As it becomes clear that former President Donald Trump will survive his wounds and recover quickly, the focus of Saturday’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, shifts to how this could have happened — particularly on the watch of the Secret Service.
Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics might have one of the answers as to how this could have happened.
She reported Saturday that resources within the Secret Service were diverted away from the presumptive GOP nominee’s detail and were instead deployed to protect first lady Jill Biden as she campaigned for her husband, President Joe Biden, the same day.
Both the first lady and Trump were in the Pittsburgh area on Saturday, according to KDKA-TV; Biden was scheduled to speak “in Pittsburgh with the White House announcing on Wednesday she will speak at an Italian Sons and Daughters dinner. That will also be at 5 p.m. She’s expected to arrive at Pittsburgh International Airport an hour before the event.”
“This marks the First Lady’s third visit to Pittsburgh this summer,” the Pittsburgh station noted.
Pennsylvania is, of course, a battleground state — and one where Joe Biden should, theoretically, have an advantage; given that his home state of Delaware also includes much of suburban Philadelphia and the two states’ legislative priorities are closely linked, he was often referred to as “Pennsylvania’s third senator” during his time in the upper chamber.
However, the erstwhile “third senator” is down in the Keystone State by 5.3 points in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate as of Monday morning, and he barely won the state in the 2020 election as well.
But it’s the presence of two high-profile figures in the same area at the same time that might have allowed a security breach at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania event, according to Crabtree, who is RealClearPolitics White House and national political correspondent.
Do you believe Crabtree’s report?
“This is the problem that my Secret Sources have cited: Secret Services resources were diverted to Jill Biden’s event and away from Trump’s because they followed agency protocol applying to Trump as a former president, according to two sources within the Secret Service community,” she posted Sunday evening on X.
“There were also many supplemental agents from different field officers (not Trump’s regular detail) providing security at the rally because Trump’s regular detail has been overworked (some working 7 days straight), and only two counter-snipers,” Crabtree said.
“But Trump is not just a former president — he is the first in modern history to have run for president again — and he has been the focus of several prosecutions and controversies (understatement intentional),” she wrote.
“Who made the decision to divert the resources to Jill Biden’s event?”
This is the problem that my Secret Sources have cited: Secret Services resources were diverted to Jill Biden’s event and away from Trump’s because they followed agency protocol applying to Trump as a former president, according to two sources within the Secret Service community.… pic.twitter.com/9MzmS6Bia7
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 14, 2024
Anthony Gugliemi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, disputed this report.
“Susan, this is very wrong. We did not divert resources from FPOTUS Trump & protection models don’t work that way,” he responded several hours later.
“As far as ‘field office teams’ these are the candidate nominee operations teams that are added during election years for the heavy travel tempo.”
Susan, this is very wrong. We did not divert resources from FPOTUS Trump & protection models don’t work that way. As far as “field office teams” these are the candidate nominee operations teams that are added during election years for the heavy travel tempo. https://t.co/ulf45qLAsO
— Anthony Guglielmi (@SecretSvcSpox) July 15, 2024
However, Crabtree already had filed a detailed report with RealClearPolitics saying Republicans were looking into the Secret Service protection being given to Trump even before the assassination attempt.
“Even though Trump and his family members credited the special agents and a counter sniper assigned to his protective detail with saving his life and possibly many others, recriminations against the Secret Service started almost immediately after the assassination attempt,” she wrote in the piece.
“In late May,” Crabtree noted, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability “had launched an investigation into a previous incident that took place in April involving a female Secret Service agent, tasked with protecting Vice President Kamala Harris, who was removed from her duties after suffering an apparent mental breakdown and attacking superior agents.”
And in other social media posts, she detailed further issues with the attempt on Trump’s life.
“New info from a source in the Secret Service community — Trump’s usual protective Secret Service detail was worked so hard (working 7 days a week with no days off) that many of agents assigned Saturday were temporary replacements from different field offices,” Crabtree wrote in one post.
“This is not the usual protocol for sitting presidents and vice presidents but ‘typical’ for former presidents, (although no former presidents have run again in modern history.)’”
🚨New info from a source in the Secret Service community — Trump’s usual protective Secret Service detail was worked so hard (working 7 days a week with no days off) that many of agents assigned Saturday were temporary replacements from different field offices.
This is not the…
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 14, 2024
“Another Secret Service source says approval for the Counter Sniper Team was only granted the day before the rally – and that is not enough time for a two-man team to do their survey,” she said in another tweet, quoting the source.
”That’s nowhere near enough time – a site like that should have had at least three Secret Service counter-sniper teams at the very least,” the source said, according to Crabtree.
(Cont) …”That’s nowhere near enough time – a site like that should have had at least three Secret Service counter-sniper teams at the very least.”
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 14, 2024
The veracity of this and any other claims as to what went wrong in Butler should be treated as alleged reports, not the gospel truth.
That being said, Crabtree is uniquely positioned to have sources within the Secret Service, and this wouldn’t be an implausible explanation as to what went wrong.
Whatever the case, Americans are going to demand answers — and they want them fast, before something like this, but with a far graver outcome, befalls one of the candidates or some other high-profile individual.
