The second assassination attempt in two months on former President Donald J. Trump has exposed the reality that his national security is still not based on a threat matrix that reflects the dangers the president faces, experts say.
After suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots at President Trump and a crowd at a rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania on July 13, security experts said the Secret Service treated him very differently than President Joe Biden, even though he posed a much greater threat than the sitting president.
As a result, many experts and observers
Predicted There will likely be new assassination attempts in the coming weeks and months.
That became a reality around 1:30 p.m. on September 15, when the Secret Service spotted a rifle protruding from some bushes on the edge of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“We need to move to a threat-based protection model.”
According to the FBI and Secret Service, agents opened fire on what appeared to be a sniper's nest on the public side of the fence near the sixth green, and the suspected assassin, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, fled the scene.
Routh was arrested about 45 minutes later in nearby Martin County, Florida.
The shooter did not have former President Trump in his sights, said Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rouse Jr. He said the Secret Service spotted Rouse trying to hide “in the woods.”
“The Secret Service's defensive techniques were effective yesterday,” Rowe said, citing a “layered approach” that had officers on the course before Trump. But he said the service needs to move from a reactive mode to a “preparedness model.”
Lowe said “enhanced assets” ordered by President Joe Biden, including counter-sniper teams, counter-assault teams and counter-surveillance agents, “were deployed yesterday.”
However, at a press conference just hours after the assassination attempt, the local sheriff confirmed that Trump was not receiving the highest level of protection, but only what the Secret Service deemed “possible”.
“The level he's at right now, he's not a sitting president,” Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw said. “If he was, we would have this entire golf course under siege.”
Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw speaks at a press conference on September 16, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida.Photo: Joe Raedl/Getty Images
“No, he's a former president who was shot by an assassin two months ago and Iran and others continue to plot against him,” the U.S. senator said.
Ron Johnson (Wisconsin Republican Party). “Two attempts in just over 60 days. Horrifying and unacceptable.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said the Secret Service has yet to answer basic questions about Butler's assassination and faces new scrutiny.
“Yesterday's attempted assassin of Trump was on the golf course for 12 hours before being identified by the Secret Service,” Hawley wrote.
X“The Butler shooter was on the scene long before he fired his first shot. This is a dangerous pattern. The Secret Service needs to tell us what's going on and what they're doing to stop it.”
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder, who assisted in the arrest of Routh at 2:14 p.m. on Sept. 15, said Routh had no known ties to the county.
“I think we're beginning to understand that he's not from this area. So that raises the bigger question: How did a guy who's not from here travel to Trump International and know that the president, the former president of the United States, was playing golf and that he could get a rifle in that vicinity?”
One expert said the Secret Service isn't thinking straight when it comes to protecting Trump.
“The threats against him are greater than anyone else's, and yet the government continues to treat him like a third-rate custodian,” said Tristan Leavitt, executive director of Empower Oversight, an education group that advocates for government accountability.
“The fact that the perpetrator escaped and that we were unable to fire effectively is a problem.”
“They need to move to a threat-based protection model,” Leavitt said at a Heritage Foundation forum on the Secret Service in August.
Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri of the FBI's Miami field office said the FBI received a tip in 2019 that Routh was a felon in possession of a firearm but was unable to substantiate that claim.
According to court records, Routh was convicted of possessing a fully automatic machine gun in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 2002.
Veltri said the 2019 tip was passed by the FBI to authorities in Hawaii, where Routh was living at the time.
Routh has a lengthy criminal history in North Carolina, including arrests for felony gun charges, hit-and-run, obstructing police, possession of stolen property, carrying a concealed weapon, driving while license revoked and several other motor vehicle violations.
In the 2002 gun case, local newspapers reported at the time that Routh fled after being stopped by police for a traffic violation, then barricaded himself in a roofing shop and held off police for three hours.
North Carolina court records show Routh never served a night in jail despite his numerous convictions.
The suspect in the 2002 assassination attempt on Trump reportedly brandished a fully automatic machine gun during a three-hour standoff with police.translation:
Erik Prince, founder of the private security firm Blackwater, said it was important for Florida to conduct its own comprehensive investigation.
“We have a federal system where states have far more rights and powers than they claim,” Prince said. Glenn Beck program.”
“This is an opportunity for the Governor of Florida to say, 'enough is enough. I am going to stop this nonsense during my term,' and he will do what he has to do, which is to do a full proctological exam, specifically looking at Routh's electronic devices, looking at who he has been in contact with over the last six days, six months, and figuring out what on earth motivated this guy to do this.”
Prince said he was “deeply troubled” that Routh was able to escape after being shot.
“There [are] “He had two bulletproof plates attached to his fence, so he was obviously expecting a counterattack. And he had a GoPro on. Trophy hunting. He was supposed to be a hero to the left,” Prince said. “It's very disconcerting. I'm glad the Secret Service found him first and attacked him, but… [were] “Four shots were fired. The fact that the guy got away, the fact that we weren't able to fire effectively, is a problem.”
Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2023, whistleblower former FBI special agent Steve Friend said he was troubled that the FBI's head of the West Palm Beach assassination investigation was a known Trump hater.
Cell phone data revealed disturbing determination of would-be assassin to attack Trump before Secret Service fired shots
The arrest of Ryan Wesley Routh was captured on police body camera.
Friend said Special Agent Veltri previously served as Deputy Assistant Director in the FBI's Security Division, which targets whistleblowers for removal from the bureau.
“And in that post, he actually said he was trying to remove whistleblowers from the ranks because they were military veterans and he thought they were disloyal. He was also trying to remove people who attended regular religious worship services and were opposed to the coronavirus vaccine,” Friend said on “The Glenn Beck Program.”
According to Friend, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Director Paul Abbate and former Deputy Director Jen Moore instructed Veltri to “remove all of the violent anti-Trump statements he had publicly made” from his Facebook profile before he accepted a promotion to head the Miami FBI office.
Prince expressed similar concerns.
“And this is [is] The Miami FBI office is the same one that raided Mar-a-Lago in the forged documents case, and the new special agent in charge is [a] “The whistleblower says the FBI instructed him to delete his social media history because it was so violently anti-Trump. I have serious doubts that the FBI will investigate in good faith,” Prince said.
Several officials said possible leaks within the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security and even the Trump campaign would need to be investigated to determine how Rouse knew 12 hours before that Trump would be on the golf course.
Some questioned why active-duty mercenaries recruiting soldiers to fight in the Ukraine war were not under FBI scrutiny.
Jeff Clark, who served as deputy attorney general under Trump, criticized the Biden-Harris administration for the continuing risk to the former president.
“Protocol is just a fancy French word for rule of thumb,” Clark wrote on X. “Rules of thumb are things that can be changed depending on the circumstances. After the first assassination attempt on Trump at Butler, the rules of thumb definitely should have been changed.”
“Joe Biden and Kamala could easily have given the Secret Service the resources to ramp up and the flexibility to tighten protocols,” Clark said, “so it's their fault that President Trump is not being adequately protected.”
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