by Robert McGreevy
Republican lawmakers raised concerns about security issues with the U.S. Secret Service during July’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but the Secret Service has so far been unwilling to compromise, sources tell the Daily Caller.
“We have identified a critical security perimeter flaw that poses an elevated and untenable security risk to the public,” Republican National Committee aide Todd R. Steggerda wrote to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in April.
Current Secret services the plan designates Père Marquette Park as a protected First Amendment zone for demonstrations, but Republicans say it is far too close to convention venues such as the Fiserv Forum (where the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks play) and the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena .
“The city’s current plan was to gather demonstrators in a one-block park – a park bordering two streets that thousands of peaceful participants would exploit to gain access to the convention site, as proposed by the Secret Service. “This will force thousands of peaceful participants and demonstrators, who might otherwise choose to avoid or limit direct, close contact with each other, to remain in extremely close, consistent and unavoidable distance,” Steggerda wrote in the letter obtained by the Daily Caller.
Convention expects draw more than 50,000 attendees to the city to see President Trump accept the Republican Party’s proposals nomination for the president.
“Having a protest zone so close to the entrances, uncontrolled, and so close to the convention center is just asking for trouble.” Republican senator from Wisconsin Ron Johnson he told the Interviewee.
Johnson expressed his concerns to the Secret Service, as did Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“I am deeply concerned by reports that the security perimeter around the Milwaukee Republican National Convention site may create a likely – and avoidable – area of conflict between protesters and convention attendees and delegates,” McConnell wrote in a May 10 letter to Cheatle (pictured above). MSN reported.
Johnson told the caller that McConnell and Scott staffers apparently met with Cheatle in recent days to persuade her to change her Secret Service plan.
Senator Johnson also expressed frustration with the Secret Service’s refusal to address the concerns of the Republican Party.
“I appreciate what they do and I don’t doubt their sincerity, but [Cheatle] says that they base their assessment on certain criteria, they have made such an assessment and now they cannot change it. So she had the right to exploit the criteria they had used in the past when developing a security plan. She had the authority to draw up the plan but now says she has no authority to change it. I think it’s crazy,” Johnson said.
“My experience with bureaucracy is that they kind of dig in their heels. “So I hope that she and the administration… whoever she reports to… will eventually report back to the president, and I would guess that if President Biden was aware of that, maybe that would be the next step,” he continued. “We need to raise his level and get him to intervene and say, ‘Let’s make sure we reduce the risk as much as possible.’
“We have raised this issue again. I hope that doesn’t happen, but if something did happen, people would be notified,” Johnson added. “It’s not like January 6, when there were no warnings and people didn’t report any problems.”
The RNC proposed expanding the security area to include Père Marquette Park and moving the designated First Amendment zone to another location.
“We don’t care about local protesters, we care about people who don’t know where they come from. “That’s our concern and that’s why we’re asking them to move it to another park because it’s on the edge of one of the main pedestrian access points,” a source with the Wisconsin Republican Party told the caller.
Both McConnell and Johnson expressed the need to balance the First Amendment and security considerations.
“Listen, everybody — well, Republicans respect First Amendment rights,” Johnson said with a laugh. “Democrats to talk they do it, but we actually do it. So we are quite concerned about this, but we are also concerned about the safety of convention participants. Plus, I want to make sure it’s a success for Milwaukee and Chicago. I want people to walk away saying, “It was a great experience, the RNC made a great choice.” I love Wisconsin, I love fresh cheese curds. I love the people of Wisconsin. That’s what I want this thing to be. I don’t want the whole story to be, “Here’s the riots in Milwaukee in 2024.” We must do everything in our power to prevent this from happening.”
The Secret Service maintained that its security plan was intended to “ensure the highest level of security while minimizing impact on the public” – Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service communications chief, he said Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Johnson, however, suggested that the Secret Service’s reluctance to step down may be politically motivated.
“I would say that if it were any other administration… I think they would be intelligent enough to realize that this could blow up in their faces, but because this is the Biden administration and I understand how they have weaponized the federal government against the American people – as you know, we’ve seen the threats they pose to democracy – I wouldn’t say the Biden administration would see it politically and just chuckle if something went wrong,” he told Caller.
Johnson also noted similarities between the upcoming RNC and the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.
“Let’s face it, going back to January 6, I still have my suspicions. “If there was a security plan for January 6, the only explanation for that security plan was to allow something to happen,” he said. “They certainly took advantage of it, basically they used January 6 as a way to accuse half of Americans of being potential domestic terrorists.”
“I have repeatedly emphasized that the term ‘armed insurrection’ was coined, and then thousands of armed insurrectionists, almost immediately, almost had to be planned in advance,” Johnson continued. “That’s the last thing I would call what happened on January 6. “Armed uprising”. But that’s exactly what Democratic leadership is doing [said when they] he stepped up to the microphones that day and the next day. This means it was already cooked. I have high suspicions about what happened on January 6.
“If they don’t fix it, do I suspect they won’t mind if something happens? That they could exploit? Again, I wouldn’t put anything beyond the possibility of what the Biden administration can do,” the senator concluded.
The convention will start on July 15 and last until July 18.
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Robert McGreevy is a reporter with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
