Within days of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, reports revealed that countless requests for additional security resources for his campaign were denied.
The Secret Service has since attempted to defend the denial of resources and not a single person within the agency’s leadership has been held accountable.
But Josh Hawley just revealed who ordered cuts to security resources for Donald Trump’s Butler rally.
Failure at every level
Last week, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. appeared before a joint session of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees in order to supposedly provide the American people with transparency about the agency’s failure to protect former President Donald Trump and his supporters at last month’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Despite the fact that their failure caused one innocent American to lose his life, two others to be critically injured, and a former President to be mere millimeters from losing his life, the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI have all refused to provide Americans with anything resembling adequate answers about why so many things just happened to go wrong that day.
Outside of his scripted, choreographed opening statement, in which he feigned sincerity and remorse for the failure, Rowe simply refused to give any real answers.
In fact, he really just provided a bunch of new, nonsensical excuses.
Even though the shooter was able to operate his own drone on the property to better ensure the success of his attempted assassination, the Secret Service said they were unable to operate a counter-drone system because of a “connectivity challenge.”
Fortunately, some media reports have actually provided Americans with answers.
For example, CNN recently reported that the Secret Service did not deploy a “counter surveillance unit that would be dedicated to observing and tracking suspicious people” for the Butler rally.
And now Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) has revealed whistleblower testimony that not only backs up that report, but also reveals who was behind cutting critical security resources, including the counter surveillance unit, from the Trump rally.
“Gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot”
In a letter to Acting Director Rose, Hawley revealed that whistleblowers confirmed the aforementioned CNN report by exposing the fact that the Secret Service oddly chose not to deploy its Counter Surveillance Division (CSD) to Butler even though it’s supposed to be standard protocol.
As CNN mentioned in its reporting, the CSD is in charge of performing threat assessments at venues prior to the event and would be dedicated to observing and tracking suspicious people, such as a guy flying a drone and using a rangefinder two hours before the rally.
“The whistleblower claims that if personnel from CSD had been present at the rally, the gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder,” Hawley wrote to Rowe.
“You acknowledged in your Senate testimony that the American Glass Research complex should have been included in the security perimeter for the Butler event,” he added. “The whistleblower alleges that because CSD was not present in Butler, this manifest shortcoming was never properly flagged or mitigated.”
But who within the Secret Service’s leadership would have possibly ordered cuts to such a critical element of the agency’s standard security protocol before the Trump rally?
According to Senator Hawley’s whistleblower, it was Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. himself who “personally directed significant cuts to CSD.”
“The whistleblower further alleges that you personally directed significant cuts to CSD, up to and including reducing the division’s manpower by 20 percent,” Hawley continued. “You did not mention this in your Senate testimony when asked directly to explain manpower reductions.”
Ronald Rowe should resign as well. #accountability for J13! https://t.co/30rE6Uk3xu
— Renewed Right (@RenewedRight) August 1, 2024
Promoted
The man who “personally directed” cuts to critical security resources that ultimately played a massive role in allowing a would-be assassin to open fire on Trump and his supporters was PROMOTED to Acting Director of the agency after his failure.
Even as Acting Director, Rowe continued to parrot the Secret Services’ excuses about a “lack of resources” and “reductions in manpower” in order to justify their failures that day.
But Rowe knew the entire time that he was the one who “personally directed” those cuts.
Worse yet, the whistleblower also informed Senator Hawley that Secret Service “leadership” has engaged in “retaliation” against anyone within the agency who expresses concerns about security at Trump events.
The whistleblower noted that Secret Service personnel previously expressed “serious concern” that the security resources provided to protect the former President were not adequate, but they were “retaliated against” for raising concerns.
This is another example of the total incompetence within virtually every aspect of the United States government.
And it will only get worse until Americans truly demand change.
Patriot Political will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
