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.
These two Secret Service stories are connected, through the Department of Homeland Security inspector general who’s investigating both. (The Secret Service is under the purview of the DHS.)
Ronald Rowe looks straight out of Central Casting for the character one might envision as head of the Secret Service --- brawny, tough, serious. And he’s a 24-year veteran of the agency, a member of George W. Bush’s protective detail from 2004 to 2008. But this new replacement for Director Kimberly Cheatle, previously her second-in-command, isn’t a good fit for an agency in need of reform.
James Copenhaver, one of the shooting victims at Trump’s July 13 rally, was hit twice, critically injured and has only recently been discharged from the hospital. Before the bullets struck him, though, he happened to record some amazing video that catches glimpses of the rooftop gunman from a new vantage point.
One of the first questions we had after the assassination attempt on Trump almost two weeks ago was, “Why wasn’t Trump’s security detail using drones to get an overhead view of the location?”
Disgraced Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle did show up to warm a chair at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee Monday. She may not have dodged a subpoena, but she dodged even the most basic questions put to her about the attempted assassination of President Trump.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Monday about the massive security failure surrounding President Trump’s near-assassination.
How interesting it would have been to be a fly on the wall during President Trump’s alleged meeting with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Tuesday in Milwaukee. (She was there in an attempt to do damage control at the GOP Convention. It didn’t go well, as you saw yesterday.)
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.
There has been so much news relating to the assassination attempt on former (and future) President Trump, and it’s still pouring in 24/7, that it’s impossible for us to cover it all here. So we’re just going to recap some of the major points.
With so much ground to cover on the attempted assassination of President Trump on Saturday, the focus here will be on the shocking failure of the Secret Service --- the agency, not Trump’s personal detail, which was stellar --- to protect him.
Shots were fired at a Trump rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Former President Trump grabbed his ear and dropped behind the podium. Secret Service agents rushed to cover him and helped him to his feet. He left clutching his right ear, which appeared bloodied, and fist-pumped to the crowd as he was taken to a waiting car to rush him to a hospital.