The Secret Service is in shambles.
People demand to know how the agency allowed a gunman onto the roof in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And a Secret Service site agent could have hell to pay after revelation of stunning behavior before Donald Trump’s rally in Butler.
Disorder in the Secret Service
Donald Trump was inches away from losing his life at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Thomas Matthew Crooks was somehow allowed to climb onto a roof with a direct line of sight to the stage fewer than 150 yards away.
The Secret Service has come under intense and deserved scrutiny for the catastrophic security failure.
And an investigation into the Secret Service shows an agency in chaos.
One particular agent was reprimanded for sharing sensitive material on social media.
Real Clear Investigations reported that “the Secret Service inspections department, which investigates employee misconduct, is homing in on allegations against an agent on the Trump detail who played a key role during the Butler rally and is partially responsible for developing the security plan, which contained egregious mistakes that left an opening for shooter Thomas Crooks.”
Nobody has given a good answer as to why the roof inside the security perimeter was left unguarded.
Former Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle, who was forced to resign after a disastrous Congressional hearing, initially said that the roof was unguarded because it was “sloped” and potentially hazardous.
That ridiculous assertion was eventually abandoned.
Ill-advised Facebook posts
RCI continued, “The allegations against the site agent are a separate matter. The agent is now under the microscope not only for her role in devising the security plan for the rally. She’s also facing internal scrutiny for posting videos and photos from her protective assignments to social media. The Secret Service discourages the practice, especially while standing watch on protective duty because it can pinpoint to would-be assailants exactly where the Secret Service positions its assets, risking the protectee and fellow law enforcement agents and officers, according to several sources within the Secret Service community.”
Not posting images on social media seems like common sense for an agency entrusted with protecting heads of state.
RCI added that the “agent in question served as the official site agent for the July 13 Butler event that ended in an assassination attempt wounding Donald Trump in the ear and killing rally-goer Corey Comperatore in front of his family. . . .As a member of Trump’s 60-member regular detail, the agent was responsible for helping formulate the security plan for the event, although she was mostly focused on the inner perimeter. She also joined forces with the event’s lead agent, a woman from the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh Field Office, in conducting a walk-through of the security with supervisors. The lead agent typically oversees security at the entire event from airport arrival to event to hotel stay to airport departure.”
The agent posted an image on Facebook that appeared to be taken from Mar-a-Lago that had the caption, “A sunset to be grateful for …” and included heart and sunset emojis and the hashtags “#nofilter #southflorida #thankful #workmode …”
RCI also reported, “There is now concern within the agency that the site agent for the Butler rally will take the fall for the event’s egregious layers of security failures – that Rowe will fire her over her social media posts, but not for any security failures at the July 13 event.”
So the site agent could be the scapegoat due to social media posts.
While that does speak to the lack of professionalism that has crept into the agency, the security failures in Butler run much deeper.
One silver lining could be that the near-assassination of Trump has spurred enthusiasm in joining the Secret Service.
A source in the Secret Service community told RCI, “Some agents have referred to it as their 9/11 moment where people are opting back onto the detail. . .Morale is high, people are motivated. These agents [protecting Trump] are stiff-jawed with steel in their spine.”
People must continue to put pressure on the Secret Service and other agencies to get to the bottom of what happened in Butler.
There must be transparency.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
