The Secret Service’s failure to stop the Trump shooter is a despicable scandal. And, DAN MCLAUGHLIN warns, the implications for every American’s safety are truly terrifying

The Secret Service has a lot of explaining to do.

How did a hitman with a rifle get on the roof of a building just over 100 yards from Donald Trump’s podium at Saturday’s rally? It should be standard procedure for the Secret Service to clear roofs and windows with a clear line of sight of someone they’re protecting.

Yet it appears that Thomas Crooks, the alleged killer, was alone there. No one secured the roof. And rallygoers – who saw him moments before his attack – told a BBC reporter that they were pushed aside when they tried to alert security officers.

Now we know that Trump came within inches of death. He was incredibly lucky to have only a wing on his ear. If it weren’t for the wind, the slight tilt of his head, and the poor shooting of the 20-year-old shooter, America would have been dealing with a traumatic national tragedy of unthinkable proportions.

It is already a personal tragedy, as one of the participants in Trump’s rally was killed and two others were seriously injured.

For the Trump family, it was Melania and Barron who had to watch their husband and father nearly die before their eyes.

Incompetence in this industry costs lives and destroys lives.

There may also be after-action reviews as to why the officers surrounding Trump’s podium didn’t act more quickly to block him and get him off the stage. But those are split-second decisions. And on the whole, the courage of those who came to the former president’s aid is indeed admirable.

However, it is unforgivable not to prevent this in advance.

There are many questions:

Was Trump’s detail understaffed to do its job? Has his security been compromised? Can we trust future rallies to be safe? What are the implications for next week’s Republican National Convention?

Pennsylvania Congressman Mike Waltz, who was at the meeting, tweeted afterward that “very reliable sources” “have told me there have been repeated requests for enhanced Secret Service protection for President Trump,” which he said were denied by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. But a Secret Service spokesman quickly responded that it was “absolutely untrue” that “any member of the former President’s team” had made such a request.

A House investigation is now essential.

On Saturday, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security demanded that Secretary Mayorkas cooperate in a thorough investigation of the Secret Service.

Secret Service personnel escorted a defiant Trump into a vehicle after he was injured

Republicans can expect little help from Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, who introduced a bill in April to strip Trump of his surveillance team.

One of Thompson’s associates, Jacqueline Marsaw, wrote a vile Facebook post Saturday night, saying she wished the shooter hadn’t missed Trump.

Meanwhile, the Secret Service continues to deny protection to independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father and uncle were assassinated. Shame on them.

The Secret Service is one of the most respected institutions in America, beloved for its professionalism and the selfless courage of agents who literally put themselves in the line of fire.

But as we have seen with so many other once great institutions in recent years, its reputation has long outlived reality. We have just seen how easily the demise of the Secret Service can threaten the very foundation of our society.

It’s an open secret in Washington. The service has endured years of bad press for a culture of drunken agents visiting prostitutes, ignoring digital security risks and behaving inappropriately. Recently, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was criticized for emphasizing diversity in hiring practices, potentially lowering standards.

That controversy erupted after an incident in April of this year when Michelle Herczeg, a female officer on Vice President Kamala Harris’s team, began behaving erratically, suffered a mental breakdown and got into a scuffle with other armed officers. Herczeg was a former Dallas police officer who quit her job in 2016 after accusing a superior of sexual misconduct — a charge she filed with a damages lawsuit that was subsequently dismissed by a court in 2021.

There is still no clear answer as to why she was placed on Harris’ team after this incident.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by U.S. Secret Service seconds after the bullet hit the former president’s ear

The VP’s detail has also been plagued by reckless driving. In October 2022, Harris had to be transferred to another vehicle after her SUV hit a curb so hard it briefly flew through the air. The Secret Service incorrectly reported the incident as a “mechanical failure,” and the agent who was driving was waived from the usual requirement to take a defensive driving course.

The agency has not been able to cover itself in glory in recent investigations, either. It got into trouble for deleting posts that Congress had ordered in the Jan. 6 investigation.

Somehow, the agency couldn’t figure out who brought cocaine into the Biden White House last summer.

It issued a vague denial of reports that agents had visited the gun dealer who sold Hunter Biden a revolver in 2018 (the one that led to his recent conviction for lying on a federal firearms purchase form) and tried to obtain the purchase papers. Yet the dealer told the FBI that both the Secret Service and local Delaware police visited his business the day after Hunter made the illegal purchase.

Not all of the agency’s recent humiliations have been of its own making. Think of a drunk driver who rammed a parked SUV into Joe Biden’s motorcade in December and repeated incidents in which officers were bitten by Biden’s dog, Commander.

But stopping a hitman from setting up a platform with a clear line of sight to target a former president? That’s their job. They failed miserably.