NEW Secret Service Whistleblower: Trump Protection Team Denied Manpower Before Assassination Attempt

Internally, Secret service agents were told not to ask for or give Trump any additional assets.

Whistleblower Says Trump Protection Team Denied Manpower Before Assassination Attempt

By: M.D. Kittle, The Federalist, August 23, 2024

Sen. Josh Hawley says whistleblower told him Secret Service agents were told not to bother to request more help.

Did the head of the embattled U.S. Secret Service lie to Congress when he testified that all manpower requested to protect former President Trump had been approved for the event where the GOP presidential nominee came within centimeters of being assassinated?

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wants answers after a whistleblower told the Missouri Republican that agents on the Trump detail shouldn’t even bother asking for key manpower because the request would be denied.

The latest revelations come as several news outlets confirm the Secret Service has placed at least five members on administrative leave in the wake of the July 13 attempt on Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Butler, Penn.

Request Denied?

“I have received new whistleblower allegations that again call into question your recent testimony before the Senate,” Hawley, who serves on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, wrote in a letter Friday Friday to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe. “One whistleblower with knowledge of Secret Service planning for former President Trump‘s trip to Butler, Pennsylvania, alleges officials at Secret Service headquarters encouraged agents in charge of the trip not to request any additional security assets in its formal manpower request — effectively denying these assets through informal means.”

Rowe, as Hawley notes, has “repeatedly suggested” that the protective services agency he’s been tapped to lead following last month’s resignation of disgraced Director Kimberly Cheatle had not denied any “assets” requested.

Trump was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin who was allowed to freely roam the rally grounds for hours despite arousing suspicions and alarms from local law enforcement. The gunman shot and killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore and seriously injured two others before being fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper. Questions abound about one of the most astounding failures in the agency’s history, not the least of which is how a young man carrying a duffle bag and a range finder was able to ascend the roof of a nearby building to carry out his deadly errand?

Several investigations, including congressional probes, are attempting to get answers from recalcitrant federal agencies that have struggled with transparency and have had a hard time keeping their stories straight.

Hawley and others have understandably asked why the Secret Service was so ill-prepared on the day of the shootings. The latest whistleblower accounts suggest the failures may have been willful.

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