Ron Johnson: Trump needs his own 'head of security' to oversee Secret Service detail

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Monday that former President Donald Trump needs his own "head of security" to oversee his Secret Service detail before he travels to venues.

A second alleged assassination attempt on Trump occurred Sunday at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. The alleged shooter did not fire on Trump, as Secret Service agents found him when he was 300-500 yards away from the GOP presidential nominee.

The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, was taken into custody by the Martin County sheriff's office on Sunday after fleeing the scene in a vehicle. He was charged by federal prosecutors on Monday with possession of a firearm as a felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

Johnson, the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show on Monday that there should be more security provided for Trump after the first attempted assassination on him at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., in July.

"[T]here's no reason you can't have surveillance cameras, turn those things on, start providing that surveillance X number of hours before President Trump's going to show up," Johnson said. "But there's no reason, and certainly there ought to be regular patrols going around the property, looking for suspicious characters or suspicious vehicles -- that should be happening.

"Again, we shouldn't have to rely on the sharp eyes of one Secret Service agent and the potential assassin putting his muzzle out through the fence where it could be seen," he continued. "Again, that is just, you know, too much luck, quite honestly, to rely on. We need to have far better surveillance of these venues where President Trump is going to go. And quite honestly, this is what I recommend after [July] 13th, President Trump needs a head of security in his campaign, and that person has to be overseeing all this and making sure that what the Secret Service is providing is adequate, or else President Trump can't show up at these venues."

Johnson also said that he thinks "it's extremely important" for the intelligence agencies to quickly inform the American public about any information they already had on Routh.

"But do you think the CIA is going to cough up his files? They still haven't coughed up their files in the JFK assassination, even though we have federal law requiring them to do so," Johnson added. "My concern right now is this assassin is in federal custody -- he better stay alive. We don't want another Jeffrey Epstein type of suicide here. We need to keep this guy alive so that he can be interviewed and provide testimony in terms of what his motivation is, was, what his connections are."

Jeffrey Veltri, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Miami Field Office, said Monday during a press conference that the bureau had been tipped off in 2019 about Routh allegedly being a felon in possession of a firearm.