Whistleblowers Drop Major Bombshell On Secret Service
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), the chamber’s leading Republican investigating the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump, announced jaw-dropping findings about how unprepared and untrained the Secret Service agents on duty that day actually were.
Speaking with Fox News’ Jesse Watters, the Missouri Republican revealed that the agents assigned to protect President Trump that day were actually employees of the Department of Homeland Security and had minimal training in the logistics of protection detail and counterterrorism procedures. Instead of dozens of veteran Secret Service agents trained in presidential protection, Hawley said, Trump was mostly surrounded by guards who only received an online webinar training. The revelation is sure to spark a new round of recriminations against Secret Service Director Robert Rowe who has been implicated in previously denying the former president’s request for beefed-up security teams.
“A two-hour, online webinar. And I’m told that half the time, the sounds to the webinar didn’t even work,” Hawley stated, the New York Post reported. “So think about this: The former president of the US … is sent out on stage, most of the people there are not trained, they’re not qualified. They only got a webinar training and even that didn’t work. It is absolutely outrageous.”
A bipartisan select committee has been convened and charged with investigating the circumstances of the July 13th shooting by a lone gunman. Sen. Hawley added that the latest discovery was only possible thanks to a whistleblower within the FBI. “The only reason we have this information is because of whistleblowers,” he told Watters.
According to testimony, DHS officials were allegedly pulled off assignments investigating child exploitation and assigned to President Trump’s protective detail, a position none held prior to that day, Sen. Hawley explained. He rebuked both the FBI and Secret Service for failing to be more forthcoming with information about security procedures that day, including a botched attempt to coordinate with local authorities to secure the rally’s perimeter. Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA), another member of the investigatory committee, stated recently that it was in fact members of the local SWAT team from Butler, Pennsylvania who were able to shoot the gunman’s rifle, neutralizing it before he was shot and killed. Only afterward did federal counter-snipers spring into action.
Rowe, the acting Secret Service director, testified at a congressional hearing in July that the agency he recently helmed is badly hampered by outdated technology and overstretched staff in an election year. Secret Service staff on the ground were also delayed in receiving information from local authorities who first encountered the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, preventing potential action to neutralize his threat before Crooks was able to open fire. Asked by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) if the agency had the capability to deploy a drone in such a scenario, Rowe admitted that is another area where the Secret Service is lacking.
“What I will tell you, sir, is that we have technical security measures that we utilize” but only a “limited” ability at “temporary sites” like the rally, Rowe replied. “What I can tell you is on this day the [counter-drone] system had technical difficulties and did not go operational until after 5 o’clock.” Crooks operated his own drone to scope out the rally site between 3:50 pm and 5:01 pm, just hours before Trump took the stage.
