The U.S. Secret Service has confirmed that agents discovered a suspicious elevated hunting stand positioned with a direct line of sight to the exact spot where President Donald Trump exits Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport.
The structure was uncovered Thursday during a security sweep ahead of Trump’s return to Florida. The FBI has now taken over the investigation, FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News, noting that no individual has yet been tied to the installation or its placement.
“Before the President’s return to West Palm Beach, agents located what appeared to be a concealed hunting platform overlooking the Air Force One landing zone,” Patel explained. “No suspects were present. The FBI has deployed forensic teams and activated cell phone tracking analytics to determine who built it and when.”
U.S. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed the agency is working with federal and local law enforcement, calling the discovery a reminder of the ongoing and escalating security threats surrounding Trump’s movements. The stand was found during “advance security preparations,” and authorities say there was no disruption to Trump’s schedule.
While officials declined to publicly describe the stand’s features or what equipment it may have been designed to support, they emphasized that its placement gave a clean, unobstructed firing angle on Air Force One.
A law enforcement source told Fox News the structure may have been erected “months ago” — raising questions about how long a potential sniper position went undetected.
The discovery comes just weeks after the conviction of Ryan Routh, the man who attempted to assassinate Trump from a similarly constructed sniper’s nest near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course. Routh used a hunting stand concealed along the perimeter before being confronted by Secret Service agents and later captured.
The back-to-back incidents are fueling renewed concern that Trump remains the most targeted political figure in the country — and that would-be assassins are exploiting elevated terrain and hunting structures to stage attacks.
