The Republican National Committee is demanding that Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle personally get involved to move a planned protest zone farther away from the site of the party’s convention in Milwaukee this summer, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
The letter, sent Thursday by Todd Steggerda, counsel to the RNC, to Cheatle, builds upon escalating demands by GOP officials to move that planned zone. Those officials believe the current plans would force delegates and others attending to come in close contact with protesters on their way to the site of the convention.
“With less than two months before the Convention and even less time before the USSS finalizes the Plan, it is imperative you take personal and immediate steps to fix this unacceptable flaw in the design of the Security Perimeter,” Steggerda wrote.
“The criticality of the situation demands that you immediately provide the appropriate mandate and delegated authority to your team to adjust the Security Perimeter to alleviate these risks,” he added.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Thursday that the agency “is confident in the security plan being developed, and will continue to focus on working with our federal, state, and local partners to ensure a safe and secure event.”
“Publicly disclosing security information, as done in this letter, undermines our ability to maintain the integrity of our security plan and keep the convention, attendees, and the public safe,” Guglielmi added. He said that “demonstration zones for the convention are designated by the host city, not the Secret Service.”
A detailed map of the Secret Service’s security perimeter — the zone around the convention that is off-limits to the general public and requires credentials and screening to access — hasn’t been publicly released. But people familiar with the plans say the space identified as a protest zone, Pere Marquette Park, falls outside it, NBC News reported earlier Thursday.
Citing safety concerns after a man set himself on fire outside former President Donald Trump’s New York trial and a suspicious package was sent to the national committee this week, GOP officials have said they want the Secret Service to expand the security perimeter because the current plans would force convention attendees to be near protesters as they entered and exited Fiserv Forum, the site of the convention, risking confrontations. The GOP’s four-day nominating convention takes place July 15-18.
“Your failure to act now to prevent these unnecessary and certain risks will imperil tens of thousands of Convention attendees, inexcusably forcing them into close proximity to the currently planned First Amendment Zone,” Steggerda wrote in the Thursday letter. “Inevitably, this Plan will heighten—rather than obviate or diffuse—tensions and confrontation, creating an increased and untenable risk of violence. This rapidly deteriorating security environment and the severe consequences to the public underscore the exigency of your personal leadership and action to solve this problem.”
RNC and Secret Service officials were scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss several topics related to the convention.
In his letter, Steggerda proposed expanding the security perimeter one block to the east “to encapsulate” Pere Marquette Park into the perimeter and to designate Zeidler Union Square, about three-quarters of a mile south of Fiserv Forum, as the protest zone. Pere Marquette Park is one block south and one block east of Fiserv Forum.
Pere Marquette Park was also the designated protest zone for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, which was significantly scaled down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Zeidler Park was under consideration in 2020 before Pere Marquette Park was selected.
Steggarda wrote that “this minor extension of a small portion of the eastern side of the Security Perimeter would remedy” a “critical flaw in the current design” that risked confrontation “while also protecting the public’s freedom to peaceably assemble and demonstrate within sight and sound of the Convention, a mere three to four blocks away.”
NBC News reported earlier Thursday that the Secret Service has said that the security perimeter is based on a threat assessment and that it would prefer to not take over more area than necessary. Further inaction by the Secret Service would punt the decision to Milwaukee officials.
A spokesman for Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat, said officials were “very open to listening to all the concerns” from all parties involved, but some members of Milwaukee’s Common Council said they felt the currently planned protest zone was adequate.
RNC officials wrote to Cheatle about their concerns last month, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., followed up with a letter of his own this month to warn that preliminary plans could create “a likely — and preventable — area of conflict between protestors and Convention attendees and delegates.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
