No formal Secret Service discussions with Trump camp on anti-Clinton gun remark: Official

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event on Aug 10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. PHOTO: AFP

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal official on Wednesday (Aug 10) said the US Secret Service had not formally spoken with Republican Donald Trump's presidential campaign regarding his suggestion a day earlier that gun rights activists could stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton from curtailing their access to firearms.

Following Mr Trump's comment at a rally on Tuesday in which he suggested that gun rights activists could stop Mrs Clinton from appointing liberal anti-gun justices to the US Supreme Court, a federal official familiar with the matter told Reuters that there had been no formal conversations between the Secret Service and the Trump campaign.

Earlier CNN had reported that there had been multiple conversations between the campaign and the agency.

"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks," Mr Trump told a North Carolina campaign rally on Tuesday.

"Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know," he added, leading some critics to believe Mr Trump was referring to gun violence against his rival.

The controversy came as the campaign tried to stay on message after a contentious previous week. Mr Trump weathered criticism within his own party for delaying endorsements of fellow Republicans and for a prolonged clash with the family of a fallen Muslim American US Army captain.

The campaign denied that inciting violence had been the intent of Tuesday's remark, and on Wednesday said there had been no conversations with the Secret Service about it.

"No such meeting or conversation ever happened," Mr Trump wrote on Twitter, accusing CNN of having made up the report.

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