Whistleblowers have come forward to allege that the Secret Service was understaffed at former president Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., where a would-be assassin’s bullet wounded his right ear, because of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., that concluded days earlier.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio.) wrote a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray on Thursday outlining the whistleblower allegations brought to the committee ahead of Wray’s congressional testimony next week.
“Whistleblowers have disclosed to the Committee that the USSS led two briefings regarding the July 13 campaign rally on July 8, 2024, with the Western Pennsylvania Fusion Center (WPFC) and other stakeholders, to discuss the upcoming, unrelated visits by President Trump and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden,” the letter reads.
“The USSS Special Agent in Charge Tim Burke reportedly told law enforcement partners that the USSS had limited resources that week because the agency was covering the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C,” the letter adds.
In addition to the NATO summit, which concluded on Thursday, the Secret Service had to cover campaign appearances by First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris last weekend.
Jordan is demanding Wray hand over information related to the FBI’s ongoing investigation of the major intelligence failures leading up to the attempt on Trump’s life, and all relevant FBI documents and communications related to the incident. Jordan is also asking whether the first lady’s event nearby added to the Secret Service’s reduced presence at the Trump rally.
The FBI is leading the investigation and working with a variety of other law enforcement agencies to carry it out. FBI specialists have accessed the phone of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks and conducted dozens of interviews in the days following Crooks’s rampage. Wray is scheduled to testify for the Judiciary Committee next week on the Trump-assassination attempt and other matters.
Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle is set to testify next week about the law-enforcement failures surrounding the shooting at Trump’s rally last weekend, which killed retired fire chief Corey Comperatore and critically wounded two others. Law enforcement gunned down Crooks after he began firing bullets into the crowd from a nearby rooftop.
Cheatle will likely face a barrage of questions related to her agency’s failure to secure the rooftop Crooks was stationed on, which presented a safety hazard. She will also certainly be asked why Trump wasn’t prevented from taking the stage after police flagged Crooks as a potential threat nearly half an hour before the former president began speaking. Rally attendees also flagged Crooks to the cops after they saw him climbing up onto the roof minutes before he opened fire.
Republican senators confronted Cheatle at the GOP convention on Wednesday night, demanding answers on the security failures at the Trump rally and the decision to allow Trump to take the stage after law enforcement became aware of a suspicious person.
The Secret Service’s failure to secure the Trump rally is one of many major lapses over the past 15 years, an issue made worse by the agency’s recruiting problems and reduced hiring standards, which were implemented to increase diversity.
President Joe Biden was one of many world leaders attending the NATO summit last week, and he gave a press conference at the event that was considered a make-or-break moment for his political future following his disastrous debate performance.
Before the press conference, Democrats were holding public conversations about potentially swapping Biden for a different presidential nominee because of his age, 81, and considerable mental decline. Those conversations have continued this week, but they have been mostly overshadowed by the failed assassination attempt against Trump and the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Trump will be giving his keynote speech tonight to close out the Republican convention only days after his defiant response to Crooks’s attack instantly became the stuff of political legend.