Break-in came just weeks after the assassination attempt on former President Trump that put intense scrutiny on Secret Service
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The U.S. Secret Service has hinted it was not involved in the break-in of a hair salon during a Kamala Harris campaign event in Massachusetts late last month.
The allegations of Secret Service involvement arose after the salon’s owner, Alicia Powers, alleged that agents put duct tape over her security cameras and broke into her building by picking the lock.
A Secret Service agent stands guard. (AP)
Security camera footage shows an individual dressed like a Secret Service agent approaching the door with a roll of tape and observing the locked door and camera before grabbing a nearby chair to put tape over the camera.
The U.S. Secret Service is apologizing to a Massachusetts salon owner after an agent covered her security camera with duct tape and broke into her salon by picking the lock so that its bathroom could be used by various people for a two-hour period.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) August 11, 2024
After the two-hour period,… pic.twitter.com/s4qSFtebn0
"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 personnel would not enter, or instruct 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" who were "in and out for about an hour-and-a-half – just using my bathroom, the alarms going off, using my counter, with no permission."
"And then when they were done using the bathroom for two hours, they left, and left my building completely unlocked, and did not take the tape off the camera," she added.
The salon is near the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where Vice President Kamala Harris spoke for a campaign fundraiser on July 27, 2024. (Stephanie Scarbrough/Getty Images)
Powers later said that a USSS representative contacted her after Business Insider sought comment from 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.
The incident comes less than a month after the assassination attempt on former President Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The shooting put heavy scrutiny on the Secret Service, which was ultimately responsible for coordinating security with local law enforcement.
Former President Trump is rushed offstage 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 suspicious 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 for the glass and plastic packaging industry, and fire an estimated eight shots with an AR-15 style rifle.
After mounting pressure, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned, following heated testimony before the House Oversight Committee.
Fox News Digital's Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues, and much more.
