Yet another whistleblower has come forward to reveal that the US Secret Service is still not providing maximum security protection to former President Donald Trump.
After two assassination attempts in the same number of months over the summer, lawmakers, Republicans and Trump supporters have called for a massive increase in security details for the 2024 presidential candidate.
Secret Service officials are blocking Department of Homeland Security auditors’ access to Trump’s meetings as they try to hide the fact that Trump does not have full protection, according to revelations from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
Multiple investigations – both in Congress and government agencies – are looking into the USSS security failures that led to Trump’s assassination attempts.
A new whistleblower complaint alleges that Donald Trump continues to receive the most extensive details from the Secret Service after two assassination attempts
The agency’s former director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned after the first attempt on Trump’s life during his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And the Secret Service promises it has increased security around Trump.
Congress even passed a law last month requiring major party presidential candidates to receive the same level of security as sitting presidents.
But Hawley claimed in a letter to acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe on Monday that Trump is not receiving the “highest level of Secret Service protection” as previously promised.
“The whistleblower claims that the Secret Service denied access to DHS auditors because the former President (Trump) does not receive the full level of protective equipment for all of his events, and the Secret Service leadership wants to cover up or simply hide this fact ‘ said the whistleblower. Republican Senator wrote.
The former president was shot in the right ear, a protester was hit and killed and two others were seriously injured before gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was neutralized by a Secret Service agent.
Then on September 15, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested after fleeing the scene where he pointed a gun at Trump while he was golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In the House of Representatives, after the first attempt on Trump’s life, a bipartisan task force was formed to investigate what happened leading up to and during the meeting, allowing Crooks to get several shots in the former president’s direction.
And now the panel is also examining the second attempt.
Senator Josh Hawley sent a public letter to acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe, detailing claims that Trump could be assigned a stronger security team
Last month, the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a bipartisan report on its findings after investigating the first incident.
The disturbing report revealed that the agent responsible for overseeing the Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) – or drones – called a toll-free 888 technical support hotline “to resolve issues with the company.” There were no backups.
It took several hours to get the drones operational again – and the officer in charge of drone operations had only three months of experience with the equipment.
The report also concluded that the failures leading up to the meeting were “foreseeable and preventable and directly related to the events that resulted in the assassination attempt that day.”
USSS denied specific on-site requests for additional C-UAS drone capabilities and a Counter Assault Team contact.
And the team on the ground was notified two minutes before Crooks fired shots at a person on the roof of the AGR building, just a few hundred yards from where Trump spoke that day.