The Secret Service’s failure to prevent the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump was a “big miss” for the agency, former Secret Service agent Tim Miller told Fox News on Sunday morning.
Trump, the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, was struck by a bullet that pierced his right ear at an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday at around 6 p.m. ET, in what the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is calling an assassination attempt. Video of the shooting showed members of Trump’s Secret Service team using their bodies as human shields around the former president to get him into his car and away from any more danger.
Trump is “fine” according to his spokesperson, but the Secret Service says that one rally attendee was killed and two more are in critical condition. The 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who fired rounds off a nearby roof was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
Following the shooting, people began to ask questions about how Crooks was able to pull the trigger, with some calling for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign.
Appearing on Fox News’ America’s Newsroom on Sunday morning, Miller, who has 30 years of law enforcement and military experience, told hosts Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino, “There’s no way you could explain what happened. I’ve done hundreds of these site assessments. One of the primary things that you do—obviously we learned from 1963 with the assassination of [former] President [John F.] Kennedy that high places are a problem. And so, the fact that this roof was not covered. Typically we will cover it, for certain, visually, but if not, in some cases, we’ll post somebody there.”
He continued: “So this is a big miss and there are a lot of questions that need to be answered in regards to the site advance, in regards to the posting assignments, and especially in regards to actually what they did within the split second that an unidentified gunman was seen on the roof.”
The roof where the gunman was had been looked at by security before the event and it was empty, a law enforcement source told ABC News.
Newsweek has reached out to the Secret Service via email for comment on Sunday afternoon.
A rallygoer, who said he tried to warn police and the Secret Service, told BBC News that the shooter bear crawled up the roof during the rally with a rifle.
Former Secret Service agent Paul Eckloff explained on ABC News’ This Week With George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning how such an event could happen and the agency’s “textbook response.”
“When you look at the campaign events, they are designed far differently than presidential protection,” he said, who explained that former presidents get less protection than sitting presidents. “Campaign events are designed for access and viewing of Mr. Trump rather than security.”
Eckloff continued: “The Secret Service does an exemplary job in advancing these sites. The unfortunate reality is they exist as we know them today because of a history of political violence in America and their response is going to be primarily reactionary and what we saw yesterday if you dissect the tape is a textbook response.”
Meanwhile, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi told Newsweek via email on Sunday morning, that the agency recently added “protective resources and capabilities” to Trump’s security detail.
“The former President, and the current President, are commonly subject to threats. The U.S. Secret Service takes threats seriously, and it takes actions based on those threats as warranted. The U.S. Secret Service is constantly evaluating the very dynamic threat environment and responding to it in the fulfillment of its responsibilities,” he said.
House Launches Investigation
On Saturday evening, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “THE HOUSE WILL CONDUCT A FULL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS TODAY. The American people deserve to know the truth. We will have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP.”
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into the shooting and asked Cheatle to testify on July 22.
“The tremendous bravery of the individual United States Secret Service agents who protected [former] President Trump, eliminated the gunman, and possibly averted more loss of life cannot be overstated,” Oversight Committee chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote in the letter sent on Saturday formally inviting her to testify.
Uncommon Knowledge
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