Former Buffalo FBI agent discusses need for Secret Service overhaul

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - "It's so unfortunate that in these times we have to deal with things like this, but we do," said retired Buffalo FBI Agent Holly Hubert, who spent 25 years with the agency and is now CEO of GlobalSecurity IQ.

"It's important to not be emotional, stay logical and allow law enforcement to collect the facts," she said.

Since the first assassination attempt in Butler County, Pennsylvania in July, Trump is still operating under the same level of security that a presidential candidate would have, which is less than that of the President of the United States.

Hubert said it is time to revisit Secret Service protection for a sitting president and a presidential nominee. President Biden on Monday also signaled that The Secret Service "needs more help."

Hubert said too many questions were not asked after the first security scare, including, how many agents does the Secret Service have? And what are they doing?

"If I were head of the Secret Service," she said, "I would assess where resources are allocated and assign more agents to presidential candidates. Now that Trump is a nominee, there are two people to protect in the race.
There should be an assessment of where resources are assigned at the highest level."

Hubert looked at failures in both incidents involving Donald Trump.

"In the first one, in my opinion, the complete failure was in the planning and the staging of resources around the perimeter. How did that individual get to be 130 yards away from the president? In the second incident, I still feel there was an error in the perimeter. The agents on the ground did a good job on the golf course. They were able to see, remarkably, a muzzle 300 yards away and they were actually able to fire a shot."

Hubert's biggest concern is with outer perimeter security.

"Who was responsible for the perimeter? Was it the secret service or did they defer it to local police? And, how was the communication?" she asked.

Hubert noted that the tactical response was better in the second incident. But the outer perimeter was still a failure in her opinion.