‘Just Asking for Trouble’: Republicans Sound Alarm on RNC Security, Secret Service Turns Deaf Ear

Republican lawmakers have approached the U.S. Secret Service with concerns about security issues at July’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but Secret Service has so far been unwilling to compromise, sources told the Daily Caller.

“We have identified a critical flaw with the Security Perimeter that creates an elevated and untenable safety risk to the attending public,” counsel to the Republican National Committee Todd R. Steggerda wrote to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in April.

The current Secret Service plan designates Père Marquette Park as the protected First Amendment zone for demonstrations, but Republicans say that’s far too close to the convention spaces, which include Fiserv Forum (where the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks play) and UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.

“The City’s current plan would pack demonstrators into a one-block park — a park bordered by the two streets that thousands of peaceful attendees will be using to access the Convention site, as set out in the Secret Service proposal. This will force thousands of peaceful attendees and demonstrators, who may otherwise choose to avoid or limit direct, proximate engagement with one another, to be in extremely close, consistent, and unavoidable proximity,” Steggerda wrote in the letter obtained by the Daily Caller. (Read more from “‘Just Asking for Trouble’: Republicans Sound Alarm on RNC Security, Secret Service Turns Deaf Ear” HERE)

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