AP Photo/Evan Vucci
The Secret Service is hiding in the bunker. They haven’t held a press conference on the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. There’s been a code of silence on his harrowing and historic event, and we know why: they got busted for peddling a lie. Shocker—but we have another Biden-era scandal emerging, one where the agency appears to have hidden from the public because there was no spinning what was inevitably going to be asked by the media: the allegation that the Biden Department of Homeland Security denied requests for more resources. After initially denying it, the agency finally had to admit this was true.
The Washington Post and New York Times confirmed it. However, it was The Federalist’s Sean Davis who first reported that a source told him this was the case in the initial aftermath of the assassination attempt against the former president. It only adds to the incompetence of this administration, along with dousing the fires of a cover-up. At this point, there are too many coincidences, security failures, and now lies to dismiss this narrative outright (via NYT):
The Secret Service acknowledged on Saturday that it had turned down requests for additional federal resources sought by former President Donald J. Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination last week, a reversal from earlier statements by the agency denying that such requests had been rebuffed.
Almost immediately after a gunman shot at Mr. Trump from a nearby warehouse roof while he spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., last weekend, the Secret Service faced accusations from Republicans and anonymous law enforcement officials that it had turned down requests for additional agents to secure Mr. Trump’s rallies.
“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional resources and that those were rebuffed,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said last Sunday, the day after the shooting.
[…]
On Saturday, Mr. Guglielmi acknowledged that the Secret Service had turned down some requests for additional federal security assets for Mr. Trump’s detail. Two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that the Trump campaign had been seeking additional resources for the better part of the time that Mr. Trump had been out of office. The denied requests for additional resources were not specifically for the rally in Butler, Mr. Guglielmi said.
U.S. officials previously said the Secret Service had enhanced security for the former president before the Butler rally because it had received information from U.S. intelligence agencies about a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump.
[…]
The service never held or took part in a public briefing the night of the shooting, while other law enforcement officials held a news conference a few hours after the fact. The service did not hold a public briefing to answer questions in the week after the assassination attempt.
The Washington Post added:
Top officials at the U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel sought by Donald Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday, according to four people familiar with the requests.
Agents charged with protecting the former president requested magnetometers and more agents to screen attendees at sporting events and other large public gatherings Trump attended, as well as additional snipers and specialty teams at other outdoor events, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive security discussions. The requests, which have not been previously reported, were sometimes denied by senior officials at the agency, who cited various reasons, including a lack of resources at an agency that has long struggled with staffing shortages, they said.
Those rejections — in response to requests that were several times made in writing — led to long-standing tensions that pitted Trump, his top aides and his security detail against Secret Service leadership, as Trump advisers privately fretted that the vaunted security agency was not doing enough to protect the former president.
The Secret Service, after initially denying turning down requests for additional security, is now acknowledging some may have been rejected. The revelation comes as agency veterans say the organization has been forced to make difficult decisions amid competing demands, a growing list of protectees and limited funding.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is set to be grilled on Monday by House Oversight. How was the rooftop where shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, fired shots at Trump was left unprotected? Why wasn’t it swept before the rally? Why wasn’t a Secret Service drone in the air? How could Crooks fly his drone around the rally area before the attack? Finally, Trump says he wasn’t informed of the threat against him before the rally, adding the Secret Service never told him before he took the stage. The agency was aware of a threat against the former president ten minutes before the start of the event.
The Secret Service got caught lying.
