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.
I drive by the park where I met president Ford back in the 1970s and you can see where they trimmed the pine trees so no one could climb up.
I cannot disagree with what you said. IOW I agree.
Do you think something else was going on?
The girls spent more time adjusting their sunglasses. They seemed to be more concerned with having their shades in place and were distracted.
Trump's regular Secret Service detail was not there - only one person was from his regular detail. Jill 'happened' to have a nearby event - if she 'happened' to schedule it late, have been more experienced, patriot Secret Service agents scheduled to fill in temporarily, and then were pulled away at the last minute to serve her highness.
The others in Trump's regular Secret Service detail were reportedly given time off because they've been working 7 days a week for a very long time. I don't think Trump's regular Secret Service detail abruptly went from working 7 days a week, as deemed needed to keep him alive, to all of them asking to have simultaneous time off, and allowing a temporary detail to be assigned in their places, knowing that the FBI would be 'supporting' the effort that day.
I think Cheatle may have used Human Resources staff to compel 'time off' en masse 'in the interests of national security and employee health'. If they are so short handed that they consistently deny Trump requested agents, then why 'let' those agents all take time off together?
We're to believe Trump is inadequately guarded by Secret Service because $25 million in funding is in limbo, even though that would/should impact other former presidents. Are George Bush, Clinton and Obama all given too few unqualified staff to meet basic security needs like Trump? If that actually happened, wouldn't THEY push for the $25 million in Secret Service detail funding to be approved? Is Biden impacted by sparse staffing? Obama runs the show behind Biden - he's surely gotten all the Secret Service agents he wants or needs.
If Trump's Secret Service asked for time off - they would have done so in partial stages leaving the regular detail 'in charge' and supervising any 'temps'. I think decisions by Biden's Secret Service head (Cheatle); the consistent denials of requests for more agents; the 'limbo' status of $25 million in SS funding (at a time they claim Bidens are in MAGA danger), all point to a concerted effort to drain Trump's Secret Service detail to the point they could 'get him' and make it look like an outside job which took place during the use of temporary, DEI hires. Yes, Cheatle focuses on DEI; that's likely to give a target for an outraged public to focus on while the Deep State orchestrates the hit.
I think it's possible the head of the Secret Service declared that most of Trump's regular detail 'had' to take their time off NOW, before the RNC convention, and while there were probably more 'veteran' Secret Service agents scheduled to accompany him to the rally, they were probably pulled away under the pretense of guarding Jill 'at the last moment.'
Three short women 'guarding' a 6'2" man? One crouching in hiding behind him? The reason there are such great photos of Trump during the response to the shooting is because he was not adequately covered to photographs could take 'shots' of him just as well as any other assassins present. He was still, chest bare, face and head bare etc. This was intentional and made to look like incompetence, but it was planned.
Hard to pull information, either exonerating or incriminating, away from the FBI now because they've taken control of the investigation. I think some of the temporary Secret Service were infiltrators, but the FBI will keep them from talking to the press citing, 'ongoing investigation.' The same is true for anyone decent guarding the president that day - they won't be permitted to talk because of the FBI's 'ongoing investigation.' The FBI playbook puts anyone decent among the Secret Service that day at risk - scapegoating etc. See Jan 6 prisoners or General Flynn for details.
The FBI was in control of the press conference without any Secret Service representative there. The FBI said that the SS was responsible, and that the FBI and Penn State Police were only there for support. I doubt Trump's regular detail, or any loyal patriot veteran Secret Service assigned temporarily to him, wanted FBI 'support' in place of their own agents, given what the FBI has been doing to Trump.
I wonder if Trump was late to his venue because these changes to his security detail, although planned well in advance, were announced in stages at 'the last minute'. If so, there would either strenuous objection to sending so few, unqualified Agents 'supported' by FBI, and/or Penn Police, or some patriots were asking/begging Trump not to go to the rally. How likely would it be for Trump to 'let' them force him to cancel his rally? If he let them get away with it this time, they would continue to play games like this for the next few months.
All speculation on my part - but the 'story' as presented by the FBI in charge of the investigation of the assassination attempt, which is coincidentally the same group in charge of 'investigating' Hunter Biden's laptop, emits a foul odor. The obvious conflict of interest in appointing the FBI after their authorized 'lethal force' Mar A Lago raids is just a whiff of the underlying stench.
SS regulations got the fireman killed, two othes wounded and Trump within the movement of his head from taking a bullet to the brain.
The SS is 100% at fault, both for the lax ways the set up their "perimeter" lack of people on the nearby roofs, no overhead drones and chickenshit rules of "engagement".
A guy with a gun on a roof should be taken out before he shoots, and if the dumb bastard was only looking through a telescope from that roof top, tough.
Good story;gives one a lot to think about. Right now I am just thankful that Mr. Trump seems to be OK, but it must give one cause for what might happen at the RNC Convention.
One of the more disturbing facts coming out is that some members of the security detail were aware that they had a potentially armed intruder for a substantial period of time before the shooting.
In fact, the security detail was aware that they had the shooter on the roof for almost the entire time Trump was on stage and perhaps even before he took the stage.
President Trump took the stage at 6:02 pm and the shooting took place at 6:11 pm so there was 9 minutes between the time Trump took the stage and the shooting. .
We know that security knew about the shooter at least 7 minutes before the shooting but it is entirely possible that they knew about the shooter before Trump even took the stage and they let him get on stage while the shooter was still an unresolved factor
This is really inexplicable from any normal behavior perspective of a professional Secret Service detail.
Maybe. I know that happened. But I thought it was a different one. (They all looked similar — sort of.)
Extreme incompetence, failure to do your one and only job.
What should we expect....absolutely nothing. There will be no accountability, just expect finger pointing.
Someone posted a super close up video somewhere and she leaned down to pick up his hat.
That still doesn’t excuse the SS performance Saturday night. The hat wasn’t important and she should have left it there.
What’s The Story With The Secret Service?
Incompetence
You mean you were not impressed by the gal with the ponytail who’s head was popping left to right faster than someone watching speed tennis?
Or the fat short one who was so out of place it was laughable? The sad part was when they had President Trump loaded and the doors closed. The three keystone cops security chicks looked lost and confused. Way to go chicky-poos! Set back the women’s equality movement by decades!!
What doesn’t add up...
It’s the *combination* of such a security lapse, which seems like SS101, AND that some 20 year old Antifa prick was ready to take advantage of it. The odds that the best shooting position wasn’t covered AND a shooter exploited the vulnerability seem small to none...UNLESS it was planned.
The failures of the s.s. are so basic, that it defies explanation.
President Trump is 6’3” tall.
Let’s put some 5’5” agents out there.
The crowd not only saw but pointed out the shooter moving into position.
All s.s. snipers were on the same rooftop.
That rooftop was in what should have been a secure area.
Little agents blocked the way for the larger agents to get to him.
The smaller agents could not even holster their sidearms.
The entire leadership, and this entire team, need to go away.
Yesterday.
Probably the first time she every drew her weapon and had to re holster it. No need to practice, they just model sunglasses, crew cuts and cute matching suits.
I’m going with malice. It was a botched hit job. The level of incompetence you would have to accept is just not feasible.
I with malice also. It would be crazy to give an assassin a free shot. No one would accept that unless they were ok for the target to be killed.
Trying to talk this away is just not going work. It was just too in your face this time. I have total disdain for the Secret Service but even I’m not willing to believe they’re that incompetent.
The other important thing is ROE by the CST.
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