Five House Republicans — Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas — hosted a panel discussion about the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at the Heritage Foundation on Monday.
We wrote about how they interviewed Ben Shaffer, a local SWAT counter-sniper who had been working the Butler, PA rally. He said that an “odd” pattern of evidence-handling by the FBI had taken place following the deadly shooting, that they disposed of the body of the shooter and scrubbed the roof so quickly.
READ MORE: Trump Assassination Attempt: SWAT Counter-Sniper Questions ‘Odd’ Pattern of Evidence-Handling
But there were also some fiery moments with podcaster Dan Bongino, who used to be a Secret Service agent, as he lambasted the problems of the agency. He didn’t hold back on how grave he thought this was, and he made three points.
.@dbongino GOES OFF at Trump assassination attempt forum:
“A 20-year-old criminal outsmarted them on a $40 drone device… that’s disgusting!”
🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/znApqFskfb
— Bongino Report (@BonginoReport) August 27, 2024
First, he noted they had a “technology problem” — that “they rely on yesterday’s technology tomorrow.” He said the weaponry was old, “everything is old.”
Second, he noted problems with how they were spending money. There is no “more with less,” he said. There was only “less with more.” He said their budget went up, but “a 20-year-old criminal outsmarted them on a $40 drone technology piece of device… that’s disgusting!”
Third, he said they should get rid of the investigative aspect of their job, such as pursuing counterfeiters, and concentrate on the main purpose of their job: protection.
Then he answered some questions from the members of Congress, and he explained that things were now worse under Director Ronald Rowe than they were under former Director Kim Cheatle, who resigned in disgrace after the assassination attempt.
House GOP Host Forum on Trump’s Attempted Assassination with @Heritage: Clips Thread 🧵
1) Rep. Eli Crane to @dbongino: “In your opinion, is the Secret Service in a better spot today with Director Rowe in charge?”
Bongino: “No. It’s worse….You think this is the last incident?… pic.twitter.com/MTrjs3Yrr7
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 26, 2024
Bongino warned that more would be coming, “[If] You think this is the last incident, you’re out of your mind. We have seen these incidents over and over.” He mentioned the Georgia grenade incident with President Bush that happened in May 2005, where a live grenade was thrown at Bush. He said that now, the people who had screwed up in the Trump case were still the people in charge. He ripped into Rowe, saying he’d been behind “stupid, waste of time” concerns about agents wearing red ties, thinking that somehow showed support for President Donald Trump.
“This was what they were concerned with while withholding counter-surveillance assets and counter-snipers assets from probably the most threatened man on Earth. If you can explain it, good luck because that’s not the agency I worked for,” Bongino declared.
BlackRock’s Erik Prince observed that “for whatever their political reason,” Trump got one-third of the people who were detailed to Jill Biden, who was in the same area that day. She got 12 post holders at an indoor event with far fewer people attending, and Trump had four post holders, according to Prince.
2) Rep. Eli Crane to @realErikDPrince: In your professional opinion, is the Secret Service in its current form and leadership able to stop a threat like that?
Prince: “President Trump was definitely deprived of resources that day for whatever the political reason. They had one… pic.twitter.com/L8A95oK6j7
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 26, 2024
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) picked up on the question of whether there was any political component to this, while the other detail was beefed up. Bongino said that when he was there, it was never political. But now he was concerned there might be a “political tinge” for the “first time in history.” He raised the concern that they didn’t want to accord Trump more to make him look presidential.
4) @RepMattGaetz asks @dbongino about the possibility of “malice” being a factor in the security catastrophe of J13:
Bongino: “I don’t think I put this out yet, but I’ll put it out there now… it appears that for the first time in American history, we have a secret Service that… pic.twitter.com/HQVgHVfVOJ
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 26, 2024
Because it was such a colossal failure, it’s bound to raise numerous questions. Bongino and Gaetz were hesitant to even go there. That’s why they need to get answers as soon as possible to keep Trump safe and make sure this doesn’t happen again.
