RealClearPolitics' Susan Crabtree has another scoop.
By the way: The Secret Service immediately deleted this email, so you know they're a bunch of straight-shooter Lunchbucket Joes like the FBI are.
Susan Crabtree
@susancrabtree
EXCLUSIVE: A Secret Service counter sniper sent an email Monday night to the entire Uniformed Division (not agents) saying he will not stop speaking out until "5 high-level supervisors (1 down) are either fired or removed from their current positions." The counter sniper also said the agency "SHOULD expect another assassination attempt" before November and complained that he is no longer proud to be a USSS counter sniper after leadership failed the officers at the Trump rally in Butler on 7/13.
"This agency NEEDS to change," the sniper wrote in the email. "If not now, WHEN? "The NEXT assassination in 30 days?"
"Sadly we have fallen short for YEARS," the counter sniper lamented. "We just look good doing it. I have conveyed these thoughts to not only supervisors (to include the current Captain of CS, but those responsible for training us (SOTS/CS). Only to be brushed off as those with less experience somehow knew more than me."
"The team I was once proud to be a part of, is something I have to somehow hide as I move into my next career," the counter sniper continued. "Who wants to hire a USSS CS guy who failed? That's the public perception I'm not faced with. The USSS CS team is a stain I will never be able to cleanse."
He concluded with these two lines: "The motto of the USSS...CYA. And every supervisor is doing it right now."
The agency quickly deleted the email, a knowledgeable source told RealClearPolitics.
The Acting Director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, Jr., is even more responsible for the catastrophe in Butler, PA than Cheatle was. Cheatle was head of the Secret Service, but this guy was the head of the VIP protection side of the Secret Service.
And he personally denied Trump the extra snipers he'd requested.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe was directly involved in denying additional security resources and personnel, including counter snipers, to former President Trump's rallies and events -- despite repeated requests by the agents assigned to Trump's detail in the two years leading up to his July 13 attempted assassination, according to several sources familiar with the decision-making.
Rowe succeeded former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned last week after bipartisan calls following her widely panned testimony before the House Oversight Committee. But both Rowe and Cheatle were directly involved in decisions denying requests for more magnetometers, additional agents, and other resources to help screen rallygoers at large, outdoor Trump campaign gatherings.
It was Rowe's decision alone to deny counter sniper teams to any Trump event outside of driving distance from D.C., these sources asserted.
If you thought the Female Empowerment Karen was a bad leader of the agency, hoo-boy, get ready for a lesson in White Men are Political Hacks and Incomptents, too, as you watch the Ronny Rowe Junior deny all responsibility and refuse to answer questions just like Frito One did.
He absolutely refuses to say who denied Trump's requests for more protection, and if the same person also denied RFKJr.'s requests for protection. He's very close to committing perjury all throughout this exchange. Certainly he is guilty of obstructing Congress by refusing to answer the most basic questions.
Ted Cruz repeatedly tried to get him to answer any questions, but this buzzcut leftwinger just kept repeating talking points about "the process."
That's what bureaucrats always talk about-- it wasn't specific people who failed. Because they're all trying to protect each other's jobs.
So they never blame specific people.
Only "The Process." Which of course can't be fired.
"I believe that the Secret Service leadership made a political decision to deny these requests. And I think the Biden administration has been suffused with partisan politics," Cruz said. "Did the same person who denied the request for additional security to President Trump also repeatedly deny the requests for security to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father was murdered by an assassin and whose uncle was murdered by an assassin? Did the same person make that decision?"
"Senator, what I will tell you is that Secret Service agents are not political," Rowe responded.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not receive Secret Service protection from Biden until after the Trump assassination attempt, despite requesting it beforehand.
Cruz asserted the leadership Biden appointed is "political."
"I have a simple question: yes or no. Did the same person deny the Trump request that also denied the RFK request? That's a yes or no question," he said.
"Senator, that is not a yes or no question. One, there's a process for a candidate nominee to receive protection," Rowe responded. "That is a bicameral, bipartisan process."
...
Secret Service whistleblowers said there were limited resources to protect Trump due to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C, and First Lady Jill Biden's campaign rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the Daily Caller reported.
"What was the relative size of the Trump detail compared to the detail that is assigned to the President and the First Lady?" Cruz asked later in the hearing.
"Senator, the former president travels with a full shift, just like the president," he said.
Cruz asked him to clarify if it was "the exact same size."
"On the day of, in Butler, the agents surrounding him, it is the same number of agents surrounding the president today," Rowe said.
This is perjury. I wonder if "The Process" will take the fall for this perjury as well.
Cruz interrupted to clarify his use of the word "president," asking again if "it is [his] testimony that in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump had the same number of agents protecting him that Joe Biden has at a [comparable] event." Rowe insisted he was "trying to answer."
"You are not answering it. Is it the same number of agents or not?" Cruz asked, later asking "how many more agents" Biden has than Trump.
"Sir, you are refusing to answer straight," Cruz said. "Sir, stop interrupting me. Stop interrupting me. You are refusing to answer clear and direct questions. I am asking the relative difference in the number of agents between those assigned to Donald Trump and those assigned to Joe Biden. I'm not asking why you assign more to Joe Biden."
Cruz also asked about the Secret Service spokesman, who repeatedly lied to the public, denying that Trump had asked for more protection and that Secret Service leadership denied these requests.
Susan Crabtree
@susancrabtree
Finally! @TedCruz asks why the Secret Service spokesman still has his job after he lied to the press and the public in the 48 hours after the assassination attempt against Trump and no longer has credibility.
The spokesperson specifically lied about reports that the Secret Service denied more security requests for Trump.
Cruz: "Your spokesperson put something out that is false on its face, by the way, did you approve this statement when it went out?
Rowe: "I don't know if I did or didn't.
Cruz: "Is this spokesperson, is he still employed?
Rowe indicates that he is.
Cruz: "So he lied on behalf of the Secret Service? He still has a job? Did your predecessor, the former director, did she approve this statement?"
Rowe: "Senator, our comms team sends out statements. They do de-conflict them, and they put them out."
Cruz: "Did she approve this statement?"
Rowe: "I don't know if she did or did not...I don't recall approving it, senator."
"I do not recall approving [the lie put out to the public]" -- a red flag for perjury.
He also won't say why the Secret Service spokesman, who has repeatedly lied throughout this affair, hasn't been fired yet.
So who is this asshole protecting? Maybe himself -- maybe he denied Secret Service assets to Biden's two political opponents.
Maybe Cheatle.
Was Mayorkas responsible for the attempted assassination's near success? I think there is a good argument that he is.
Just to be clear, I don't think Mayorkas arranged a hit on Donald Trump. Even for him this would be a bridge too far.
Rather, he has been a key part of the campaign to demonize Trump and fully on board with ramping up the political temperature, and he likely was involved in ensuring that Trump's team was denied the resources it needed and requested to protect the once and former president.
We are all focused on the wrong target when it comes to the grotesque failures of the Secret Service, or at least we are missing the fact that the top of the chain of command for the Secret Service wasn't Kimberly Cheatle, but Alejandro Mayorkas. It is he who ultimately ran the Secret Service, and he should be held responsible.
The Acting Director after Cheatle's resignation is the man DIRECTLY responsible for setting the protection priorities that nearly got Donald Trump killed.
This asshole screamed that he would not be "rushed to judgment" in making anyone accountable.
Rowe testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday about the handling of the assassination attempt during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Hawley pressed Rowe on the lack of firings that occurred over the failures to surveil the rooftop where the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire.
"You're asking me, senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing. I acknowledge, this was a failure--" Rowe said during the questioning.
"Is it not prima facie that somebody has failed? The former president was shot!" Hawley interjected.
Rowe said he has "lost sleep" over the handling of the assassination attempt since the incident occurred, and assured Hawley that he would hold people accountable "with integrity" and not "rush to judgement."
"Then fire somebody to hold them accountable!" Hawley shouted.
"And I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people unfairly persecuted," Rowe said.
Fire this asshole.
We did have one small concession from the FBI Deputy Director: He contradicted Wray's claim that the FBI doesn't know yet if a bullet hit Trump's head or if it was "shrapnel," saying that no one at the FBI (except for the political cocksucker Wray, I guess) has any confusion about whether Trump's bullet wound was caused by a bullet.