The US Secret Service has suggested it was not involved in the raid on a hair salon during a Kamala Harris campaign event in Massachusetts late last month.
Allegations of Secret Service involvement arose after salon owner Alicia Powers alleged that agents placed tape over her security cameras and broke into her building by forcing the lock.
A Secret Service agent stands guard. (AP Agency)
Security camera footage shows an individual dressed as a Secret Service agent approaching the door with a roll of tape and looking at the closed door and camera before grabbing a nearby chair to place tape over the camera.
“The U.S. Secret Service works closely with our partners in the business community to carry out our protective and investigative missions,” USSS spokeswoman Melissa McKenzie said in a statement.
McKenzie said the Secret Service has been in contact with Powers since the July 27 incident.
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“We hold these relationships in the highest regard and our staff would not enter, or direct our partners to enter, a business without the owner's permission,” McKenzie said, stopping short of saying who was responsible.
Powers told Business Insider that “several people” were “coming in and out for about an hour and a half, just using my bathroom, setting off alarms, using my counter, without permission.”
“And then when they were done using the bathroom for two hours, they left, left my building wide open, and didn't remove the tape from the camera,” he added.
The hall is near the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a campaign fundraiser on July 27, 2024. (Stephanie Scarbrough/Getty Images)
Powers later said she was contacted by a USSS representative after Business Insider asked the agency for comment on the incident.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Powers for a response to the Secret Service's latest comment.
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The incident comes less than a month after the attempted assassination of former President Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The shooting put the Secret Service, which was ultimately responsible for coordinating security with local law enforcement, under heavy scrutiny.
Former President Trump is quickly taken off the stage after the assassination attempt on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The scrutiny only intensified after it was revealed that law enforcement officers had observed the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, and identified him as a suspect more than an hour before the shooting, but lost track of him.
Crooks was able to scale the roof of a building owned by AGR International Inc., a supplier of automation equipment to the glass and plastic packaging industry, and fire approximately eight shots from an AR-15-style rifle.
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After mounting pressure, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned following heated testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Fox News Digital's Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
