The Secret Service did not search the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday before former President Donald J. Trump began his round, an acknowledgment that has put the besieged agency under renewed scrutiny two months after a similar episode in Pennsylvania.
The decision raises further questions about whether the Secret Service has the resources and ability to adequately perform its duties during a time of increasing violence and a unique campaign between a sitting vice president and a former president.
While the agency’s acting director hailed a Secret Service agent for acting swiftly and preventing any harm to Mr. Trump on Sunday, the F.B.I. said that data from a gunman’s cellphone indicated he spent almost 12 hours near the course before he aimed a rifle in the direction of Mr. Trump while he was golfing.
In remarks to reporters at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on Monday afternoon, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., the Secret Service’s acting director, said, “The president wasn’t even really supposed to go there.”
Mr. Rowe said Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, did not have an outing on the course on his official schedule. Mr. Rowe did not clarify in his statements whether this meant that agents did not have time to sweep the golf course. Yet it is public knowledge that Mr. Trump frequently plays golf at one of his Florida courses on Sundays, raising the risk level for the former president.
Mr. Rowe praised his agents for spotting the barrel of a gun poking through the bushes of the golf club and firing at the suspect, Ryan W. Routh, 58, before he could get off a shot. A manhunt commenced, leading to Mr. Routh being detained soon after. He was charged in federal court on Monday with possession of a firearm as a felon.
The Secret Service’s methods “were effective yesterday,” Mr. Rowe said. He pointed to “early” identification of the threat, an immediate evacuation of Mr. Trump and the help of increased protective measures — including the presence of countersnipers.
But after Sunday’s episode, legislators, law enforcement officials and Secret Service alumni questioned whether the embattled agency was still up to its mission of protecting current and former presidents and their families.
“I’m very concerned at reports that the suspect allegedly was in the bushes for 11 hours,” said Beth Celestini, a longtime Secret Service agent who protected President Barack Obama before retiring in 2021. “The Secret Service has protocols where if enacted, this suspect should have been discovered before the incident.”
Ronald Layton, a 26-year veteran of the agency who led divisions with oversight of protection and event security, asked, “Was this just luck that you caught this guy, or did you have the appropriate mechanisms in place for these kinds of things on the threat spectrum?”
Mr. Rowe said that in order to handle an increasingly challenging threat environment, the Secret Service would need Congress to provide more funding for personnel, overtime and facilities.
His appeal had already received the endorsement of President Biden, who had told White House reporters on Monday morning that “the Service needs more help” and that Congress “should respond to their needs.”
Aides involved with the Senate and House Appropriations Committees, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose private discussions, said the panels were reviewing the Secret Service’s requests.
At the same time, top House officials are considering whether to hold a vote to expand the jurisdiction of an investigative task force to include Sunday’s events, according to two people familiar with the matter. The House task force is investigating the circumstances of the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pa., in which a would-be assassin, Thomas Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., shot at Mr. Trump during a campaign rally.
Mr. Trump’s ear was grazed and a rallygoer was killed. It is unclear whether the episode in West Palm Beach was also within the task force’s jurisdiction.
The Secret Service is now undertaking its second internal review in two months, hoping to determine whether it handled the events of Sunday properly.
The agents who are tasked with protecting current and former presidents and their families are working long hours with little reprieve.
In addition to protecting foreign leaders who visit the United States, the Secret Service guards more than 40 people: Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump, other former presidents and their immediate families. An increase in hate speech and violent threats has complicated the agency’s mission.
Since Butler, the Secret Service has reassigned members of Mr. Biden’s advance team to Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris, provided special glass to surround Mr. Trump during campaign events and received additional resources from the Pentagon. Its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, has also deployed 1,500 investigations agents of its own to bolster the Secret Service’s ranks.
Chronic personnel shortages, worsened by the job’s long and sometimes grueling hours, have left the Secret Service both short-handed and underfunded in areas like facilities and technology.
In response to offers from lawmakers to provide additional funding, Mr. Rowe also wrote to two senators this month — before Sunday’s close call.
“The increased mission requirements of the Secret Service necessitate additional resources to ensure that we have the tools, resources and personnel needed to meet these new requirements,” Mr. Rowe wrote in the Sept. 5 letter.
Those resources, which were detailed in additional pages of the letter that have not been reviewed by The New York Times, do not appear to have come through yet. But on Monday, Mr. Rowe said he was optimistic they would.
“Success, we have to have it every day. We cannot have failures,” he said. “And in order to do that, we’re going to have some hard conversations with Congress.”
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