From the heart of SALT LAKE CITY, Sen. Mike Lee has been vocal in his criticism of the Secret Service, accusing them of “reckless indifference” in a series of comments made this week. This comes in light of new revelations about the security lapses that occurred during the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
“When does the Secret Service’s apparent disregard for Trump’s safety begin to resemble a deliberate intent to harm him?” Lee questioned in a post on X, which he later reposted on Thursday.
The senior senator from Utah drew parallels to the Biblical tale of King David and Uriah the Hittite. In the story, David commands an army leader to abandon Uriah on the front lines, ensuring his death at the hands of their adversaries. David’s motive was to conceal an affair he was having with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.
“King David didn’t personally kill Uriah the Hittite,” Lee pointed out. “However, he did send him into a perilous situation and then intentionally left him defenseless.”
What did Sen. Lee ask the Secret Service director?
On Tuesday, Lee put acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate on the spot during a joint Senate hearing. Rowe was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why local law enforcement were absent from their post in a building next to the roof from where Thomas Mathew Crooks took a shot at Trump.
Lee was left puzzled as to why requests for additional security resources were turned down for the Trump campaign before his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. He also didn’t get a clear answer as to why law enforcement failed to promptly inform Trump’s Secret Service detail about a gunman they spotted on the roof with a rifle.
“At the very least, it was known that this man had a firearm at least two minutes before the shooting took place,” Lee stated during the hearing. “Why wasn’t President Trump immediately escorted off the stage at that point?”
On Wednesday, Lee shared a video captured by James Copenhaver, one of the two victims who were critically injured at the rally. The video seems to show a figure moving along the roof where Crooks was positioned just before the shooting started. However, it’s unclear whether the figure in the video is Crooks.
“Each new piece of information only serves to make the Secret Service’s lack of action even more perplexing and indefensible,” Lee commented in a post on X. “Perhaps the Secret Service, while not involved in any conspiracy, simply didn’t prioritize Trump’s safety.”
Secret Service addresses failure
The Secret Service director at the time of the assassination attempt on Trump, Kimberly A. Cheatle, resigned on July 23, just a day after a bipartisan group of lawmakers called for her resignation.
During her testimony before the House Oversight Committee, comprised of both Democrats and Republicans, Cheatle acknowledged that the events of July 13 represented “the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service” since the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Lawmakers expressed their dissatisfaction with her reluctance to provide detailed responses to their inquiries. Cheatle stated that her ability to be “transparent” might be “limited” due to the “associated risks with sharing highly sensitive protective methodologies.”
Cheatle sidestepped questions about why there were no Secret Service agents on the roof where the would-be assassin was positioned some 600 yards from the stage where Trump was standing in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
She mentioned that there was a plan to monitor the roof but did not elaborate on why the warehouse was not included in the Secret Service perimeter or why agents did not react more assertively to reports of a suspicious individual shortly before Trump took the stage.
As far as she was aware, she said, Trump’s Secret Service detail probably did not know that the suspicious individual, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was armed when they were first notified of his presence.
“If the detail had been informed that there was a threat, they would never have allowed the former president to step out onto the stage,” Cheatle stated.
Agree Trump is at risk #SecretServiceNeedsToStepUp