Those rejections — in response to multiple written requests — led to long-running tensions between Trump, his top advisers and security detail, and Secret Service leadership, as Trump’s advisers privately worried that the vaunted intelligence agency was not doing enough to protect the former president.

The Secret Service, which initially denied turning down requests for additional security, now acknowledges that some requests may have been denied. The revelation comes as agency veterans say the organization has been forced to make difficult decisions amid competing demands, a growing list of protected individuals and limited funding.

A gunman was able to fire bullets from an AR-15-style rifle from a rooftop about 500 feet from the former president during Saturday’s rally. Trump was wounded, as were two others; a man in the crowd was killed. The agency is under scrutiny for security lapses at the rally.

The anger among Trump advisers grew after an agency spokesman publicly denied that a request for additional security by Trump or his detail had ever been denied. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who is under pressure to resign over security lapses at the meeting, repeated that denial in a meeting with Trump campaign leadership in Wisconsin on Monday, people familiar with the discussions said.

“The allegation that a member of the former President’s security team requested additional security measures and that the U.S. Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security turned them down is absolutely false,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said in a statement the day after the shooting.

After receiving detailed questions from The Washington Post, Guglielmi said the agency had received new information indicating that agency headquarters may have denied some requests for additional security for Trump’s detachments and that it was reviewing documentation to better understand the specific interactions.

“The Secret Service has a broad, challenging and complex mission,” he said in a statement. “Every day, we operate in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protected individuals are safe and secure during multiple events, travel and other difficult environments. We execute a comprehensive and layered strategy to balance personnel, technology and specialized operational needs.”

In response to a request for comment, a Trump campaign spokeswoman referred to a statement Trump posted on Truth Social praising his own Secret Service.

The protracted battle over protection for a former president who regularly hosts large-scale public events raises new questions for the Secret Service, a long-admired protective force that shields U.S. presidents, their families and other high-ranking officials. But the service has been plagued by staffing shortages and cuts since 2010 and suffered a series of embarrassing security lapses during the Obama and Trump administrations.

A Secret Service official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive internal discussions, said the agency has limited resources and faces a variety of demands, particularly for its anti-sniper squads, anti-assault teams and teams of uniformed division officers who screen event attendees for weapons using magnetometers.

The agency is currently responsible for the security of more than two dozen people, most of whom require full-time security and a few who receive what is informally called “door-to-door” security from the moment they leave their homes. Protectees include the president and vice president and their families, as well as former presidents, candidates and a growing number of high-ranking officials. After the Butler shooting, the agency added a security detail for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate, and now also protects GOP vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance.

Bill Gage, a former Secret Service agent who served on the president’s protection and counterattack teams during the Bush and Obama administrations, said the agency is always swamped with far more requests and events than it can handle under its recruitment limits. That leads to headquarters turning down requests even more often during the busy campaign period.

“I hate to oversimplify it, but it’s just a matter of supply and demand. The requests are routinely denied,” Gage said. “Some director needs to finally step up and say we’re way understaffed and there’s no way we can continue this zero-fail mission without a significantly larger budget.”

The service’s Office of Protective Operations reviews security requests for events, and as part of a regular push and pull, sometimes reconsiders initial denials after it’s convinced the risk justifies the cost, officials said. But it must balance the reality that every agent, countersniper or magnetometer assigned to cover one event reduces the availability for other people the service protects.

The weekend of the Butler shooting, the Secret Service sent multiple sniper teams and hundreds of agents to the Republican National Convention, an event for Jill Biden, and a planned trip by President Biden to Austin the day after the shooting.

“It’s just true — we don’t have the resources to protect him (Trump) like we did when he was president,” the official said.

None of the rejected requests reviewed by The Post involved the Pennsylvania rally. But one of the rejections that most concerned Trump officials came when he held a rally in South Carolina in July 2023, one of the first large-scale events of his current campaign. Trump spoke at a plaza in downtown Pickens, a small town 20 miles west of Greenville, in a location surrounded by commercial and residential buildings. People familiar with the request said Trump’s security team asked for more countersnipers to be placed on rooftops to guard against potential shooters or other attacks.

The people said the Pickens event was one of several in which Trump’s team was denied more tactical support. Trump’s team was told that Secret Service headquarters had determined they could not provide the resources after the team had argued extensively why the teams were needed, they said.

Guglielmi said the Service is still reviewing planning for the Pickens event, but that there were no local anti-sniper teams on site to help address the threat from potential shooters.

On several other occasions, Trump’s team requested magnetometers and additional help to screen visitors so Trump could attend sporting events, particularly wrestling matches and college football games. People familiar with those requests said, “They were told they were not campaign events.”

In one case, the Secret Service argued that the screening was unnecessary because Trump would enter a stadium via a secured elevator to watch a football game and then be escorted through a secure room to a private suite with controlled access. said a Secret Service official who reviewed some of the security requests.

“He didn’t go through the general population,” the official said. “You don’t have to have the whole stadium” in those circumstances.

But Trump advisers said he frequently moved through open-air concourses at the games, where he came into contact with large crowds. Some Trump advisers repeatedly raised concerns about his safety at sporting events as he moved through the areas, people familiar with the matter said.

People close to Trump also worried about what they feared would be a lack of magnetometers and security personnel at rallies, they said. One of those was the 2023 rally in Macomb, Michigan. According to people close to Trump who witnessed the incident, some attendees jumped over bike racks to get past security and were stopped by local police.

Several Trump advisers said the denials had been a source of frustration for more than a year.

The Secret Service provides the highest level of protection to current presidents and officials. Former presidents receive a significantly lower level of Secret Service protection, but Trump’s high profile and daily routines make him a different kind of security challenge than most former presidents, according to former Secret Service agents.

Trump is also the first former president in modern times to run for re-election, which poses additional security risks, though candidates do not enjoy the same level of security as sitting presidents.

Other former presidents rarely appear in public, lead a more private life. Trump, on the other hand, is almost always around crowds of people, in his clubs and on his golf courses. courses and regularly organizes campaign events attended by thousands, if not tens of thousands, especially since he announced a new candidacy for president in November 2022.

Cheatle, a veteran Secret Service agent, called the security lapse at the July 13 rally unacceptable, as a gunman was allowed to fire from an unsecured rooftop about 500 feet from where Trump was addressing the crowd. The gunman was suspiciously spotted before Trump began to speak, but the Secret Service did not intervene or prevent Trump from taking the stage.

The Secret Service and the Trump inner circle also clashed over the scheduling of the Republican National Convention, particularly over how large the agency’s security perimeter would be. The relationship became so acrimonious that senior Republicans repeatedly sought meetings with Secret Service leadership in Washington after sparring with agents on the ground over security and logistics.

On Thursday, Trump’s senior adviser Chris LaCivita called for Cheatle’s resignation, as did several lawmakers from both parties. During the convention, several Republican senators chased Cheatle through the Milwaukee arena, where she had traveled to brief them on the investigation. The senators shouted at her after she refused to answer questions about the attempted murder.