The FBI's deputy director provided more details about a hunting stand that was found overlooking President Donald Trump's Air Force One in Florida, saying that it is now using its forensic tools in an investigation.
On Oct. 19, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the existence of the stand in a statement to multiple news outlets, including The Epoch Times.
Stand Is Dismantled
Agents with the Secret Service discovered the stand and were "very concerned" about the finding, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Fox News on Monday morning."I believe we had our plane flown down there. This hunting stand was appropriately dismantled. It's being flown to our lab," he also said. "I believe it's there right now, and all the forensic tools we have, from digital tools to biometric tools, are all going to be applied to try to find out who put this up there and why."
The Secret Service has since made changes to the security around the Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, where the stand was found, Bongino said.
"The FBI has since taken the investigatory lead—flying in resources to collect all evidence from the scene, and deploying our cell phone analytics capabilities," Patel said in his Oct. 19 statement. "We are working with our DOJ partners on service of any legal process required and will provide updates when able.”
No Individuals Found
Patel and Secret Service officials have said that no person was at the scene where the stand was located.Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told media outlets that agents conducted a sweep near the airport ahead of Trump's arrival in Palm Beach County.
"There was no impact to any movements, and no individuals were present or involved at the location," Guglielmi told outlets.
Weeks After Assassination Conviction
The discovery comes around a month after a man was convicted by a jury of trying to assassinate Trump at his Palm Beach golf course last year.A jury found that Ryan Routh, 59, sought to kill Trump as he pointed a rifle through a fence while the then-Republican candidate for president was playing golf. A Secret Service agent discovered Routh and the rifle and opened fire at him, prompting him to flee the scene before he was arrested hours later, officials said.
Routh lay in wait for nearly 10 hours on Sept. 15, 2024, the day of the incident, concealing himself in thick bushes overlooking the sixth hole green, prosecutors said. Investigators at the scene found an SKS-style rifle, two bags containing metal plates like those used in body armor, and a small video camera pointed toward the course.
Violence Concerns More Americans
The FBI's statement on Sunday comes more than a month after conservative commentator and prominent Trump ally Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on Sept. 10 while speaking at a Utah campus. Family members told local officials that the suspect in the case, Tyler Robinson, had increasingly expressed left-wing political views in recent years, prosecutors said after his arrest.Some 63 percent of poll respondents said that the way Americans talk about political issues did "a lot" to encourage violence. Some 31 percent said the current political discourse was giving "a little" boost to violence, and the rest saw no impact or didn't answer the question.
A spokesperson for the Secret Service did not immediately respond to an Epoch Times request for comment.