Democrat Senator Admits Americans Will Be ‘SHOCKED’ By Trump Assassination Attempt Report
Bipartisanship on Capitol Hill is rare. In an election year, it’s virtually nonexistent. But Republicans and Democrats agree on one thing: the government’s looming report on the Trump assassination attempt is going to be shocking.
That’s the term used by Connecticut Sen. Chris Blumenthal (D-CT), who said his involvement in a bipartisan select committee probing the shooting leads him to believe that Americans will be “appalled” at the level of incompetence brewing for so long inside the Secret Service. The Democrat’s remarks to Fox News come one day after Secret Service Acting Director Robert Rowe provided lawmakers with a closed-door update on an internal investigation. “I think the American people are going to be shocked, astonished and appalled by what we will report to them about the failures by the Secret Service in this assassination attempt on the former president,” Blumenthal told Fox News. “But I think they also ought to be appalled and astonished by the failure of the Department of Homeland Security to be more forthcoming, to be as candid and frank, as it should be to them in terms of providing information.”
Sen. Blumenthal did not outline any specifics, though Rowe has publicly testified about the waning technological abilities of the agency, including its inability to fly a drone over the site of the July 13th rally where a gunman was able to position himself on a roof with a direct line-of-sight to President Trump. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, actually used his own drone to scout the site days earlier, a visit that was not picked up on by federal or local authorities. Other lawmakers who participated in the briefing similarly declined to provide specifics. “It will be coming out shortly. And it’ll only be an interim report because there’s a lot more information that we need to find,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., told Fox News. “And we hope once this report comes out and we can get the additional information necessary to have a complete report of what happened, as well as steps of what we need to do in the future to make sure that this never happens.”
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said he is sympathetic to lawmaker’s frustrations with Rowe, who according to previous reports was intimately involved in denying President Trump additional agency protection even after his campaign reported the emergence of death threats against him. “So he’s making the commitment to, you know, provide more information,” Johnson said. “But we’re hoping to get this preliminary report out before this work period. So again, we’re on pretty tight time constraints. But again, it’s important people realize we are dedicated to a bipartisan product.”
Assistant Director Michael Plati, of the agency’s Office of Protective Operations, led the Secret Service’s protective measures around Trump and will be resigning on Friday, Fox reported. His resignation comes roughly two months after former FBI Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned, but not before she attempted to avoid responsibility and blame local authorities for failing to secure the perimeter of the rally. Sources say agency leadership encouraged Plati to retire early. Five other agents have also been suspended from duty as a result.
Other media reports indicate a stunning lack of discipline within the 60-member unit around Trump. Agents at times have posted sensitive information on social media accounts, walked away from their posts, or been reassigned in favor of poorly trained federal employees who guarded the former president instead. A damning report last month indicated that many members of the security team around Trump that day had limited training and were only required to watch an online training video.
