Bongino questions security perimeter at White House Correspondents’ Dinner: ‘Compressed too far’

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Former deputy FBI director and ex-Secret Service agent Dan Bongino said the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner will likely trigger a close review of security, arguing investigators will need to examine whether the event perimeter was wide enough.

Bongino framed the incident as both a case study in the limits of event security and a reason for renewed concern about threats against President Donald Trump.

He explained on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday that presidential protection works through increasingly tight layers of vetting and control. He said security teams will now have to assess whether the outer perimeter at the dinner venue was too close to the innermost protected area.

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Agents standing guard at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner venue in Washington, D.C.

“In an event like this with an open hotel doing business, where it’s resource-constrained, and it’s very difficult to shut down the whole hotel, was the security perimeter compressed too far inside?” Bongino asked. “They’re going to have to go over that and see in the future how much farther they want to push [the perimeter] out.”

Bongino added that, even with strong protection, agents are inherently reacting to threats rather than acting first, which he argued leaves Trump in a dangerous position, as evidenced by what is being called the alleged third public assassination attempt against the president.

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Armed agents climbing over chairs inside Washington Hilton during White House Correspondents' dinner

“This has to be the luckiest man on Earth. I mean, you can have the greatest Secret Service in the world, guys, but the hard reality is they’re always reacting. And reacting is always slower than acting.”

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner began at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night before it was interrupted by gunfire. Cole Allen, a 31-year-old computer scientist from Torrance, California, has been identified by authorities as the suspected shooter.

He was apprehended and has been charged with multiple felonies. The incident led to the evacuation of Trump and several Cabinet members present at the event, and the dinner is set to be rescheduled.

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Fox News Digital’s Lindsay Kornick, Peter D’Abrosca and Asra Q. Nomani contributed to this report.

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