Obama's Outing With Sasha & Malia Reportedly Saw A Major Mistake By Secret Service

The Secret Service has responded to a reported oversight in their security for former President Barack Obama as he was sitting in a vehicle outside a restaurant where he was waiting for daughters Sasha and Malia on Saturday, September 21. TMZ reporters spoke with the man who approached the SUV that held the politician, not knowing who he was going to see.

According to the outlet, a security guard — who remains nameless — was working a bar mitzvah in the upstairs portion of the LA restaurant Mother Wolf when he went out to the alleyway that held Obama. He took a photo of the SUV thinking he was going to see some important dignitary sitting in the backseat, but, to his surprise, he was only one pane of glass away from the former president, who was using a laptop inside the vehicle. Once he realized who he was looking at, he quickly moved away from the SUV, as he knew he was armed, which could deem him a threat to the Secret Service agents standing close by. The guard was told to hand over his credentials and license to carry a concealed weapon to the agency a half-hour after the incident.

He told TMZ that the situation was "definitely a security lapse on their part that there was no one on the backside of SUV, nor covering the stairwell," which he used to access the alleyway that held Barack Obama. He added, "I think they were obviously embarrassed by the situation," referring to the Secret Service agents.

A spokesperson for the agency told Newsweek that the guard's interpretation of the incident was not actually what went down. "The Secret Service cannot provide the details on our means and methods of protection, but we can confirm that at no time were any Secret Service protectees in the vehicle while the individual was walking down the alleyway," they told the outlet on Wednesday, September 25. "These claims are inaccurate." The spokesperson added that the photo taken by the security guard "was upon departure and not during the alleged incident."

The Secret Service has already been the target of criticism since the recent assassination attempts on former president Donald Trump. The House task force investigating the attempts has questioned the agency's diligence in keeping the nation's leaders safe after there was an obvious lack of communication between them and the local Pennsylvania authorities assisting them during a July rally, per the Associated Press. The Trump rally ended with a gunman opening fire on the former president, narrowly missing his head, but possibly grazing his ear.