Secret Service spoke to Trump campaign about 2nd Amendment comment

[SunSeeker]

Source: CNN

Updated 8:30 PM ET, Wed August 10, 2016

A US Secret Service official confirms to CNN that the USSS has spoken to the Trump campaign regarding his Second Amendment comments.

"There has been more than one conversation" on the topic, the official told CNN. But it's unclear at what level in the campaign structure the conversations occurred.

The campaign told the USSS that Donald Trump did not intend to incite violence, according to the official.

"No such meeting or conversation ever happened," Trump tweeted in response to CNN's report.

The controversy erupted on Tuesday afternoon when Trump said at a rally that Second Amendment defenders might be able to stop Clinton from appointing justices to the Supreme Court who could weaken gun rights.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/10/politics/trump-second-amendment/index.html

[BlueStater]

1. If I could go back in time and stop this man from being born, I would do it in a nanosecond.

The last 14 months have felt like an eternity.

[chillfactor]

2. if that isn't the truth!

I cannot wait until the election and the shackling t-rump will get......but even then I don't think he can keep his big mouth shut.

[riversedge]

3. I really think it is getting dangerous for Hillary and her staff. I fear

some nut case is going to take him seriously.

[whistler162]

4. Wonder if it was something like this....

"Okay, let us go over the rules again... 1 - "

[RapSoDee]

5. ...and then Republican nominee #ComradeTrump lied about the Secret Service

...that totally sucks.

Why are Republicans trying to shove #ComradeTrump down America's throat?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Story has been debunked by Reuters reporting official USSS denial.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-secretservice-idUSKCN10L29W

A federal official on Wednesday said the U.S. Secret Service had not formally spoken with Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign regarding his suggestion a day earlier that gun rights activists could stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from curtailing their access to firearms.

Following Trump's comment at a rally on Tuesday in which he suggested that gun rights activists could stop Clinton from appointing liberal anti-gun justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal official familiar with the matter told Reuters that there had been no formal conversations between the Secret Service and the Trump campaign.

Earlier CNN had reported that there had been multiple conversations between the campaign and the agency.

Note: an earlier post in LBN was retracted. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141547122 I think this one should be too.

[SunSeeker]

7. This is not a duplicate of the earlier story. It was not "debunked."

Last edited Thu Aug 11, 2016, 09:31 AM - Edit history (1)

As noted in the OP, the story was updated last night at 8:30 pm by CNN to state they had again contacted their USSS source after Trump denied his campaign was contacted. That source confirmed the Trump campaign was contacted more that once about Trump's 2nd Amendment comments. Reuters' unnamed source says the campaign was not "formally" contacted.

This is not a "debunked" story. What you have here is a battle of unnamed sources. CNN describes their source as a "US Secret Service official"; Reuters describes their source as a "federal official." A "federal official" could include Trey Gowdy! Seems to me CNN has the better source.

I also find it interesting that Reuters' source uses the qualifier "formal" in saying the USSS "had not formally spoken with" Trump's campaign. That may suggest there were "informal" contacts with lower levels of the Trump campaign. As CNN explicitly states, it is not clear at what level of the campaign those contacts occurred.