Saturday's attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump stunned the nation and left many wondering how such a massive security failure was allowed to occur and questioning whether the Secret Service and other agencies displayed the requisite competence.

Amid claims from some corners that the Trump campaign had been denied additional protection in advance of the Pennsylvania rally, federal officials have flatly denied those assertions and others, labeling them “untrue,” according to the Daily Mail.

Security failure prompts serious accusations

One of the most outspoken critics of the Secret Service's handling of the rally event and its attendant security arrangements has been conservative radio host Dan Bongino, himself a former agent.

Describing the incident which left one spectator dead and three injured -- including Trump -- as an “apocalyptic security failure,” Bongino demanded the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, as the Washington Examiner reports.

Bongino's criticism came swiftly amid a Secret Service statement suggesting that the agency had upped the resources and technology capacity assigned to the Trump campaign.

Speaking on Fox News, Bongino wondered, “This is the best technology we have? Really? To let a sniper 150 yards away from the potential next president shoot a piece of his ear off?”

“Kimberly Cheatle has failed Donald Trump, and honestly failed Joe Biden, too,” he went on.

Resource diversion claimed

Among the theories floated in the days since the horrific incident is that the Secret Service had engaged in a reallocation of resources from the Trump rally in Butler over to a Pittsburgh event featuring first lady Jill Biden.

A RealClearPolitics correspondent named Susan Crabtree was the first to suggest that the Biden event was given some of the protective consideration initially intended for Trump.

“This is the problem that my Secret Sources have cited: Secret Services resources were diverted to Jill Biden's event and way from Trump's because they followed agency protocol applying to Trump as a former president, according to two sources within the Secret Service community,” Crabtree wrote on X.

She went on, “There were also many supplemental agents from different field officers (not Trump's regular detail) providing security at the rally because Trump's regular detail has been overworked (some working 7 days straight), and only two counter-snipers.”

Crabtree then asked the question that remains on the minds of many, writing, “Who made the decision to divert the resources to Jill Biden's event?”

Agency firm in its denial

In the face of these and other questions, however, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi issued a firm denial, saying in response to Crabtree, “Susan, this is very wrong. We did not divert resources from FPOTUS Trump & protection models don't work that way. As far as 'field office teams' these are the candidate nominee operations teams that are added during election years for the heavy travel tempo.”

Guglielmi also attempted to refute the other key allegation about a lack of sufficient resources, saying, “There's an untrue assertion that a member of the former President's team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed. This is absolutely false,” but given House Republicans' vows to conduct a thorough investigation of what went wrong, the veracity of the above statements will soon be put to the test.