In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) said whistleblowers have alleged that the security team on the day of the assassination attempt on Trump was made up mostly of inexperienced DHS officers and that several procedures typically required for such an incident were omitted.
The Missouri senator posted a copy of a letter he sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas detailing allegations made by a whistleblower within the department.
“According to the whistleblower, most of the Trump security personnel working last Saturday’s event were not even Secret Service,” Hawley wrote. X“DHS deployed personnel who were ill-prepared and inexperienced.”
The letter states that a “whistleblower with direct knowledge of the events” claimed that the Trump rally on July 13, 2024 was considered a “lax” security event.
“How much time did investigators spend investigating the scene before the incident?”
This apparently meant that “sniffer dogs were not used in the normal way to monitor intrusions and detect threats” and that “individuals without the appropriate qualifications had access to backstage areas.”
Additionally, the whistleblower alleged that “agency personnel did not adequately monitor the security buffer around the podium and were not regularly spaced around the event’s security perimeter.”
Surprisingly, the whistleblowers also said the former president’s security forces were not primarily made up of Secret Service agents.
“The majority of DHS personnel are not actually USSS agents, but rather are deployed by the department’s Homeland Security Investigations agency,” Hawley wrote.
The letter also said HSI officials were “not familiar with the standard procedures typically used at these types of events.”
Hawley concluded his letter with seven questions for the Secretary of Homeland Security, beginning with how the Department of Homeland Security decides to staff the event.
He also asked what percentage of Homeland Security’s personnel are from HSI rather than the typical Secret Service, and whether they receive proper training for events like the rally in question.
The letter also questions whether investigators were properly positioned around Trump’s podium.
Perhaps the most important question asked by Hawley came last.
“How much time did investigators spend investigating the scene before the incident?”
Secret Service officials have offered explanations for security failings surrounding the assassination attempt on President Trump that fall far short of what the American public expected.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was captured on video on Wednesday ducking questions from Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).
Hawley also said in the letter that the Senate has actually “learned more from the whistleblowers” than it has from Department of Homeland Security officials.
In the six days since President Trump’s shooting, Secretary Mayorkas has said publicly: Border Security.
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