A female Secret Service agent assigned to protect former President Donald Trump at a recent rally left her post to breastfeed her child without proper approval, according to a new report.
Citing sources within the agency, RealClearPolitics (RCP) reporter Susan Crabtree revealed Thursday that an agent tasked with defending Trump at the former president’s Wednesday rally in Asheville, North Carolina, “abandoned her post to breastfeed with no permission/warning to the event site agent.”
According to Crabtree, the site agent responsible for overseeing security for the rally was conducting a “final sweep of the walking route” five minutes before Trump’s motorcade arrived and found the female agent “breast-feeding her child in a room that is supposed to be set aside for important Secret Service official work, i.e. a potential emergency related to the president.” Two members of the female agent’s family were also purportedly found in the room.
“A working agent on duty cannot bring a child to a protective assignment,” the report reads.
The sources who spoke with Crabtree reportedly claimed the agent and her family members “bypassed the Uniformed Division checkpoint” and were led into the room by an event staffer who was not properly cleared by the Secret Service to be in that location. The agent in question came from the agency’s Atlanta field office, according to Crabtree.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi seemingly confirmed the incident did, in fact, occur. In a statement to RCP, Guglielmi claimed the agent’s reported abandonment of her post made “no impact to the North Carolina event” but added that “the specifics of [the] incident are being examined.”
“All employees of the U.S. Secret Service are held to the highest standards,” the spokesman said. “Given this is a personnel matter, we are not in a position to comment further.”
Recall that Guglielmi denied and smeared Federalist CEO Sean Davis’ reporting that the Department of Homeland Security — which oversees the Secret Service — declined repeated requests by Trump’s security detail for additional personnel in the weeks leading up to the July 13 assassination attempt on the former president. Guglielmi ultimately admitted Davis’ reporting was true to The Washington Post.
Thursday’s revelations are the latest in a series of damning reports, released in the weeks after the attempt on Trump’s life, documenting the Secret Service’s myriad failures and negligence.
Last week, for example, Business Insider reported that Secret Service agents broke into a closed Massachusetts salon last month while overseeing security for a nearby fundraiser held for Vice President Kamala Harris. Footage of the incident showed a female agent covering up the salon’s outside security camera, while a separate camera showed agents frequenting the facility hours later.
The salon owner — who didn’t give the agency permission to enter the business — said the door lock looked like it had been picked and the facility’s bathroom was a left a mess.
