Former Secret Service Agent Drops Big Update
Conservative commentator, writer, and entrepreneur Dan Bongino, who served as a Secret Service agent for 12 years, has demanded the immediate resignation of the agency’s current director following the near-assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Referring to the incident at a Saturday rally in Butler, Pa., as an “apocalyptic security failure,” Bongino, who previously worked on the protective details of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama after teaching at the Secret Service Training Academy in Maryland, was reacting to an agency statement that officials had “added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.”
He criticized his former employer for not taking responsibility for the incident, which left Trump vulnerable after several prior detections by bystanders, local police, and agents on the scene that should have prompted action against the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks.
“This is the best technology we have’? Really? To let a sniper 150 yards away from the potential next president shoot a piece of his ear off?” Bongino told Fox News. “Kimberly Cheatle has failed Donald Trump, and honestly failed Joe Biden too.”
He also mentioned that agency counter-sniper teams failed to engage Crooks before he managed to fire multiple shots.
“We’re trained out to 1,000 yards in the Secret Service with the counter-sniper team. How did they miss someone at most one-fifth of the way there? It doesn’t make any sense. And even worse, it’s broad daylight on a white roof,” Bongino added.
The Secret Service has firmly denied claims that Trump’s security detail requested reinforcements and were denied. However, Bongino asserts he has proof to the contrary. “I can tell you actual quotes,” he said on Sunday.
“I can tell you, and absolutely confirm, from the horse’s mouth, from multiple people … there have been repeated requests to increase the security footprint, around not just the residences of Donald Trump, but the body itself,” the former agent said. “And they have been rebuffed.”
Summarizing the incident as his interview concluded, Bongino stated, “Never forget, an uneventful failure is never a success, and the fact that Donald Trump didn’t die yesterday is no reason for anybody to take some kind of victory lap.”
After the agency claimed local police were responsible for securing the building and rooftop used by Crooks, the head of the Fraternal Order of Police criticized the U.S. Secret Service.
The group’s president, Patrick Yoes, emphasized that the federal agency’s primary role is to protect Trump wherever he is.
Yoes made his comments after the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, reiterated the agency's stance that local police were supposed to secure that building.
“All of us want answers,” Yoes said in a statement, noting Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ remarks that the security lapse nearly cost Trump his life. “All of us in law enforcement can agree that the roof of the building should have been secured by law enforcement. It clearly was not.”
Fox News reports:
The Secret Service has come under fire after it was revealed the alleged shooter was able to obtain an elevated shooting position just outside the security perimeter of the rally. Yoes noted that the agency relies on the support and assistance of local authorities for such events.
“Suggestions made in the media that suggest local agencies should play no role in assisting the USSS at events like that one in Butler simply do not know what they are talking about,” he said.
Yoes stated that the Secret Service will depend more on local police agencies as the election approaches.
“Yet, in the wake of some of the anonymous comments from unknown officials, State and local agencies may wonder if they can rely on the Secret Service,” he said. “I am concerned that anonymous statements or media speculation could have a chilling effect on the ability of Federal, State and local law enforcement to work together through what will certainly be a grueling campaign.”