U.S. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy said Tuesday that the agency doesn’t play a role in determining which protesters are thrown out of Donald Trump’s political rallies or any other campaign events, and that the goal is to step in only when they see Trump or other principals threatened.
“We don’t interfere with people’s First Amendment rights … people have a right to voice their opinions,” Clancy told a House appropriations subcommittee Tuesday. “It’s up to the [event’s] host committee” to respond to protesters and violence in the crowd, he added.
Clancy was responding to a question from Rep. David Price, D-N.C., who asked him how the agency is responding to the escalating “violent and provocative” rhetoric on the campaign trail in recent weeks.
“This is not politics as usual,” Price remarked.
Clancy acknowledged the challenging nature of protecting several presidential candidates during the turbulent campaign season. He mentioned an event in Dayton, Ohio, over the weekend in which a protester rushed Trump on the stage and Secret Service agents immediately surrounded Trump to protect him from harm.
“In general, I will say that every day is a challenge for us, every minute of every day,” he said. “Whether it’s protecting someone at a rally or going into a coffee shop … we have to be on our game,” he said.
Clancy said agents are also involved in the planning stages of an event, when agents sit down with the event’s host committee and local law enforcement and discuss how many agents are going to be needed and other logistics.
“With each site we are flexible with out security plan, we are flexible with our assets if we feel there is more intensity [expected] at a rally,” he said. “If we don’t feel comfortable, it might require us to bring in more assets.”
“There’s is no question, some of these events create even more challenges for us, but it’s our job to be flexible and make sure we have a good security plan,” he said.
Price did not ask Clancy about an incident in late February in which a Time magazine photographer covering a Trump rally in Virginia accused a Secret Service agent of slamming him to the ground and choking him.
The photographer, Chris Morris, stepped 18 inches out of a pen where reporters were being held, and video showed that the agent grabbed him by the neck and started choking him while slamming him to the ground.
The Secret Service is investigating the incident and said it would provide further details after gathering the facts.
