Rebecca Zeljko
A whistleblower told Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri in a letter released Tuesday that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents assigned to former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, were “grossly unprepared.”
The whistleblower informed Hawley that HSI agents had been removed from child exploitation cases and assigned to work with the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) to provide security at the rally, According to to the letter. Before the event, HSI agents received just a two-hour “webinar” that was devoid of content and “full of technical glitches,” and the whistleblower claimed the training remained unchanged even after the attempted attack.
“In other words, these allegations, taken together, suggest that a significant number of personnel responsible for providing security for former President Trump at the July 13 rally were grossly underprepared by the Secret Service to carry out that mission,” Hawley said in the letter.
Agents Assigned to President Trump in Butler PA Were Removed from Child Abuse Cases and Shifted to Trump Protection After Just 2 Hours of Online Training, And We ONLY Know This Because of Brave Whistleblowers photo: twitter.com/m8CY5eqmUl
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 4, 2024
“Imagine 1,000 people logging into Microsoft Teams at the same time, after being told at the last minute that they would all have to log in individually,” the whistleblower wrote in the letter. “When it all went live, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio to work on the pre-recorded videos (which I’m told are the same videos from last year). All told, they restarted the videos about six times… The content was not helpful.”
“Nothing new, nothing has improved since the assassination attempt on former President Trump,” the whistleblower continued.
Hawley had previously approached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about allegations that more HSI agents than Secret Service agents were present on July 13, according to the letter. Another whistleblower also alleged that some HSI agents at the rally had never worked security before and were unfamiliar with proper procedures.
One of the HSI agents working at the rally “only gets[d] “one PowerPoint presentation for training purposes,” we read in the letter.
Because of these safety lapses, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to fire multiple shots from a rooftop 130 yards away, wounding the former president, killing volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore, and injuring two participants. Crooks was reportedly spotted by witnesses, as reported by Secret Service agents, and even Identified by a local countersniper more than an hour and a half before Trump took the stage.
Following the failed assassination attempt, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle gave evasive testimony to the House Oversight Committee on July 22, leading to bipartisan control and calls for her resignation. Cheatle resigned from his post just one day after giving his testimony and ten days after the attempted assassination.
“The U.S. Secret Service respects the oversight role,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “To date, we have provided Congress with more than 1,500 pages of documentation and have staff available to transcribe interviews. These efforts will continue because our desire to learn from this failure and ensure it never happens again is unwavering.”
The U.S. Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Rebecca Zeljko is a reporter at the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Background photo “Members of the Secret Service” by Interview.
