On Monday, while there were more questions than answers about the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in 64 days, Republican Senator Josh Hawley (Missouri) released a damning whistleblower report about the reprehensible failures of the U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security that led to the July 13 shooting that narrowly missed Trump’s life.
Hawley, who had discovered a “year-long pattern of negligence, sloppiness and gross incompetence that culminated in an assassination attempt that narrowly missed success,” submitted the report to the House Task Force on Attempted Assassination to supplement its investigation. He added: said:
“On July 13, 2024, former President Donald J. Trump was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and U.S. intelligence failed to prevent it,” the Hawley report said. “It was the most horrifying breakdown of presidential security since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.”
The senator, who currently serves on four Senate committees, including the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, also announced the release of the whistleblower report on X.
After the recent attack on@realDonaldTrumpI am releasing a comprehensive whistleblower report on the numerous failures of the Secret Service and DHS – including modern allegations and numerous unanswered questions due to the USSS’s delaying tactics.
Indeed a blockade.
🚨🚨 NEW – After the recent assassination attempt on@realDonaldTrumpI am releasing a comprehensive whistleblower report on the numerous failures of the Secret Service and DHS – including modern allegations and numerous unanswered questions due to the USSS’s obstructionism pic.twitter.com/Rxcim9N05U
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) 16 September 2024
According to Hawley’s press release, the report “extremely damages the credibility of the Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.”
To the reports most shocking findings:
- The lead agent responsible for Trump’s visit to Butler, including the campaign rally, had “failed a key exam” during Secret Service agent training.
- The Secret Service’s intelligence units, which consist of teams of Secret Service agents and state and local law enforcement officials who handle reports of suspicious persons, were not present at the rally in Butler.
- The hospital grounds where Trump was treated after the shooting were “poorly secured” and the agent on site “could not answer basic questions about the security of the site.”
- The majority of DHS agents deployed at the rally were unfamiliar with standard campaign security protocols.
- The only training many of the DHS agents assigned to security work received was a single two-hour webinar on Microsoft Teams with recorded videos.
Even worse, Hawley said the Secret Service, FBI and DHS “all tried to evade real responsibility.”
The report continues States:
These agencies and their leaders have delayed congressional investigations, misled the American people, and evaded accountability. The resulting findings severely damage the credibility of the Secret Service and DHS.
It gets worse. The report also found:
- Police were supposed to be stationed on the roof from which Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump, but the post was abandoned because it was “too hot.”
- intelligence disputed several offers from a local partner to apply drone technology to ensure security at the rally, even though Crooks had already deployed a drone to monitor the site hours before Trump’s appearance in preparation for his attack.
- The Secret Service’s Counter Surveillance Division (CSD), which conducts threat assessments at sites prior to an event, did not conduct its usual survey of the Butler Fairgrounds and was not on site the day of the rally. Had the CSD been there, the shooter would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder.
- The lead Secret Service agent responsible for clearing visual obstructions at the Butler rally was “known to lack the competence and experience for this role.”
Kimberly Cheatle, who was director of the Secret Service at the time of the rally, resigned under growing pressure from members of Congress from both parties following the massive security failure.
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The conclusion
I don’t mean to sound disrespectful here, but to paraphrase an senior saying: With “friends” like the Secret Service and DHS, Donald Trump needs no enemies.
