The independent investigation of the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, helmed by Representative Cory Mills (R-FL), recently held a forum with several individuals about the shooting on Monday. Representatives Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Eli Crane (R-AZ), two members of the investigation, took ten minutes each to ask questions, revealing the "catastrophic" failure of the Secret Service to cooperate with law enforcement that fateful day in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The team's witnesses comprised former Secret Service Agent and commentator Dan Bongino, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, and Washington Regional SWAT Operator Ben Shaffer. The latter was the focus of Rep. Biggs' questioning concerning communications.
Rep. Biggs asked if there was a central communications apparatus and if a Secret Service agent was responsible for maintaining it. Shaffer affirmed, "However, they were not, to my knowledge, co-located at the command center itself," and noted that cellphone communication was in use rather than in-person communication.
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More egregiously, Shaffer claimed the local law enforcement offered radios and other communication devices to the Secret Service present, yet they were denied.
Rep. Crane's questioning focused on Prince, who claimed that while the Secret Service and Blackwater have historically operated differently in protecting individuals, the latter has never suffered an injury or death of those under their protection, even after 100,000 known missions.
Prince also expressed gratitude that shooter Thomas Crooks was not a professional, for a team such as Hezbollah or ISIS would have been much more effective in killing Trump.
Rep. Crane asked Prince if "the Secret Service in its current form and leadership [was] able to stop a threat like that." The Blackwater founder replied, "President Trump was definitely deprived of resources that day for whatever political reason."
"I think even when you look at the debacle of a failure of the advance team to actually secure the perimeter and to deny the obvious sniper hotel locations where a bad guy is going to set up from the complete lack of coordination of communication, not communicating with local law enforcement, not taking the radios of local law, to even when the shots were fired, the clumsy, unprofessional way of getting the protective off the X, it was a catastrophic failure across the entire enterprise," Prince concluded.
Crane also spoke with Bongino, who claimed that even though he had left the Secret Service over a decade ago, "none of these problems are new" and said the failures were "borderline criminal negligence."
Crane asked the same question regarding the Secret Service's protective ability under its new Director, Ronald Rowe. Bongino thoroughly disagreed Rowe would be any better than former Director Kimberly Cheatle, if not "worse," claiming Rowe "was concerned about the tie color of the agents on the detail because it seemed to imply they supported President Trump."
