Trump Aides Sought Enhanced Security for Closing Stages of Campaign

Susie Wiles, a top Trump campaign adviser, was in contact with the White House chief of staff and the head of the Secret Service seeking military assets and other steps.

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Susie Wiles, former President Donald J. Trump’s top campaign adviser, said he had been forced to move, reschedule or cancel key events because of limits on the Secret Service’s available resources, according to people briefed on the matter.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign has requested a series of additional security measures, including military assets, in conversations with the White House and the Secret Service because of continuing threats to his safety, according to four people briefed on the matter.

The conversations came amid suggestions from some Trump aides that they felt hamstrung from having Mr. Trump campaign the way they would like to because of the security threats, including his ability to travel where he wants and appear outside at rallies.

In exchanges with the White House chief of staff, Jeff Zients, and the acting Secret Service director, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., in the past two weeks, Susie Wiles, Mr. Trump’s top campaign adviser, said that Mr. Trump had been forced to move, reschedule or cancel key events because of limits on the service’s available resources, according to the people.

The campaign’s requests for more security, one of the people said, included sophisticated, classified military assets that are used only for sitting presidents; the pre-placement of ballistic, or bullet-resistant, glass in the main battleground states where he would be campaigning most frequently; and an expansion of temporary flight restrictions over Mr. Trump’s residences and campaign sites.

The Trump team in effect is looking for him to be protected at the same level that President Biden is. Mr. Trump’s team has been told that he is being given the highest level of protection available, though no candidate or former president receives what a sitting president does.

Mr. Trump has been the target of two would-be assassins in the past four months, as well as an alleged murder-for-hire plot involving someone with ties to Iran. The campaign has been briefed by the intelligence community about active interest from Iran in harming Mr. Trump.

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