What since Saturday have seemed like anemic security measures to protect former President Donald Trump during a Pennsylvania rally were in fact protection on steroids, according to a new account.
A report in The New York Times said that prior to Saturday’s attempted assassination, intelligence agencies were aware of a possible Iranian plot to kill Trump.
The Times report said, officials it did not name claimed that due to the intelligence, Secret Service security for the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally was already increased.
The intelligence prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before his outdoor campaign rally on Saturday, officials said.
The Times quoted officials as saying, the Secret Service increased “resources and assets” but did not provide specifics.
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And, the Times noted, “[W]hatever additional measures were taken did not stop a 20-year-old local man from clambering on top of a nearby warehouse roof to shoot at Mr. Trump, grazing his right ear and coming close to killing him.”
The Times report said, information about the Iranian threat, which it framed as part of Iran’s long-standing desire to avenge the death of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, was given to Trump’s security team.
“Secret Service learned of the increased threat from this threat stream,” CNN said it was told by an official it did not name.
The National Security Council contacted the Secret Service “at a senior level to be absolutely sure they continued to track the latest reporting,” the official said.
At this point is there a real question as to whether some of these lapses were intentional?
The Secret Service “shared this information with the detail lead, and the Trump campaign was made aware of an evolving threat. In response to the increased threat, Secret Service surged resources and assets for the protection of former President Trump. All of this was in advance of Saturday,” the official said.
The Secret Service has been trying to say security for Saturday was not its job alone.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said that local police were inside the building from which shooter Thomas Crooks fired and that it was the job of local police to secure that building.
“There was local police in that building — there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building,” Cheatle said, according to CNN.
However, CNN quoted a former Secret Service agent as saying, “The Service is responsible for everything, not just the inner perimeter. They should make sure all of this is covered.”
“Officers inside a building — that’s not mitigating a high-ground vulnerability,” the former agent said.
Disgraced Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is now saying they didn’t put snipers on the roof where the shooter was b/c it was “sloped” and “not safe”
So then why were these snipers on this roof?
This lady keeps digging herself a deeper hole
RESIGN pic.twitter.com/HRf0PPEQdc
— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 16, 2024
Patrick Yoes, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said Saturday’s incident was “not a failure of the local, state or federal officers on the ground who responded to the shots fired at former President Trump.”
“They acted heroically and put their lives on the line to protect everyone at the event, and we must recognize that,” Yoes said. “This is a failure at the management or command level who failed to secure an obvious weakness in the security of this event.”
