‘The Former President is Safe’
But Secret Service, DHS, Biden Have Questions to Answer
The text message, “The Former President is Safe,” popped up on my phone Saturday afternoon as I stopped to gas up my car. Like those who remembered where they were when they heard the news of JFK being shot that fateful November day in Dallas 60 years ago, many Americans will remember where they were when they first heard of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump barely missed the assassin’s bullet, which many people see as a miracle, Divine Intervention, providence, fate, luck or the butterfly effect. A turn of his head resulted in the bullet striking Mr. Trump’s right ear instead of likely entering his head and ending his life. Tragically, a supporter at the Butler, Pa., rally lost his life to the assassin’s attack, and two others were wounded. The assassin was killed by Secret Service.
We are a nation that will remain, rightly so, shocked for some time by this attack, knowing that we nearly lost our former president and the man tens of millions of citizens consider to be the only hope for saving America from a major decline driven by a divisive and destructive iteration of the Democrat party unlike anything previously seen. But more immediately, we want to know how such a massive security failure in keeping Mr. Trump safe could have occurred.
Armed with a semi-automatic rifle, a 20-year-old male, who lived in a nearby community, carried the weapon to a commercial building very near the rally, got atop the building, took a position on the roof and was able to fire multiple shots. A standard AR-15 semi-automatic rifle has an effective range of about 400–600 yards. Reports indicate the Pennsylvania shooter was only about 150 yards from Mr. Trump.
Bystanders tried to bring attention to law enforcement that there was a person on the roof with a rifle. As one described it, a guy was “bear crawling up the roof.” The question everyone is asking is why was a structure that close to Mr. Trump not secured? On Monday, it was reported that the shooter was seen atop the building by law enforcement almost 30 minutes before he was neutralized. Additionally, the Director of the Secret Service said snipers were not put on the roof where the assassin placed himself because the roof was sloped.
Seriously?
Analysts in early reports suggested resource allocation and Secret Service management issues were at the root of the failure, but they were quick to laud agents on the ground. RealClear Politics reported that an event with First Lady Jill Biden in Pittsburgh and an event with VP Kamala Harris in Philadelphia took up “some of the local Secret Service resources that could have been used to help protect Trump’s rally.”
For those who don’t believe in coincidence, consider two points. Days before the Republican Convention, an assassin chose July 13, 2024, to attack the former president and current Republican nominee for the presidency, a day that the security apparatus for the former president apparently was operating well below 100 percent — like in the failing percentage zone.
Expect numerous theories (the playbook from Dallas 1963 was dusted off) as to how a lone gunman could so easily have gotten shots fired at Mr. Trump. They will remain until the FBI, which is in charge of the investigation, can provide the facts related to the security failure, and even then will persist given the low trust in the FBI now. The House plans to investigate too. A preliminary report should come sooner rather than later. To compile the timeline, match the security plan to what did and did not happen, interview all the security and law enforcement personnel, bystanders, etc., evaluate shots fired (reports now indicate shots from the assassin, the Secret Service sharpshooter and possibly from a third weapon), match bullets to weapons fired, etc. should take days, not weeks or months.
The Secret Service statement, issued Monday, is here.
The Secret Service is under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security which is under the Executive branch of government. Thus, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle reports to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas who reports to President Joe Biden.
Majorkas, as Biden’s handmaiden, has ignored immigration law and imported at least 10 million illegal aliens in less than four years, creating havoc throughout the United States. From Day 1 of Biden’s rule, the two men have worked in tandem to undo Trump’s policies of the prior four years to secure U.S. borders and re-establish sanity to immigration processes.
Given the nonstop vocal hatred of Trump and his policies shown by Biden, his administration and many Democrats, one might easily speculate Trump’s Secret Service protection isn’t a priority for Biden, Mayorkas or Cheatle. According to commentator Dan Bongino, a former NYPD officer and Secret Service agent, who has talked with multiple sources about the Saturday attack on Mr. Trump, “There have been repeated requests to increase the security footprint around not just the residences of Donald Trump, but the body itself, and they have been rebuffed.”
Bongino said, “The failure here is absolutely catastrophic.”
With nine years demonizing Trump, feeding crazed extremism and an off-the-charts level of Trump Derangement Syndrome among part of the population, Secret Service should have anticipated that a nutcase would show up at an event to try to take out Mr. Trump, and planned security arrangements accordingly.
Even with the level of vitriol against Mr. Trump so ugly and outsized that it begs action from a nutcase, Mr. Trump’s opposition would have denied him Secret Service protection. In April, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) introduced legislation that would have stripped Secret Service protection from convicted felons sentenced to prison, a move directed at Mr. Trump.
Under Biden too, Secret Service protection has consistently been denied to Robert Kennedy, Jr., in his run for the presidency. Given the Kennedy family history, this denial is particularly egregious, if not downright mean-spirited. Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s uncle, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated in 1963. And his father, Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. senator and candidate for president in the Democrat primaries, was assassinated in 1968. Not until after Saturday’s assassination attempt on Mr. Trump did Kennedy receive news that he would finally receive Secret Service protection. The announcement by Mayorkas of the overdue extension of Secret Service protection to Kennedy is here.
In discussing Saturday’s events, Bongino, who remains well-connected to Secret Service agents, also noted a story he’d previously reported. There had been sensitivity to agents wearing red ties, as that was too closely associated with Trump and Republicans.
Good grief!
Besides the absurdity of red ties rising to the level of “an issue” with the Secret Service, the focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hires is being discussed in the context of this security failure. Director Cheatle, as with the entire Biden regime, has been committed to DEI. One could argue if the Secret Service is focused on DEI, there’s not enough focus on their one job — protecting people. In a CBS story, it was reported that the Secret Service under Cheatle is committed to having a team made up of 30 percent women by 2030. Women now make up 24 percent of the Secret Service workforce. Attrition is a problem with the Secret Service, with 30 percent of uniformed officers having less than three years on the job, per The Washington Post.
Call me sexist, but if I were Mr. Trump, I’d want males protecting me like the character Mike Banning (played by Gerard Butler) in “Olympus Has Fallen.” Of, if a female, she’d need to be like Agent Wells (played by Maggie Q) in “Designated Survivor.” The female agents captured on video at the Trump rally didn’t inspire a high level of confidence, and they did not appear to be physically fit — comments on X were not kind. The Secret Service has lower physical fitness assessments for females versus their male counterparts.
There was a definite shift in Secret Service protection when Mr. Trump appeared Monday night at the Republican Convention — an impressive all-male contingent of height.
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), a former U.S. Army sniper, said, “Under this Biden administration, the one thing I’ve seen, when you primarily go after DEI, you end up with DIE.”
After the assassination attempt, the first words of support from Democrats I saw on X came from Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gabby Giffords. Biden was late in commenting. When he did, it began with a formal reference that he had been “briefed.” Biden doesn’t even have the capacity to respond as a human being. Then followed from Democrats tweets of concern that could only be perceived as faux well-wishing after nine years of the 24/7 Democrat vilification of Mr. Trump, with continual lies and the worst comparisons between him and the worst evils. Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine.
The last four years of the Biden regime have been an endless string of war atrocities and failures, from handling of COVID, the economy (inflation) and immigration (discussed earlier in this piece) to the embarrassing and disastrous exit from Afghanistan resulting in death and abandonment of $7 billion in equipment (if not more), the neverending money dump into the Ukraine for a proxy war promoted, falsely, as “protecting democracy” and poor responses to crises at home, including the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and environmental disaster, and the massive Lahaina fire on Maui, among others. And there is the question of who really is running the government when it’s headed by a mentally and physically compromised president who has been on vacation much of his term and has not met with his full cabinet for months.
All the world saw Saturday’s fiasco in protecting the former U.S. president and potential 47th president from a kid with a rifle. July 13 will be forever emblematic of the complete failure and incompetence of Democrat rule under the disastrous installed Biden regime.
Maria Fotopoulos writes about the connection between overpopulation and biodiversity loss, and from time to time other topics that confound her. On FB @BetheChangeforAnimals and givesendgo.com/calliescathouse.
