(The Center Square) – Former U.S. Secret Service agents and security experts argue the Secret Service’s failure to prevent an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Saturday was “apocalyptic,” exhibiting a “massive security breach.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has called for a congressional investigation. Multiple members of Congress are asking how a shooter ever reached a rooftop of a building to fire a shot at Trump, including U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, an Army veteran and counter sniper for the State Department who coordinated protective details for then Vice President Joe Biden, Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush.
The assassination attempt on Trump was “a massive security breach,” Mills told CNN. The distance between the shooter and Trump was roughly 400 to 500 feet, “which is nothing for a shot adjacent to the stage of the president,” he said. “There was no one on that building, … in the building, standing next to the building to ensure there’s no access to the building,” he said. If there were, they “could have prevented this shooting.”
In an interview with Fox News, Mills said that the shots fired were the kind that soldiers learn in basic training boot camp and are “requested to make within nine weeks. This is one of the easiest shots.”
He said his job at the State Department involved working with an advanced team to establish a perimeter and “identify areas of threat that you would be able to mitigate … whether it be a building, … a lone tree … a parking lot. … Bottom line is this is massive negligence.”
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi has said agents responded quickly and the agency “added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of [Trump’s] increased campaign travel.”
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino questioned this claim, asking on Fox News, “Which ones? You’re telling me the best technology you have was deployed and you missed a shooter 130 yards away … and even worse, it’s broad daylight on a white roof.”
He asked if there was forward-looking infrared deployed and if there was aerial support like drones and helicopters.
Bongino also pointed out that Trump “knew to duck … and saved his own life. That’s just a fact. The evacuation did not go right. The rule with the Secret Service is ‘cover the protectee’ and evacuate. The other rule is ‘maximum to the protectee, minimum to the problem. … Because you don’t know that’s the only problem. It could be a distraction. There could be another person in the crowd … you could be looking at multiple shooters.”
“The failure here is absolutely catastrophic,” he said, calling on Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle to resign immediately. He said Secret Service “absolutely resolutely 100% failed. This was an apocalyptic security failure. … An uneventful failure is never a success. The fact that Donald Trump didn’t die … is no reason for anybody to take some kind of victory lap.”
Former Secret Service agent Jeff James agreed, telling WTAE ABC News the agents on the stage should have moved Trump off sooner because the first shots fired “may have been the precursor in the real attack. There may have been four more gunmen who were going to start opening fire. I would have rather seen him get him into the armored cars and get him out of there more quickly.”
Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant Secret Service director, told the Wall Street Journal, “The reality is there’s just no excuse for the Secret Service to be unable to provide sufficient resources to cover an open rooftop 100 yards away from the site. And there’s no way he should’ve got those shots off.”
Retired Secret Service agent Donald Mihalek called the failed assassination attempt “historic, drawing parallels to the 1912 shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee,” the Journal reported. “Roosevelt, then a former president who was running for a third term in the White House, was shot while heading to a campaign event. He survived the attempt on his life.”
Erik Prince, who previously provided diplomatic security services, said, “unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans. Donald J. Trump is alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assassin.”
Prince analyzed the wind at the time of the shot, arguing it was enough to displace the bullet two inches from Trump’s “intended forehead to his ear. DJT [Trump] was not saved by USSS [U.S. Secret Service] brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150 yards to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.
“Clearly there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position and take multiple aimed shots,” he said, adding that one counter sniper “was clearly overwhelmed as his face came off his rifle instead of doing his job to kill the shooter.”
A counter sniper killed the alleged shooter after he shot several rounds, wounding Trump, killing one, and critically wounding two others.
“In my old business of providing Diplomatic Security in two active war zones we were expected to execute the basics, or we would be fired,” Prince said. “Clearly USSS failed at the basics of a secure perimeter and once shots were fired, their extraction was clumsy and left DJT highly exposed to follow on attacks.”
He also expressed no confidence in anyone being held accountable, saying, “That’s not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.”
“There was no one on that building, … in the building, standing next to the building to ensure there’s no access to the building,” he said. If there were, they “could have prevented this shooting.”
As far as I’m concerned this was purposely done. They want Trump gone by any means possible.
Adding to that Brandon’s Keystone Kops DEI SS failures and incompetence.
“He also expressed no confidence in anyone being held accountable, saying, “That’s not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.”” THE DEMOCRAT PARTY RULE IN WASHINGTON DC.
You are not alone in that belief.
This shooter was 130 yards or 390 feet from the President. Professional Baseball fields by rule must be a minimum of 400 feet from enter field to home plate. Wille Mays in his prime could have easily nailed Trump with a baseball. In my own youth I have thrown out runners from center field from similar distances. I’m no professional shooter but can easily down a deer at 400 yards. Whoever hired him to shoot Trump set him up not to survive to tell the truth about those who scripted this. Already the media is repeating the planned excuses and deceptions about a single nutjob shooter, but the way that the American forces of evil have already illegally, politically and immorally come at Trump and failed to destroy him, you just have to know that there is one powerful, desperate, frustrated force behind this act and it wasn’t the weasel who pulled the trigger.
“Whoever hired him to shoot Trump set him up not to survive to tell the truth about those who scripted this.”
Not to worry. Joe Biden says he will authorize a thorough investigation.
OF course, can’t have their hitman spilling the beans.
I am anxiously awaiting the response from the Secret Service director about what happened here, and wonder why we haven’t heard from her yet. I want to know if she was qualified for her position, or another one of Biden’s low-qualified “diversity” picks. It appears by all accounts to have been an epic fail on the part of the Secret Service for a variety of reasons. If so, she needs to go. Biden should step down along with her. He is ultimately responsible for ensuring the Secret Service keeps a president safe. Apparently, he needs to be nervous about his own protection by his own agency.
YOu can bet your last dollar she was a DEI PICK.
True equity is the equality of outcomes not the quality of the persons or the equality of opportunity. By this evil WOKE way of thinking Joe’s outcome should be just as equal as what happened to Trump??? Guarded and protected by the same inferiorleadership quality DEI hired people who are not the best and brightest, but the right color gender or party loyalty. The American idocracy is alive and well thanks to Democrat damaged democracy we now have to live under,,,that is until Trump showed and began to fight,,,,FOR US.
I mean, Trump’s six four. AND THREE OF THOSE GALS were barely 5 ft 5… SO HOW CAN THEY properly defend him?
One of the alphabet soup “minority hires” on Trumps Security detail ducked BEHIND HIM when the shooting started. Another appeared to be a foot shorter then President Trump. They all looked lost as they fumbled their weapons.
Joe hired them. He should insist that they be on HIS team.
There is no way they are going to allow President Donald trump back into the Oval Office of the White House. This may not be the last attempt of his life and the SS is not capable of protecting him, the SS made this clearly evident.
part of me fears, THAT IS WHY THEY assigned this group of incompetent buffoons to his detail.
I have followed this story closely since an hour after the shooting .I’ve watched alphabet news ,and dozens of U-tube videos and radio news . Wadeing thru hours of B/S lies and implausable excuses and finger pointing .I have concluded ,that although this looser was a local and may have intimate knowledge of this area .He still had to have help ,Ineptitude and faulty communacations will not explain this goat skrew .Someone nefarious and evil greased the skids for him !
In the midst of my U-tube “studies” I found a u-tuber who laid out his “conspiracy theory” .This idea is the swamp ,or swampy Dems somehow had this looser do the dirty deed . Deed done ! Trump survived This is not what they wanted to hear .BUT WAIT there’s more .Dang it !Old Joe is gonna loose to trump . We need to get ole joe out—by golly here”s an idea ..Secret service is wrecker ,no trust at all so we run the same play and blame those right wing mega nuts We’ll say that it was revenge for trump The sheeple will buy the idea trump was behind it and will vote for whoever we put up . Aint’ Democracy grand !
Now, there is talk that the assigned “agents” were not even SS, but DHS investigative employees. Alejandro in charge.