President Trump was subject to an assassination attempt the Secret Service should have protected him from.
Congress has been asking questions all week, and met with mostly stonewalling from the agencies involved.
Now Sen. Josh Hawley is hearing from Secret Service whistleblowers, about yet another problem.
According to the Daily Wire:
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) said on Friday that most of the security personnel at former President Donald Trump’s Saturday campaign rally had been “unprepared and inexperienced” DHS personnel rather than actual members of the U.S. Secret Service.
Hawley shared a letter he was sending to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, demanding answers for a series of apparent lapses in security that ultimately allowed a gunman to attain access to an elevated position less than 200 yards from the rally stage where Trump was speaking. Secret Service is part of DHS.
The letter is at the bottom of investigative reporter Susan Crabtree's tweet with added observations of her own:
Collin Rugg has some highlights from the letter:
I can't do better than this tweet for laying out the meaning of that information:
If the claims of the whistleblowers pan out, it means that Jill Biden was given a higher priority of security protection based on her being her, over the actual security needs of President Trump, who has been subject to endless numbers of crazies threatening him. Jill would have hogged all the good security for her event with a low number of attendees, while Trump was out in the open pretty much by himself, given the absence of trained Secret Service agents and protection all around him. The people he got were not Secret Service agents at all, but the equivalent to mall cops.
And that raises questions about the priorities of whoever was making the decision to grant Secret Service protection to both Jill Biden and President Trump at the same time, with Trump's team asking for it two weeks before Jill's team, but to nevertheless give Jill the professional team and Trump the improvised team.
Who was it -- Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle -- who by the wildest of coincidences was appointed to the post reportedly at the urging of Jill Biden? That's cronyism right there, and if Cheatle chose to give Jill the best protection, and Trump the worst, then obviously, she grants protection based on political patronage, which is shocking. No one ever expected that kind of decisionmaking from the Secret Service, which has an image as being impartial and objective and tight-lipped, but may just be anything but.
It also raises questions as to whether this appearance of security (but not the best security) is even legal, given that the law states that former presidents should get Secret Service protection for life, not protection from whoever is onhand. If Biden isn't giving actual Secret Service protection, why is this agency allowed to exist?
Hawley called for answers within seven days, but don't be surprised if there aren't any. They've pretty much ignored and stonewalled every request so far, so subpoenas is probably the best course soon after. They need to answer questions as to why they gave President Trump the farm team and Jill was able to swan around with the 'A' team with no significant danger, quite possibly to impress her friends with her fancy protective status.
Image: Twitter video screen shot