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Secret Service prepares for second press dinner after attack

CNN · back to the audit

As the Secret Service prepares for a second take at this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington, DC, on Friday, Director Sean Curran defended how his agency handled security at the first version of the dinner.

"It did work," Curran said at a press conference Wednesday. "The system worked."

The dinner in April was shut down after a gunman opened fire as he rushed through a Secret Service screening checkpoint on the floor above where the dinner was being held.

"That is the success. That is why we set up checkpoints," Curran told reporters when asked about security preparations and reassurances for guests attending the rescheduled event Friday. "That is why we have our teams, our special teams, in place because we do plan for that, and that's the reality."

"What we're seeing now is something we've never seen," one Secret Service official said, adding that in their nearly 30 years with the agency, the level of threats is "the highest that I've ever seen."

"We're not looking at this as a redo of a dinner," Deputy Director Matthew Quinn said Wednesday. "We're looking at this as a presidential site with cabinet members and other protectees there, just like every site we do everywhere we go."