US election: ‘The most complex, dynamic and dangerous threat environment I’ve experienced’

The toxic political climate and a complex web of threats — punctuated by Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump — is putting an extraordinary strain on the national security officials tasked with safeguarding American democracy.

Security experts say sharp polarization and increasingly hateful political rhetoric — fanned by foreign adversaries and supercharged by social media — have combined to test the nation’s ability to protect its candidates and institutions.

“The 2024 presidential election is taking place at a time when the U.S. is facing the most complex, dynamic, and dangerous threat environment I’ve experienced in the 40-plus years that I’ve been working in law enforcement, homeland security, and national security,” said John Cohen, a former senior Homeland Security intelligence and counterterrorism official.

“We’re facing cyber, physical, and other threats by foreign and domestic threat actors, and what’s different today is how they have fully embraced the power of the internet,” Cohen added.

He said security and law enforcement professionals have been slow to adapt to these changes.

After Sunday’s incident, Republicans were quick to call for increased security measures for the former president.

Other factors have combined to drive up the intensity of the moment: the emergence and surprising political strength of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to lead a national ticket, after President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid; the compressed election calendar resulting from Harris’ late entry into the race; the pileup of criminal charges that Trump has battled for a year; and election meddling by Iran (through hacking) and Russia (through disinformation).

Though every recent election cycle has featured some of these challenges, especially foreign interference, rarely has there been a moment when they’ve all collided at once — requiring the Secret Service to weigh a daunting blend of foreign and domestic threats.

John Sandweg, a partner at Nixon Peabody and former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, called the 2024 cycle “an unprecedented time, at least in modern history, in terms of the demands that are on their resources.”

Election season is always challenging for the Secret Service because agents must protect people who are barnstorming the country — so while they guard Trump on his golf course, they must also plan ahead for rallies, campaign stops, and other appearances in unfamiliar venues that raise unique security concerns. The failures that allowed one would-be assassin’s bullet to strike Trump’s ear at a July rally in Butler, Pa., have been a constant reminder that the vaunted agency can still simply screw up.

Ryan Williams, a former aide to Mitt Romney who worked on his presidential bids, said in an interview that the violence directed toward Trump is like nothing he’s seen in his lifetime and that he fears the attempts on the former president’s life could inspire copycat shooters.

“We could potentially see that now in politics,” Williams said. “It’s scary because you can’t protect everybody in politics. There are hundreds of congressmen and senators and high-profile people — it’s just not possible to secure them all if this is what’s going to happen.”

Law enforcement agencies are also operating in an environment of deep distrust, stoked by Trump’s longtime attacks on the FBI and Justice Department amid the deluge of investigations and indictments he’s faced in recent years.

Some Republicans, like Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), called for the feds to stay out of the investigation into Sunday’s incident, saying instead that Florida authorities — under the leadership of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — should be the ones digging into the latest apparent attempt on Trump’s life. DeSantis obliged, announcing that Florida would do its own probe. But the criminal case against the suspect, identified as Ryan Routh, is a federal case being handled by the Justice Department.

Republicans have also renewed claims that Trump is receiving insufficient protection from the Secret Service, despite Trump’s own praise of the agency for its handling of the latest incident. Biden, for his part, denounced the attack and said he had directed that the Secret Service provide “every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former President’s continued safety.”

Trump is expected to move forward with all campaign events previously scheduled this week, including stops in Michigan, New York, Washington, D.C. and North Carolina between Tuesday and Saturday. He was scheduled to receive a briefing from the acting director of the Secret Service on Monday afternoon in Palm Beach.

While Trump has railed for years against the Justice Department and the FBI as an ominous “deep state,” he has not criticized the Secret Service (which is a component of the Department of Homeland Security) or local law enforcement agencies. In public and private conversations after Sunday’s incident, Trump reiterated his support for the Secret Service and local sheriff’s office, while seeking to project an image of strength and resolve about continuing his campaign activities.

Questions remain about whether, if Trump were the sitting president, the roads surrounding the golf course would have been closed while he was playing on Sunday. But aides say that there had been a noticeable uptick in Secret Service security measures since the Butler shooting: a larger motorcade, stricter protocols for those flying on Trump’s plane and increased emergency medical staff traveling with him.

The Butler shooting is still the subject of intense scrutiny— both for how a lone shooter was able to position himself to get a clear shot at Trump despite obvious signs of danger minutes before the attack, and for the shooter’s motive, which remains a mystery two months later.

“I think there’s a hatred in our politics that wasn’t there before. The political rhetoric is sharper and more hateful today,” said Gordon Heddell, a retired assistant director at the Secret Service, who spent 28 years at the agency.

“Social media sites play a pivotal role in their capacity to initiate and further lies and conspiracy theories. Advanced technologies make it easier for an assassin to operate. The availability of high-powered military-style weapons and the ability to move about the country freely; and before you know it, the challenges facing the Secret Service have gone way up,” he added.

The proliferation of social media, in particular, has exacerbated challenges. They’ve allowed foreign adversaries to cloak subversive activity through anonymous accounts that amplify divisive messages and cultural conflicts; they allow disinformation to dilute reality and conspiracy theories to take root. And social media platforms have struggled to provide open forums for debate while combating violent rhetoric.

Already, Iran has been eyed as the culprit behind a hack-and-leak effort that penetrated the Trump campaign.

Cohen said the Secret Service is a leader in analyzing people’s behavior to predict if they pose a threat to protectees. But, he added, federal law enforcement officials need to face fewer constraints in viewing and analyzing public social media posts. It’s a complex policy issue, he said, given constitutional and legal protections that Americans enjoy. But intelligence and law enforcement personnel need to be able to do more.

“Sadly, what all too often is the case is that we fail to recognize the warning signs, we fail to respond rapidly to an emerging threat, and the outcome is very often much more tragic,” Cohen said. “Law enforcement needs the technical capabilities and the authorities to review online content associated with threat actors more broadly than they are doing today.”

Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.