A juvenile was allowed free access to Mar-a-Lago for over an hour last December, before being apprehended
Secret Service agents failed to prevent a juvenile from entering Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last December. The intruder was able to wander the complex for an hour and even swam in the pool. No disciplinary action was taken as a result of the breach.
The shocking story was broken by Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics, who spoke with multiple sources in the Secret Service.
“The entire compound is alarmed and secured,” Crabtree noted in a long tweet, “but because Mar-a-Lago is an active club, its security has proven particularly difficult for the Secret Service.”
Crabtree continued: “Sources in the Secret Service community are raising the Mar-a-Lago breach as further evidence that the detail and its supervisors assigned to protect Trump are given preferential treatment and are not bearing the same responsibility for the layers of security failures leading up to the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump that wounded the former president in the ear and killed retired fireman Corey Comperatore in front of his family. The detail and its two leaders are very close to and well-liked by Trump and the former president’s extended family.”
Crabtree went on to note a number of failures associated with the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on 13 July.
Less than an hour after her first tweet breaking the story, the Secret Service provided a response to Crabtree, claiming the breach at Mar-a-Lago was in the exterior grounds of the club, “which is limited to authorized guests only.” Crabtree disputed this and said her sources told her the breach was closer to the residence.
“In December 2023, the U.S. Secret Service was assisted by the Town of Palm Beach Police Department and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to address a property trespass incident by a juvenile on the exterior grounds of the Mar-a-Lago Club, which is limited to authorized club guests only,” the statement reads.
“The juvenile was apprehended and taken into custody by Palm Beach Police Department officers. The U.S. Secret Service takes these matters extremely seriously, and at the time, an investigation was immediately launched, and certain U.S. Secret Service personnel were held accountable in accordance with agency protocols. We remain thankful to the Town of Palm Beach Police Department and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for their response and strong partnership.”
The Secret Service also claimed that “certain U.S. Secret Service personnel were held accountable in accordance with agency protocols,” but did not specify which personnel or the sanctions imposed.
Multiple Secret Service agents have now been suspended as a result of the agency’s failures in Butler. Revelations about the inadequacy of the agency’s security arrangements around the former president, at Butler and more generally, continue.
Last week, it was revealed that Secret Service agents failed to pick up radios that were assigned to them by local law enforcement, hampering communication between agents and the police security detail at the Butler rally.
A communication breakdown has been highlighted as one of the key contributing factors allowing Thomas Matthew Crooks to gain access to his rooftop sniper’s perch and fire eight shots at the former president before being eliminated.
“Local officials were penned in by a cumbersome hierarchical system of reporting that stymied the flow of urgent information from one unit to the next,” Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told CNN in a statement.
“There was no unified radio channel for all law enforcement on the premises to communicate in the event of an emergency—instead, units connected over various radio channels, group chats and even emails,” Grassley said. “Officers relied heavily on spotty cell service to get their messages through, and were often unsure if the right law enforcement entity received them.”
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