Whistleblowers Claim Most Agents Detailed With Protecting Trump Were not Secret Service
Disturbing new details about the failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump were brought to light on Tuesday evening.
In an interview on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (R) revealed that many of the agents assigned to protect Trump were not with the Secret Service, but with Homeland Security. Even more shocking, the agents had very little training, according to several whistleblowers.
Hawley informed Watters that the only training the Homeland Security agents received to protect the former president was via an online webinar.
“A two-hour, online webinar. And I’m told that half the time, the sounds to the webinar didn’t even work,” Hawley said. “So think about this: the former president of the US…is sent out on stage, most of the people there are not trained, they’re not qualified. They only got a webinar training and even that didn’t work.”
“It is absolutely outrageous.”
According to Hawley, the Homeland Security agents were taken away from their child exploitation cases and other investigations to be part of Trump’s protective detail. He also pointed out that this was something that usually does not happen.
Hawley criticized the Secret Service and the FBI for not releasing more information about the Butler, Pennsylvania rally where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks nearly assassinated Trump on July 13.
“The only reason we have this information is because of whistleblowers,” he informed Watters.
In his preliminary report, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) recently disclosed that it was the countersnipers with the Butler SWAT team who fired the first shots that damaged Crooks’ rifle and prevented him from shooting anyone else.
The Secret Service joined in afterward.
According to Higgins, who is a former police officer, Butler’s SWAT team “hit Crooks’ rifle and fragged his face/ neck/ right shoulder area from the (gun) stock breaking up.” As a result, Crooks was unable to continue his shooting spree before being killed, the Daily Mail reports.
This information clashed with the official report released by the Secret Service and the FBI. Both agencies reported that Crooks was quickly taken out by a Secret Service sniper.
Watters pointed out that the detail about the local SWAT team shooting at Crooks first was left out of Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr.’s testimony before Congress on July 31.
“He gave his agency total credit for bringing down Crooks,” said Watters.
In newly released photos, a large hole can be seen at the stock end of Crooks’ rifle, which collaborates with Higgins’ report that local police officers were the heroes of the day.
Higgins also noted that if it were not for the actions of the Butler SWAT team, the rally could have been far worse.
He described how a “total badass” shot at Crooks from approximately 100 yards away, near the AGR building where he had been stationed.
“When he had sighted the shooter Crooks as a mostly obscured by foliage moving target on the AGR rooftop, he immediately left his assigned post and ran towards the threat,” Higgins wrote.
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