Jay Carney at a White House press briefing last March. (Photo: Getty)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney responded to a plea from a group of sixth graders who had their tour of the presidential residence canceled due to the so-called "sequester" cuts in a press briefing this afternoon. Mr. Carney described the situation as "extremely unfortunate," but unavoidable due to the $85 billion in automatic budget cuts that took effect March 1 after lawmwakers were unable to reach a deficit reduction deal.

"The President and the First Lady have throughout the time that they’ve been here made extraordinary efforts to make this the people’s house, and it is extremely unfortunate that we have a situation like the sequester that compels the kinds of tradeoffs and decisions that this represents," Mr. Carney said. "The fact is the Secret Service, like other agencies of government, is affected by the sequester. And the Secret Service presented options that ranged from canceling tours to potential furloughs and cuts in overtime. And in order to allow the Secret Service to best fulfill its core mission, the White House made the decision that we would, unfortunately, have to temporarily suspend these tours."

The White House announced the decision to cancel tours due to the sequester cuts on Tuesday. According to the Secret Service, the tours cost the agency tasked with protecting the President and his family $74,000 a week. Because of the cancellations, a group of sixth grade students from St. Paul's Lutheran School in Iowa will miss out on their planned March 16 field trip to the White House. The sixth graders released a filmed plea to the White House to "please let us visit!" on the school's Facebook page yesterday.

In the briefing, Mr. Carney described the decision to cancel tours as a choice between letting guests visit the White House or cutting pay for Secret Service agents.

"The issue here is a choice between potential furloughs--and that's not just an issue that goes to the Secret Service mission, but also the individuals affected," said Mr. Carney. "We're talking about pay cuts and overtime cuts or a choice to suspend tours. And I'm not suggesting it's a happy choice, but it is one that we had to make."

Mr. Carney also urged Congress to make a deficit reduction deal and suggested that might allow the children's trip to be rescheduled.

"We are obviously disappointed about that kind of decision, but it would have been far better, in our view, if Congress had taken action to delay the sequester in the very same way they took action two months ago -- two and a half months ago, to delay the sequester to avoid just this kind of outcome," Mr. Carney said.

A Secret Service counter-sniper team keeping watch over President Barack Obama as he campaigned in New Hampshire earlier this month. (Photo: Getty)

This election may have been far more exciting than anyone realized. According to a GQ story about Mitt Romney and his security entourage, "several assassination plots were nipped in the bud" by the Secret Service during this year's presidential campaign. 

The story, which was written by Marc Ambinder, was about Mitt Romney saying farewell to his Secret Service detail and the tantalizing tidbit about "assassination plots" was not made until the eighth paragraph. Mr. Ambinder did not elaborate beyond saying the "several" plots were thwarted.

Politicker reached out to the Secret Service to confirm whether or not the claim of "several assassination plots" was correct. Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan told us the agency did not participate in the story and wasn't sure where he was getting his information.

"We didn't work with Marc Ambinder on that article, so I don't know what his sourcing is," Mr. Donovan said.

The Secret Service provided security to multiple candidates during this year's election. As a sitting president, Barack Obama has had Secret Service protection throughout his time in office. Mr. Romney got a Secret Service detail earlier this year and, as Mr. Ambinder detailed, his agents left his side after the results came in on election night. Herman Cain became the first Republican presidential hopeful to receive Secret Service protection last November, one month before he ended his candidacy amid a growing sexual harassment scandal. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum also received Secret Service protection.

During the campaign, multiple people were arrested for publicly threatening President Barack Obama and Mr. Romney, but none of these situations seemed to rise to the level of serious "plots." However, Mr. Ambinder hinted he may reveal more information about his "assassination plots" claim soon when asked about the line in his story on Twitter this morning.

"Might be elaborated upon in a print piece soon," Mr. Ambinder wrote.

We emailed Mr. Ambinder to discuss the claim, but, as of this writing, we have yet to receive a response.

Update (2:50 p.m.): Mr. Ambinder responded to our email and said he was simply referring to instances of threats that have already been publicly acknowledged. 

"Just off the top of my head: there was that guy who shot at the White House from across the ellipse, and then the soldiers arrested for plotting the assassination of the president and others. All public record. All serious enough, I think," Mr. Ambinder wrote. "I don't know any details about any non-public attempts, if there were any. "

Though his tweet this morning promising his story "might be elaborated upon" came as a direct response to a question about the assassination plot line of the story, Mr. Ambinder also said the forthcoming print piece will not include any further details about assassination attempts. 

"The print piece elaboration Tweet has nothing to do with assassination plots," he wrote.

One of the "Fire Eric Holder" protesters standing outside the White House. (Photo: CampusReform.org/Josiah Ryan)

The Secret Service stopped a group of about 50 college students who were leading a protest demanding President Barack Obama fire Attorney General Eric Holder in front of the White House today.  Secret Service spokesman Edwin Donovan told The Politicker the protesters were removed because there was a suspicious package.

"There was an unattended package left in proximity to the fence line which resulted in the sidewalk being cleared for safety reasons until the owner could be located," Mr. Donovan said. 

One of the protesters told the blog Campus Reform that "the discovery of the 'unidentified package' came just as the protest began to gain traction." Mr. Holder was cited for contempt of Congress Thursday for refusing to turn over documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious, a botched gun trafficking investigation that resulted in over 1,000 illegal guns getting lost in Mexican. One of these weapons was later linked to the shooting of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Ted Nugent with Newt and Callista Gingrich in 2010. (Photo: Facebook)

With the Secret Service set to visit rocker Ted Nugent tomorrow following his controversial comment he'd either be "dead or in jail by this time next year" if President Barack Obama is re-elected, Mr. Nugent defended his remarks in an interview to Glenn Beck.

"Every reference I made, whether it’s a shot across the bow or targeting the enemy, it always ended the sentence with ‘in November at the voter booth,’” Mr. Nugent said. “I’m not trying to diminish the seriousness of this, because if the Secret Service are doing it they are serious."

So, Mr. Nugent wasn't threatening the president. What he meant to say is that, if President Obama is re-elected in November 2012, he'll be found dead or in jail in a voting booth sometime in April 2013. That makes absolutely perfect sense.

Mr. Nugent made his controversial comment at the National Rifle Association convention last weekend. The rocker is an avid hunter and advocate of the right to bear arms who serves on the NRA's board and has endorsed Mitt Romney. The Romney campaign responded to Mr. Nugent's remarks by issuing a statement denounced "divisive language" without specifically naming the rocker and by telling NBC News they "never solicited" Mr. Nugent's endorsement.