Posted on 07/15/2024 4:50:50 AM PDT by MtnClimber
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump is not the kind of event that I would normally write about at Manhattan Contrarian. Like many other newsworthy events, it’s not that it’s not important; it’s that I don’t have any special expertise or insights to offer.
But there is one aspect of this attempted assassination that cries out for comment. That is the truly incredible failure of the Secret Service that enabled the shooter to gain access to the vantage point to shoot.
I don’t claim to have ever been involved in the security business, or to have any particular knowledge about how to secure what they call the “protectee” at a campaign rally or other event. But it certainly does seem obvious to me that among the most important security precautions to be taken, if not the very most important, would be to restrict access to any nearby vantage points from which a would-be assassin could have a clear shot at the target.
If that wasn’t obvious from just thinking about it, there is also the fact that the previous most famous failure of security involving a President turned on exactly this issue. That would be the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. In that case, Lee Harvey Oswald was able to get himself a spot on the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository with a clear line of sight at Kennedy’s passing motorcade. The failure to have taken obvious security precautions to secure that site has led to decades of accusations that the intelligence community was somehow involved in planning or facilitating the assassination. After all, could they really have been this stupid?
But actually, the Kennedy assassination presents a much less clear instance of failure of security than does the recent attempt on Trump. On the fateful day in 1963, Kennedy’s motorcade, including the open limousine in which he rode, moved through several blocks of downtown Dallas, passing some dozens of buildings that could have served as a perch for an assassin. Fully securing all of them would understandably have been very difficult. (For that very reason, it would be unthinkable today for a President (or candidate) to move through a downtown area in an open car.).
By contrast, at the Butler, PA, farm show venue where the attempt on Trump’s life took place, Trump was stationary during the rally, and there was only one nearby cluster of buildings that could potentially serve as an assassin’s nest. Here is a map of the Butler site from the BBC website:
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino has had extremely harsh criticism of his former employer both on X and in television appearances over the past day. Here is a quote from Bongino’s X account as quoted at the Daily Signal:
“This is an obviously catastrophic failure and NO excuses should be made, or even attempted,” Bongino posted on X. “The failures are profound and questions must be answered about ground surveillance, air surveillance, post-stander support, and counter-sniper advance work and response. We have ONE job, and we came within inches of a deadly failure today. An uneventful failure is NOT a success.”
If you think that Bongino is too much of an obvious Trump partisan to be objective, then you may be interested in the view of Erik Prince. Prince is known as the founder of the Blackwater firm that has famously provided security services to the U.S. government in some of the most dangerous places in the world.
DJT was not saved by USSS brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence. Clearly there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position and take multiple aimed shots. . . . In my old business of providing Diplomatic Security in two active war zones we were expected to execute the basics or we would be fired. Clearly USSS failed at the basics of a secure perimeter. . . .
And Prince finds plenty more to criticize in the performance of the Secret Service team:
[O]nce shots were fired their extraction was clumsy and left DJT highly exposed to follow on attacks. It looked like they had never drilled together because those responses should be effectively autonomic.
Prince concludes:
Will there be accountability? That's not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.
Is Prince justified in suggesting “malice” as a possibility? Certainly there is a level of failure that makes mere “incompetence” a difficult inference to reach.
In the same vein, note that to this day the Biden/Mayorkas Homeland Security Department continues to refuse Secret Service protection to independent candidate Robert Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy has polled as high as about 15% in some polls (although as low as 4% in others, and at 9.5% in the RealClearPolitics average over the last two weeks. Biden polls a few points worse in the 5-way polls that include Kennedy than in head-to-head polls against Trump. Refusing Secret Service protection to Kennedy effectively prevents him from holding big rallies. Is there anything political in the Biden/Mayorkas decision to deny the protection? The alternative hypothesis is that they are just trying to save the taxpayers a little money — something they have shown no inclination to do in any other context for the past three plus years.
Yes, they can. But it is now obvious the SS is as seriously compromised as the rest of the federal government.
Donut munching morons-—just as Airline stewardesses are referred to as Glorified waitresses—The secret service are Glorified Bodyguards—but unable to guard ANYTHING-—what a disgrace! Seriously? WTF are these idiots doing/ NO ONE is safe with these idiots in charge of security—might as well commit suicide—easier and cleaner. F them!
That picture alone is very damning. It’s an open roof that should have been easily seen from a helicopter or drone.
It is hard for me to believe that the sharp-shooters perched on the adjoining roof did not see and have the assassin in their sights prior to the shooting. He was seen by those with less advantageous vantage points! They had straight line-of-site positioning and it was their job to be searching the area for potential shooters. It seems more plausible that they had him in their crosshairs, but someone of higher authority refused permission for them to preemptively take a kill shot. They had no problem taking him out quickly but not until he had opened fire. Let’s see if anyone’s head rolls or who will be the scapegoat!
PTrump’s detail was largely pulled to protect Jill. These were temps from field offices
We can summarize the failures of the Secret Service with one term: DEI. The head of the SS is a diversity hire (thanks Biden) who cares more about getting 30% women hired vs actually skilled people who could do the job well. Now women can be skilled too. I know. Used to date a Mossad gal who could take apart most men without blinking. All I’m saying is skill and competence should be the hiring factors, not race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
“...Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority...”
Yes, they are called democrats. That is the PRIMARY problem with the USA. It is filled with democrats.
It does not help that the puppet regime has installed in government thousands of low life disease ridden foreigners, who have NO compunction to learn and respect the ways of our forbearers. They bring in their shit hole culture of crime and corruption, spread all over every institution.
Just take a look at Biden’s cabinet. These undesirables need to be expelled, torn out, root and branch.
The SS advance team would normally have had screening put up that blocked the view of the stage from those buildings outside the venue. They would probably have a SS lookout on those buildings too, if they had enough SS. Local LEO should have been on those buildings at a minimum.
If you look at this one event, I would be charitable and go with dereliction of duty.
However, taken in context:
Biden’s “time to put Trump in the bullseye”
Lawfare attacks
FBI disinfo with Hunter’s laptop
50 spooks letter
No rooftop security @ 150 yards line of site
Outsmarted by a 20 year old
Gunman spotted by civilians 3-4 minutes prior to shooting
No reaction by LE until Trump shot
Trump the new Hitler meme repeated endlessy by mainstream media propagandists
Etc., etc. etc.
Looks more like a planned lapse. I have trouble believing the SS is this incompetent.
If you look at all the coordinated and implied threats by the Biden regime, what is the logical conclusion?
Even DEI hires know to secure the roof. Sorry, not buying this excuse.
I wonder if Biden's SS detail follows the same one-free-shot rule. I bet not.
Yep saw that. Fire all the females and director of SS.
Those who weaponize the secret Service have forfeited their right to life and liberty.
They looked kind of like the Keystone Cops.
Unpracticed and sloppy.
We have found out that many on the Trump detail were fill ins because that crazy selfish First Lady, Jill was in Pennsylvania and they sent factory seconds in to cover Trump. His counter sniper coverage was only okayed the day before.
Now I don’t know about you, but something really smells here.
I wouldn’t be surprised if power hungry Jill ...
It looked to me like that lady crouched down to scoop up his hat.
My answer is to be ignored: Reporting to several agencies and departments hides many plans.
That is a week away. It is possible they have to give them a week before appearing.
That said, I agree with you and wish it were today.
“If you think that Bongino is too much of an obvious Trump partisan to be objective, then you may be interested in the view of Erik Prince.”
—
Indeed, Prince’s long tweet on Twitter is a good read:
“Hopefully after the tragedy yesterday in Butler PA we can all recognize that unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans.
Donald J Trump is alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assasin.
As the graphics show the full value wind of just 5mph was enough to displace the unconfirmed but likely light 55 grain bullet two inches from DJT’s intended forehead to his ear.
DJT was not saved by USSS brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.
Clearly there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position and take multiple aimed shots. Watching the newsreel one can hear how proximate the shooter is by the very short time lapse between the crack of arriving bullet (supersonic) to the boom of muzzle blast (sonic).
The law enforcement sniper (unclear if USSS) in newsreels was clearly overwhelmed as his face came off his rifle instead of doing his job to kill the shooter.
Clearly they were watching the shooter but apparently have a no “first shot” policy. The only positive action was an apparent 488yd shot by one USSS sniper which despatched the assasin but after the assassin launched at least 5 rounds, wounding DJT and killing and severely others in the crowd.
In my old business of providing Diplomatic Security in two active war zones we were expected to execute the basics or we would be fired.
Clearly USSS failed at the basics of a secure perimeter and once shots were fired their extraction was clumsy and left DJT highly exposed to follow on attacks.
It looked like they had never drilled together because those responses should be effectively autonomic. Will there be accountability? That’s not the Washington way.
Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster. Merit and execution must be the only deciding factors in hiring and leadership, not the social engineering priority of the day.
Sadly nothing in Washington reflects that any longer. DJT is right to question the competence of those protecting him because yesterday they failed in almost every way. Nature abhors a vacuum and there are always other options.
Most importantly, as Americans let’s come together and run a proper valid election so we can get back to what matters a merit based society that judges on character and skill. Nothing else.”
BKMK
“SS protection, those he did get (I think it was 5) were likely the worst of the worst diversity hires with no experience.”
One of the talking heads Saturday or yesterday said that EVERY person on his Thursday SS detail never had done a protection assignment before. For every one, it was the first time.
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