Secret Service agent fired shots. It is unclear if the gunman fired back. He ran away, according to Bradshaw, and his vehicle was photographed by a witness, which enabled police in the neighboring county to track him down.

The alleged gunman is in custody and former President Trump is unharmed.

This story is developing.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.