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By Katherine Fung
Senior Writer
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The Secret Service is investigating a report that says an agent left her post at a Trump event to breastfeed.
In a statement shared with Newsweek on Thursday, Secret Service's chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, said, "All employees of the U.S. Secret Service are held to the highest standards. While there was no impact to the North Carolina event, the specifics of this incident are being examined. Given this is a personnel matter, we are not in a position to comment further."
The remarks come after RealClearPolitics correspondent Susan Crabtree said that a female Secret Service agent abandoned her post at former President Donald Trump's Wednesday campaign rally in Asheville, North Carolina, "to breastfeed with no permission/warning to the event site agent."
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"The site agent went to do one final sweep of the walking route and found the agent breast-feeding her child in a room that is supposed to be set aside for important Secret Service official work, i.e. a potential emergency related to the president," Crabtree wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Crabtree noted that a working Secret Service agent on duty is not allowed to bring children to a protective assignment. She said sources told her the agent, who was from the Atlanta Field Office, was accompanied by two other family members.
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The incident is the latest in a string of controversies that have surrounded the Secret Service in the wake of last month's attempted assassination against Trump, the Republican nominee for president, at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The agency has been under strict scrutiny since security lapses allowed the sniper to get close enough to fire at Trump. Multiple investigations have been launched into the shooting, and the agency's director, Kimberly Cheatle, has since stepped down from her position.
It also comes a day after the Secret Service responded to concerns about other federal agents being given Secret Service patches at 2024 campaign events. A photo of a Department of Homeland Security officer raised eyebrows after he was seen wearing a Secret Service patch at a rally for Trump's running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, despite not working directly for the Secret Service. The officer is a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations.
The Secret Service told Newsweek on Wednesday that it did not pose any security concerns and that the agency had since taken corrective action and issued agency-wide guidance informing its workforce not to lend agency insignias to other law enforcement officials.
Update 8/15/24, 2:05 p.m. ET This article was updated with additional information.
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