The Secret Service has talked with Donald Trump about his Second Amendment comments that have been attacked as a veiled assassination threat toward Hillary Clinton, according to news reports.
"There has been more than one conversation," a Secret Service official told CNN.
Trump campaign officials told the agency that the Republican nominee did not intend to encourage violence against his Democratic challenger, CNN reports.
But late Wednesday afternoon Trump denied there was any contact with the Secret Service over the matter.
At a rally Tuesday in Wilmington, N.C., Trump said that maybe the "Second Amendment people" could stop Clinton from appointing liberal justices to the Supreme Court.
"Hillary wants to essentially abolish the Second Amendment," Trump said. "If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks.
"Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don't know.
"But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if Hillary gets to put her judges in, right now we're tied," Trump said.
Clinton's campaign immediately slammed the remarks, with manager Robby Mook saying: "This is simple — what Trump is saying is dangerous.
"A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way," he said.
Without referencing the controversy, Trump told supporters in Virginia on Wednesday that "we have to protect our Second Amendment, which is under siege."
The remark brought sustained applause from the crowd at a rally in Abingdon, Va.
At a rally in Iowa on Wednesday, Clinton blasted Trump's comments as "his casual inciting of violence" and said that they further evidenced that he was not qualified to occupy the White House.
"Let me say something about what I think is a critical difference between my opponent and myself: Words matter, my friends," she said in Des Moines. "If you are running to be president, or you are president of the United States, words can have tremendous consequences.
"Yesterday, we witnessed the latest in a long line of casual comments by Donald Trump that crossed the line. His casual cruelty to a Gold Star family. His casual suggestion that more countries should have nuclear weapons. And now his casual inciting of violence.
"Every single one of these incidents shows us that Donald Trump simply does not have the temperament to be president and commander-in-chief of the United States," Clinton said.
"The stakes have never by higher."
Trump's Tuesday comments were also ripped by former CIA Director Michael Hayden.
He told Jake Tapper on CNN Tuesday that the remark was "either a very bad-taste reference to political assassination and an attempt at humor, or an incredible insensitivity."
"It may be the latter," said Hayden, a retired Air Force general who also directed the National Security Agency. "An incredible insensitivity to the prevalence of a political assassination inside of American history — and how that is a topic that we don't ever come close to, even when we think we're being light-hearted.
"If someone else had said that outside of the hall, they would be in the back of a police wagon now with the Secret Service questioning him," Hayden said.
Trump explained later Tuesday that he sought to encourage gun owners to turn out and vote against Clinton in November.
"This is a political movement," he told Sean Hannity on Fox News. "This is a strong political movement, the Second Amendment.
"There can be no other interpretation," he added. "I mean, give me a break."
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that Trump's comments were being misconstrued by the Clinton campaign and the media.
"What he intended is very, very simple — that [gun owners] should vote against her," Giuliani told "Good Morning America" on ABC. "He had no idea that anybody would interpret his words that way.
"It was so obvious to all of us what he meant," he said.
Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who said Tuesday that she would not vote for either candidate, says she did not believe that Trump was encouraging violence.
However, Collins told CNN on Wednesday, Trump can only blame himself for people drawing the conclusion because of his consistent "stream of inappropriate and reckless comments."