By Mike Huckabee
August 21, 2024
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A preliminary investigative report from Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins of the House Bipartisan Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump lays out what his committee believes to have been the sequence of gunfire at President Trump’s July 13 rally, saying that a member of the Butler SWAT team was the first to fire against the gunman, hitting his rifle from 100 yards away and disrupting his aim.
Good shot!
To get it, the sharpshooter “ran towards the threat, running directly to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire,” according to the report. The gunman moved lower but raised back up after a few seconds; good thing his gun was damaged, because it also says in this report that it was 28 long seconds later that he was fatally shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
(IMPORTANT NOTE: Witness reports vary about the timing of the gunshots they heard, so the “official” conclusion on that might be different. As Higgins says up front, “This report is preliminary, not conclusive. The preliminary observations are considered sensitive, confidential and intended for investigative purposes. The investigation is ongoing.” Please keep this in mind, because we certainly don’t want to see incomplete evidence feeding any hoaxes. We’ve reached our limit on hoaxes and lies after hearing Biden’s convention speech.)
Anyway, as we reported Monday, the would-be assassin’s body was quietly --- so quietly that maybe “secretly” is a better word --- cremated ten days after he attempted to shoot the former President in the head, with no notice of this until August 5. According to the INDEPENDENT SENTINEL, an autopsy was performed by Butler County, but the county coroner hasn’t been given permission to release the details. Gov. Josh Shapiro could allow this but so far hasn’t.
This interim report comes just as the Secret Service has announced it’s temporarily reassigning some of President Biden’s protective detail to Trump, apparently based on his threat level as it should have been all along. He’ll also be given bulletproof glass for outdoor rallies. Okay, but that’s too little, too late. It’s sad to say that Trump has no reason to be confident in their ability or even inclination to protect him, but he doesn’t, and he should have (along with the bulletproof glass) his own private security that he can trust. Dan Bongino has expressed willingness to help in any way with this and even to help overhaul the agency if (when!) he is re-elected. Trump should take him up on that.
ABC NEWS obtained some emails and documents about the local security plan through requests filed under the Pennsylvania Right-To-Know Law, noting that “multiple agencies are still refusing to release records associated with the shooting.” (By that, we assume they mean the feds: the Secret Service and FBI.) On July 5, a week ahead of the rally, Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe wrote in an email of his concern that there wouldn’t be enough room at the venue for the crowd that would attend. “It’s going to be a circus there,” he predicted.
On July 9, Sgt. Edward Lenz of the Adams Township Police Department wrote to Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger that he’d had several discussions with the Secret Service, “and as of today they are requesting assistance from us with providing sniper/overwatch support, counterassault teams, and a quick reaction force.”
It does seem the locals were really on this. Some details from the ABC NEWS report:
“’Our current plan is to provide 2 sniper elements, 2 mobile counterassault teams, and a quick reaction force,’ [Shupe] added, explaining that ‘the counterassault teams would be dedicated teams that would respond to and address an attack directed at the presidential candidate inside of the venue, whether it be a coordinated attack with multiple assailants, or a single attacker.’
“Lenz also said that a ‘quick response force would be dedicated to respond to and address any high-risk incidents occurring outside of the venue,’ describing the upcoming rally as a ‘manpower intensive’ event involving local officers along with law enforcement from nearby counties as well.”
After the deadly rally, internal texts show discussions between local officials about what they saw as attempts to blame them. “I see the secret service is throwing the locals under the bus,” wrote someone identified in Goldinger’s contact list as “Mccune.”
“Yep,” Slupe wrote back. “They can’t tell the truth right now. It will come out.”
One can only hope.
Through the same Pennsylvania law, Judicial Watch has managed to obtain local records as well, including bodycam video and two photos taken of the shooter. Their press release has a lot of detail, so be sure and read that. As for getting information from the feds and other Pennsylvania agencies, they have more than 25 open Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests currently pending on the shooting of Trump.
On July 31, they reported that the Secret Service had denied multiple requests. On August 12, they reported that the FBI withheld information on a FOIA request for information about its coordination with the U.S. Secret Service regarding the rally. (Surprise.) So they’re “pursuing the next steps in preparation for litigation.” To quote Tom Fitton of JW:
“Were there others involved in the assassination attempt on Trump? If not, then why would the FBI use the excuse of protecting someone’s right to a fair trial to hide records on the FBI’s and Secret Service’s inexcusable failures to protect Trump from being nearly assassinated. The Biden-Harris administration is running a major league cover-up on the near assassination of former President Trump.”
https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents-trump-assassination-attempt
https://www.judicialwatch.org/trump-assassination-records
Finally, Dan Bongino’s Monday podcast has some Secret Service updates, starting about 21 minutes in, for about a 6-minute segment. He says the WASHINGTON POST claims to have eight agency insiders, and he doesn’t think WAPO is making up their story, “because [it’s] true.” This is the report we brought you about Trump’s detail complaining about the difficulty of protecting him; Bongino describes it as WAPO’s attempt to “put lipstick on this pig.” He reiterates the point that the Secret Service made a mistake when assigning protection based on title rather than on level of threat. In this case, a former President arguably needed as much security as a current President, because Trump’s threat level was off the chart.
Something else that’s surprising to see reported by WAPO: Sources told them that requests by Trump’s detail to make Mar-A-Lago safer for Trump were 90 percent denied by Secret Service brass. Bongino says this story is “100 percent accurate,” noting that new Director Ron Rowe was second-in-command at that time.
“This management team in charge right now is incapable of putting together a thorough security plan to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t get hurt.”
https://bongino.com/ep-2311-deep-state-plot-against-trump-takes-troubling-twist
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