- “This is a nightmare,” Hawley said of the events surrounding the attack.
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Whistleblowers have come forward to reveal to Congress the “nightmare” situation that agents say was not properly trained to protect Donald Trump from assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) revealed Tuesday that several people have alleged that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents were “completely unprepared” when they were reassigned to Trump’s security team.
The HSI agents were given one pre-recorded, two-hour webinar via Microsoft Teams, but it was riddled with technical issues, the whistleblowers alleged about the Secret Service training.
They also describe that the training session has not been updated since the July 13 assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And other HSI agents who worked on the high-profile meeting told Hawley’s office that their training consisted of only “one PowerPoint presentation.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said whistleblowers told him about the “nightmare” training HSI agents received to help provide security for Donald Trump at the rally where an assassin tried to kill the former president.
“This is a nightmare. The only reason we know about this is because of whistleblowers,” Hawley told Fox News during an interview on Jesse Watters Primetime on Tuesday.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire at the rally this summer that shocked the country.
One bullet grazed Trump’s right ear and others hit rallygoers, killing one and seriously wounding two others. Officers shot Crooks dead at the scene in Butler, but investigations into the incident have so far raised more questions than answers, members of Congress said.
The incident led to the resignation of USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle.
As a former president, Trump enjoys Secret Service protection, but HSI agents were also deployed to assist him and were present at the July meeting.
However, people with HSI explained to Hawley how inadequate the training and preparation they had received to join Trump’s protective service was.
“Imagine 1,000 people logging into Microsoft Teams at the same time, after being told at the last minute that everyone had to log in individually,” a whistleblower told Hawley, according to a letter the senator sent to USSS Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr.
‘Once it got going, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio from the pre-recorded videos to work [which I’m told are the same videos as last year]”In total, they restarted the videos about six times,” he continued. “The content was not helpful.”
Hawley’s office continues to communicate with whistleblowers about the details surrounding the attempted assassination of Trump.
Various groups and lawmakers are trying to take the lead in investigating the attack, leading to a lot of conflicting information and confusion about who has the commanding authority on the matter.
The House of Representatives appointed a 13-member bipartisan commission to formally investigate the events.
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Donald Trump survived the attempted assassination of his life after a bullet hit his ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents were part of Trump’s protective detail that day — and whistleblowers now reveal they received only one, two-hour, glitchy webinar training before being assigned to protect the former president
One of the main questions being asked is how Crooks was able to climb onto the roof of the AGR building on the farm where the rally was taking place, carrying his father’s AR-15 rifle.
Hawley’s office has previously spoken out against the experience and competence of the chief officer on the construction site.
“The agent on the scene, the lead agent, was known to the Trump campaign as inexperienced, ineffective and, frankly, incompetent at their job,” Hawley told Watters. “I have also been told by whistleblowers that she did not follow normal security protocols that day.”
“She didn’t check people’s IDs. She didn’t use Secret Service agents,” Hawley continued.
“Most of the agents that day were not Secret Service agents. They were Homeland Security agents.”