White House dinner shooting prompts scrutiny of Trump security

U.S. law enforcement officials are reassessing security arrangements after a gunman opened fire near the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, raising questions about how he was able to get so close to an event attended by President Donald Trump, cabinet members and lawmakers.



Two former Secret Service agents and three senior U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday that federal agents appeared to carry out their plan to protect the president effectively on Saturday night, stopping the alleged gunman before he reached the basement level of the Washington Hilton, where Trump was set to speak.



But the fact that some attendees could hear the shots fired at a Secret Service agent underscored vulnerabilities, the officials said, even after a pair of assassination attempts against Trump during the 2024 campaign had already prompted stronger measures around the president's security.



The Secret Service did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.



The most obvious lesson from the incident, the former law enforcement officials said, is that security personnel may need to expand the protective perimeter around the president at large public venues, even if that leads to public inconvenience.



Some of the U.S. officials noted the security perimeter at Trump's rallies is often much more expansive than the one that was established on Saturday night.

At Saturday's dinner, guests were required to pass through magnetometers, or metal detectors, to enter the ballroom but needed only a ticket to access the hotel itself. Several people tried to enter using last year's ticket, according to a person with direct knowledge of the event's planning.