Insufficient ‘resources’ hindered Secret Service from fully protecting Trump
The Secret Service Follies continue, with whistleblowers now telling Congress that the agency was stretched too thin after President Biden’s NATO summit to adequately protect former President Donald Trump on July 13.
At a July 8 meeting with the FBI, Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Tim Burke revealed the agency had “little resources” to protect Trump.
For those keeping track at home, that was five days before Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto a rooftop and took aim at American democracy.
So let’s recap: Donald Trump is speaking at a large rally in the open while intel has emerged of a possible threat to his life from Iran.
With days, again, to spare before this event, the USSS admits it’s shorthanded and apparently does nothing meaningful to remedy the situation.
At the event itself, Crooks was ID’d as suspicious to these Keystone Kops more than an hour before he shoots Trump and once more they do nothing.
Another warning comes in 10 minutes before Trump takes the stage, and they don’t ask him to wait.
The nation saw the results: a near catastrophe, averted only by sheer luck.
The follow-up is equally infamous, with USSS Director Kim Cheatle blaming a sloped roof for the security failure rather than her own incompetence — and smugly refusing to resign.
And once more, the American people only know the truth thanks to brave whistleblowers and the tireless work of the House Judiciary Committee (now seemingly the last check left on the cowardice, stupidity and mendacity of executive branch agencies).
Here’s the latest on the assassination attempt against Donald Trump:
Frankly, it’s a miracle Biden’s made it through the bulk of his first term alive with these numbskulls in charge of protecting him.
And the fact that the USSS was so lax about protecting Trump before his official nomination outlines the potential horrors he’ll face now that he’s gotten the nod and the election ramps up.
Let alone if he wins, as the polling suggests is likely.
There’s no conspiracy here, contra MSNBC’s Joy Reid: This just rank incompetence layered on stunning mismanagement.
Whoever is actually running the White House these days needs to do the obvious: Fire Cheatle (indeed, the entire chain of command responsible for these obscene lapses) and bring in competent management.
