Donald Trump
Donald TrumpReuters

A federal official on Wednesday denied a news report that the U.S. Secret Service had formally spoken with Republican presidential nominee 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.

Pushing back against a CNN report that the law enforcement agency had had "more than one" exchange with the Trump camp about the remark, an official familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency there had been no formal conversations with the campaign regarding the comment made to supporters the day before.

Trump's campaign denied as well that there had been conversations with the Secret Service about the controversial remarks, which some of his opponents said encouraged violence against Clinton.

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

Trump caused an uproar on Tuesday afternoon when he said at a rally that Second Amendment defenders might be able to stop Clinton from appointing justices to the Supreme Court who could weaken gun rights.

"Hillary wants to abolish -- essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know," Trump said.

"But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if Hillary gets to put her judges in, right now we're tied."

The comments were interpreted by some of Trump's opponents as him encouraging violence against Clinton, even after the Republican nominee clarified he was simply trying to unify gun owners against Clinton in the voting booth.

"This is a political movement. This is a strong political movement, the Second Amendment," Trump said to Fox News' Sean Hannity. "And there can be no other interpretation ... I mean, give me a break."