Barack Obama coming inches away from an armed stranger in a Hollywood alleyway is the latest stunning lapse of Secret Service security -- an absolutely shocking scene that played out last weekend ... TMZ has learned.
Category
✨
PeopleTranscript
00:00This, I think, is breathtaking.
00:03On the heels of the special committee in Congress looking into the various Secret Service failures
00:11that resulted in two assassination attempts on Donald Trump, we now have information about
00:18a really troublesome incident that went down this past weekend involving Barack Obama.
00:26And a very clear lapse of security once again with a former president.
00:32This time it happened in Hollywood where Barack Obama was going out to dinner at a Hollywood
00:39hot spot, Mother Wolf.
00:41And he was sitting in an SUV before dinner, sitting in his SUV in an alleyway.
00:46There were Secret Service agents nearby, and yet an armed man was able to walk right up
00:53to the window that Barack Obama was sitting on the other side of the door.
00:58An armed man walked right up to his vehicle with no Secret Service present where he was.
01:04Right next to Obama as he's in that car and the Secret Service there on the other side
01:09of the vehicle, nobody is next to this man.
01:12Right.
01:13The only saving grace here, we should say right off the bat, is that this person was
01:16armed, had no ill intent.
01:19He was actually an armed security guard who was working at a nearby bar mitzvah that was
01:24going on upstairs in the restaurant.
01:26Which we've actually covered here.
01:27We talked about the bar mitzvah, that little baby was performed at this bar mitzvah.
01:33So they had armed guards at this bar mitzvah.
01:36One of them got word that there were, someone came to him and said, it looks like there
01:40are federal agents downstairs, what's going on?
01:43They didn't know that Obama was there, no one did.
01:47We should say, we have spoken with this man who was told, and he does not want us to use
01:52his name, but we've spoken with him.
01:54Yes, and he told us that he then went downstairs to find out what was going on, and that's
02:00when this thing just takes a really weird turn.
02:02Yeah, it's really weird to say the least.
02:05It's completely bananas actually.
02:07So we caught up with the security guard and he told us, hey, I'm just trying to do my
02:11job.
02:12They told me that there are a bunch of cop cars downstairs, there's fed cars downstairs,
02:16I should go look into it, make sure everything is kosher.
02:19He goes downstairs, he sees this black SUV and it's got specialty plates on it, and he
02:23thinks, oh, could be a government official, that's interesting.
02:26And the car is cool.
02:27So he took a picture.
02:28He thinks, hey, I want one more picture.
02:29He gets a little bit closer and he happens to look inside, it's freaking Obama with a
02:34laptop.
02:35He thinks to himself, holy bleep, I'm armed and I could definitely be in big trouble right
02:40now.
02:42He is assuming that there are agents all over the place and this guy is armed next to his
02:49car and he's thinking, oh my God.
02:52And so he backs away and decides to walk over to, he did see agents, right, Ryan?
02:59So it's not that there weren't any agents around.
03:02They just weren't by the car.
03:03They weren't by the car.
03:04Yeah, essentially what it was, was the alley was not fully cleared and that that door that
03:08he came out was not checked, or at least it wasn't being checked at the time.
03:12And the secret service is there and the guy walks up to the car.
03:15He is never told, don't do it.
03:17He is never blocked.
03:18He is walking up to this car with a gun, then realizes, holy crap, what am I doing?
03:24So he actually, wisely I think, then turns and went and spoke to two agents, Ryan, that
03:30were what, 10 feet away?
03:32Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
03:34He goes, he talks to the agents, he says hello.
03:36They were startled.
03:37They had no idea he was there.
03:38He turns around, walks back by the car again, and goes back up to the party and thinks that
03:44that's going to be that until he hears from essentially the boss for the security who's
03:50like, they want to check your credentials just to make sure everything's on the up and
03:54up.
03:55And so he did and it all worked out.
03:56And that was 30 minutes later.
03:58So you got to be wondering what in the, after he walked over to them, said hello, then walks
04:05back inside.
04:06The agents that are there have to be talking to each other like, what just happened?
04:09Who was that person?
04:11And remember, there was an agent in the car with Obama as well.
04:16And so they clearly, after the fact, said, who was that guy?
04:21And apparently what we were told, because we have spoken with him, is that first of
04:26all, there were five security guards at this bar mitzvah.
04:30All five were armed, including him.
04:34And apparently the Secret Service didn't know anything about it.
04:36They went to the agent.
04:37They went to the supervisor to find out who this guy was.
04:41And I think at that point is when they found out that there were people that were armed.
04:44It took a half an hour before they go to get this guy's credentials.
04:49What was the conversation about?
04:53How did this happen?
04:54I mean, maybe they're just doing finger pointing at that point.
04:56I don't think we're going to get an adequate answer.
04:59We called the Secret Service.
05:00We have not heard back from them yet.
05:02And as you mentioned, we found out about this as on the day that they issued this report
05:08about Donald Trump.
05:10And the agency, all of their failures are laid out in this report.
05:15And now they have another situation with another former president.
05:20And by the way, stunning.
05:21Next to the car with a gun.
05:24Hey, Harvey.
05:26Hey, Charles.
05:27This is Emil from Glendale, California.
05:29Guys, I'm in shock.
05:32You know, the lack of oversight during the two most recent events with Trump, that that
05:37alone was, you know, kind of freaked me out.
05:40Hearing this, I'm baffled, but I got to say, like, thank God it was just a security guard.
05:46Thank God there was someone.
05:48It wasn't someone with, you know, who meant to harm Obama.
05:52But it just blows my mind.
05:54It goes back to, you know, who's who's running the show here and how are they going to be
06:00held accountable, especially in this case, you know, 30 minutes walking around like that.
06:06I just don't get it.
06:07I don't understand.
06:09We need answers.
06:10And, you know, when you look at the other ones, you know, there was a big thing about
06:14being understaffed and everything else.
06:16They had enough staff here to guard a car.
06:18They just didn't.
06:19I will say something that's interesting.
06:21So this incident happened around 730 Saturday evening.
06:27By nine, just after nine o'clock, the former president is coming out of the restaurant
06:32and his daughters had joined him and their photos, we got, you know, the paparazzi were
06:38there by then.
06:39And it is interesting that in some of the photos with the daughters, you can see their
06:42security.
06:43I'm just wondering that in that hour and a half, did they, everyone up their game and
06:49realizing that they just had a lapse and now let's be on our game because in the photos
06:54at nine o'clock, you see lots of security, lots of secret service.
06:59It's a really, really good point because they knew between the time that this guy went up
07:05to the car and the time the daughters arrived, they knew about the security lapse because
07:09they had gone to the supervisor to try and figure out what had happened.
07:14Yeah.
07:15Really, really stunning.