Federal officials discovered what they described as a “suspicious booth” near an area of Palm Beach International Airport used by Air Force One when President Trump visits Florida, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a social media post Sunday.
The US Secret Service said in a statement it found “objects of interest” while sweeping the area before Mr Trump’s arrival on Friday. The agency did not identify the objects, but it shared a photo of what appears to be a hunting platform or stand set up high in a tree.
US Secret Service
“There was no impact on movement and no individuals were present or involved at the scene,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
Multiple sources told CBS News the hunting stand was across a highway at tree line more than 200 yards away and had apparently been there for months, given its condition. Mr. Trump has not used this part of the airport for the past year due to construction. She would therefore not have had a direct line of sight on Mr. Trump and would not have been part of the secret service’s sweep of the site.
After construction was completed, Air Force One began using that area of the airport again, and the stand was discovered by the Secret Service immediately during their initial searches, the sources said.
It is not immediately clear when construction will be completed.
The president flew to Palm Beach Airport on Friday and is expected to return to Washington on Sunday after spending the weekend at his Mar-A-Lago club.
The airport is located less than a mile north of Mr. Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, which was the scene of an assassination attempt on the president last year. Prosecutors say Ryan Routh – who was guilty in last month’s assassination plot – pointed a gun from the tree line of the golf club, but Secret Service agents spotted him and opened fire.
Mr. Trump survived another assassination attempt just two months earlier, when a bullet grazed his ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Security breaches have attracted new scrutiny to the secret services, which suspended several agents earlier this year.
