By Mike Huckabee
July 16, 2024
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The attempted assassination of President Trump on Saturday illustrates the need for the “72-hour rule” that we try to follow before coming to conclusions. This one will take longer than 72 hours, but at least there’s more to go on now, though it’s almost impossible to comprehend.
According to local station WPXI-TV, reporting from Butler, Pennsylvania, law enforcement officers noticed the shooter almost 30 minutes before he fired at President Trump. I know it seems crazy, but this comes from “multiple law enforcement sources.”
One member of local law enforcement reportedly noticed a suspicious-looking man on the roof of the American Glass Research building at 5:45 p.m., took a picture and called it in. By then, the would-be assassin had already been noticed on the ground and had been called in as a suspicious person, also with a picture.
The NEW YORK POST picked up their story…
On Monday, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle released a statement that seems very much at odds with the above news report: “Secret Service personnel on the ground moved quickly during the incident, with our country sniper team neutralizing the shooter and our agents implementing protective measures to ensure the safety of former President Trump.”
Director Cheatle, we have one question. Define “quickly.”
As reported by CNN, the Secret Service did not sweep the building where the shooter was located. “The agency had local law enforcement conduct security at the business,” they said. At first look, this seems like a consequence of understaffing.
“Typically, Secret Service will work with local law enforcement to secure locations,” according to CNN. “It is not known which law enforcement agency was supposed to be in charge of where the shooter was found.” Might this have been unclear to the agencies as well?
WPXI is very close to this story and is providing real-time updates (link below). As they report, “The FBI has conducted 300 interviews of law enforcement personnel, event attendees and other witnesses. That work continues.” They’ve also received “hundreds of digital media tips, which include photos and videos taken at the scene.” That would all be great, if only we could trust the FBI.
Our staff, watching on live TV, noticed just before the shooting that a number of people in the stands behind Trump and to his right had seen something they were trying to capture on their phones. So there’s probably quite a lot of video, still pictures as well.
But it’s infuriating to see that nothing was done in time after so many Trump fans happened to notice this and were frantically warning about it.
Incidentally, a neighbor told the WPXI reporter that there were Trump campaign signs in front of the house where the shooter lived, but these had recently been taken down.
https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/live-updates-rnc-begins-monday-wake-trump-rally-shooting-butler
WPXI interviewed former Secret Service agent John Hudson, who lives in the Pittsburgh area. He says this never should have happened, as the rooftop, only 130 yards away, should have been posted with “at very minimum, a uniformed officer.” It’s shocking that this was not done.
They report that “state police said they provided up to 40 troopers but they were all assigned to the inside perimeter, not the buildings outside.” Also, “Just before the shooting, a local police officer scaled the building but retreated when the gunman pointed the rifle at him.”
WPXI also interviewed Zach Scherer, who’s attended more than 20 Trump rallies across the country, and he said this was the first time he didn’t think they had enough security. “It was too big of an open area,” he said. “We didn’t know if the shooter was in the crowd with us or where the shots were coming from.”
Dan Bongino, who spent five of his twelve years in the Secret Service on White House detail, was back on Monday for his regular podcast after doing an emergency weekend show to try to get ahead of the information --- some accurate, some not --- that was already being spread. Since this event was, in his words, “an apocalyptic, global, cosmic, catastrophic freaking security failure” that had the potential of “altering the history of humankind as we know it...causing the worst civil crisis we’ve seen in decades,” he’s having a big problem with the inaccuracies. Fortunately, he has some really dependable inside sources.
One of them told him that of the security personnel who were there Saturday, “very few” were Secret Service. Considering President Trump’s threat level, this is “absolutely insane,” Bongino said. Also, security people were apparently monitoring this young man (it’s our editorial decision not to repeat shooters’ names) from the time he entered the external perimeter area. Then, at some point, they lost track of him; apparently, he was hiding in a building about 300 yards away.
The obvious question, of course, is, if they hadn’t been able to deal with this threat, why was President Trump allowed onstage when he was? They could have delayed his appearance for 5, 10, even 15 minutes until they were sure it was safe. (Heck, the crowd had already been out there for hours in the heat; they would have dealt with another slight delay.)
Bongino notes an episode he did in August of last year called “Speeding towards assassination,” in which he warned that the security for Trump was inadequate for his threat level. When conservative media expressed such concerns, others labeled this “conspiracy theory.”
According to Bongino, 130 yards is a “rookie shot --- a 9-year-old kid from Missouri with a .22 could take out a squirrel at this distance, probably no problem, probably without a scope.” Also, “there is absolutely no way that the Secret Service should be putting out public statements indicating right now that [outside their perimeter] wasn’t their responsibility.”
“Brother, everything is your responsibility, okay? Keeping the President alive is your responsibility.”
Big question: Where was the perimeter surveillance plan, and how did that team miss this? They had reason to watch this guy and then somehow lost him. It was the crowd who seemed to be acting like the surveillance team! Also, there should have been an aerial surveillance plan. Why is it that people in the crowd were the only ones who could see a shooter on a white roof in broad daylight? In 2024, why weren’t they using something as basic as a drone to give them a higher-up view?
In Bongino’s words, “You mean to tell me you couldn’t have gone to Amazon and gotten a $200 drone….and figured out there was a guy on the roof?”
Given the risk of these big rallies, it would’ve made sense to have a helicopter and thermal imaging, but no, they didn’t even have a small drone with a video camera.
The third security component should’ve happened before the rally: the protective intelligence --- threat assessment done in advance. Why, Dan wonders, is our government so focused on spying on Americans when we miss ACTUAL threats like this guy all the time? “They’re too busy spying on Moms For Liberty and school board parents and things like that,” he says. Maybe they should go ahead and respect the civil liberties of Americans, he quips, as long as they’re still going to miss the real threats.
Bongino is still trying to find out how many members of the counter-sniper team were on the ground. We reported yesterday that there were questions about whether the one who took out the shooter was Secret Service or local, and Dan still doesn’t know. Regardless, there’s “a lot of nonsense,” he says, going around about what the rules of engagement are. They’re the same as for all cops; if counter-snipers see potential death or serious injury, they can fire immediately. There is NO QUESTION that this was such a situation. Fire away.
As for the perceived delay in taking that shot, Bongino has heard from reliable sources that there was a line-of-sight issue because of a low wall around the edge of the roof. He’s not sure that’s the full explanation, but it’s what he hears. The real question for now is, how on earth did they let the shooter get up there in the first place?
Watch his show for the video clips that reveal how outrageous this situation was. Bongino also goes on to address some of the more disgusting media coverage, right after the former President came within about a millimeter of being killed. These are awful people.
https://bongino.com/ep-2286-an-apocalyptic-security-failure
Canadian sharpshooter Dallas Alexander, who has worked VIP protection “at the highest levels,” believes that this security fail was so outrageous, the roof such an obvious area to cover, and the shooter climbing up the building so visible, that mere incompetence doesn’t explain what happened. He suspects something shadier. We have NO EVIDENCE of that and hope there isn’t any to find, but the questions, sadly, must be asked.
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