A Senate interim report released Wednesday on the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump leaves more questions than it answers.
That’s the impression one gets talking with Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, a leader in seeking answers to the two attempts on Trump’s life.
The 94-page report from the Senate’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, catalogs various spectacular failures of the Secret Service to protect the former president.
“The Secret Service agent in charge of Donald Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pa., was made aware of ‘credible intelligence’ of a threat against the former president,” the New York Post reports, “but didn’t pass it along to her supervisor or others planning security for the event, a Senate report on the assassination attempt found.”
“What it shows is, they were in no way prepared at the Butler rally,” an agitated Hawley said in an exclusive interview with The Heartlander Wednesday.
“They were not coordinating with local law enforcement. They allowed that shooter to get on the roof. Secret Service snipers saw him on the roof, and they didn’t alert people around Trump.
“And then it just gets worse and worse. You know, [U.S. Secret Service acting Director Ronald] Rowe testified to us that they hadn’t denied any resources to the Butler rally. That’s false. What we find in the report is, actually Secret Service agents on the ground requested all kinds of additional help and didn’t get it.
“So listen, I think this raises real credibility problems for the current director. I’ve told him that. In fact, I told him that today.
“And I think unless he can remedy those quickly, he’s going to have to go. And listen, other people who are in leadership around that Butler rally, they need to go. And they need to tell us why this keeps happening. How was it that the second shooter got within a couple hundred yards of Trump? I mean, this is wild.”
Rowe has insisted Trump is now getting the highest level of protection available, equal to that of a sitting president. And yet, Hawley tells Rowe in a letter that a whistleblower says “the U.S. Secret Service effectively forced the Trump campaign to cancel an upcoming event in Wisconsin.”
At the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is hotly contesting Wisconsin against Trump, was able to hold a rally in the swing state.
Why the double standard giving such an advantage to the Democrat nominee?
“I think it’s really, really weird,” Hawley says, “that they’re out there publicly saying, ‘Ohh, we’re giving everybody the same level of protection.’ But according to whistleblowers who came forward to me, they told the Trump campaign ‘we just can’t do a full-scale rally for you.’
“So, what Trump’s had to do is scale it back to a smaller event in Wisconsin because Secret Service wouldn’t provide the resources for a full-scale rally.
“Listen, I just want to know what the truth is here – is he getting equal protection or not? Yes or no. They need to answer that.”
Is Trump truly getting full protection? Hawley is skeptical.
“It doesn’t sound like it to me, you know? Listen, if they want to show us proof positive that he is, then I’m all ears. But it certainly doesn’t sound like it. And I have to say, the fact they didn’t even do a protective sweep of the golf course before Trump went onto it a couple of weekends ago – doing a sweep is protocol. They didn’t do it.
“Why not? It sounds like because they didn’t have the resources for it – which raises the question, why the heck not? I mean, the guy’s been shot at once already. There’s no explaining it.
“They also need to explain to us, how is it that assassins keep getting within a couple hundred yards of the president? I mean, this is crazy. This is crazy. And so far, near as I can tell, they haven’t done anything about it. Nobody’s been fired. No protocols have been changed that we know of. And it’s just not working. There needs to be accountability here.”
Perhaps, but with the Senate under Democrat control, it’s unclear what Congress can or will do about all this beyond issuing reports.
“Well, No. 1, the report is not even complete,” Hawley notes. “That’s an interim report. It doesn’t include anything about the second assassination. So, we have got to get all of the facts there too. We need to subpoena people who aren’t cooperating.
“Listen, Secret Service is not cooperating with congressional investigators. We had to pass my legislation today in the Homeland Security Committee compelling Secret Service to turn over documents, to turn over evidence, to make available witnesses.
“This is pathetic; two months after Butler, and they’re still not cooperating. We need full cooperation, and people need to be fired. Bottom line, people need to be fired so the agency gets the message: they have to change.”
