Secret Service: We Didn’t Remove Black Students From Trump Rally

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Ga., Monday, Feb. 29, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
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The Secret Service said Wednesday that their agents were not involved in removing a group of black students from a Donald Trump campaign rally in Georgia on Monday.

“Reports that the Secret Service escorted attendees out of the premises at an event in Georgia this past Monday evening are false. The Secret Service does not escort attendees out of protectees’ events in such circumstances and it was not the Secret Service who did so at that event,” the agency said in a statement, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In the statement, the Secret Service said that its agents do not intervene unless “an individual or group poses a security threat to a protectee or interferes with any law enforcement activity.”

“The Secret Service does not engage in any action to address or remove any individual or group exercising First Amendment rights who may create a disruption at a secured venue,” the statement read, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Des Moines Register reported that security at Trump’s event removed about 30 black students form a rally at Valdosta State University. The students told the Register that they were standing silently when they were escorted out of the event. Students told the Register that the Secret Service was involved in their removal.

CNN had reported that “one Secret Service agent oversaw the students’ removal, but agents did not actively participate in escorting them out.”

Trump’s campaign told the Des Moines Register that Trump did not direct security to remove the students from the rally.

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