Sean Curran said the Trump White House dinner address security plan for the rescheduled White House Correspondents' Dinner had to absorb a surge in threats nationwide before Friday night at the Washington Hilton. He said the Secret Service had opened roughly 10,000 protective intelligence cases since January, and that the dinner would go ahead with screening in place.
Curran said the figure was nearly 40% higher than the same period last year. He also said the agency had carried out nearly 10 times as many mental health-related interventions, including voluntary and involuntary commitments and efforts to work with relatives and mental-health providers.
Sean Curran and the threat picture
On Wednesday, Curran said he had never seen numbers like these in his 24-year career. He said, "The numbers are numbers that this agency and certainly I have never seen in my 24-year career." He also said, "The environment has become very volatile, and that's just across the board."
Secret Service officials said the higher volume came from online threats, lone actors, ideological grievances, foreign threats and cases involving mental-health concerns. They said most threats now originate online rather than through handwritten letters or other traditional forms of communication. Agents treat reported threats as potentially credible until investigators determine whether a person has the intent, means and ability to carry out targeted violence.
Washington Hilton screening checkpoint
Curran said an armed individual was stopped at a screening checkpoint outside the event at the Washington Hilton. He said the magnetometers were about 120 yards from the podium, or over a football field, and that stopping the person showed the security system worked as intended.
Pressed on the perimeter, Curran said, "We have to start and end our perimeter somewhere." He added, "If it were up to me, I'd love to end it at the bridge, but that's going to inconvenience a lot of people."
White House Correspondents' Dinner Friday
Curran said the Secret Service expects potentially dangerous individuals to reach screening locations and that it has to balance standoff distances with the effects of closing streets, hotels and businesses around an event. He said, "We do expect bad people to show up." He also said, "It's just a reality of where we are."
The dinner was scheduled for Friday night, with the screening line and magnetometers set as the final barrier before guests reached the venue. Curran said, "And that's where it happened, and that's where it ended. So it did work. The system worked."
For people moving around the Washington Hilton area, the practical effect was tighter access at the checkpoint and more security presence around the event footprint. The question left by the warning is simple: what specific threat or incident pushed officials to describe the nationwide picture as unprecedented?
