United States: The Secret Service failed to appear before a House task force on Thursday that is probing the two attempted attacks on former President Donald Trump. But it’s the main focus of the first public hearing of the panel that investigates the attacks.
The House panel utilized a hearing with state and local law enforcement, in addition to a previous Secret Service official to further investigate the choices made prior to and during the July 13 shooting at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania Republican Rep.Rep. Mike Kelly set the groundwork towards the hearing by stating that the concrete shooting which occurred did not occur due to failures by the Secret Service.
As reported by POLITICO, “The Secret Service was not assertive on key decisions,” Kelly said, the conversations and the messages through the various layers of law enforcement resembling the telephone game to children.
Constabulary and local police insisted that they received no direction from the Secret Service and claimed that the agency seemed to be missing showcases. John Herold from the Pennsylvania State Police compared then what was provided for the Trump 2020 rally with an event that took place earlier this year.
“The Secret Service did not have a lot of the resources that were in Butler for 2020, and this event on July 13 they seemed to have a lot less resources,” Herold said.
The task force heard from two other local law enforcement officials who were in Butler on July 13: Tyler Blick, Drew Blasko and Edward Lenz, as well as Ariel Goldschmidt, the Allegheny County medical examiner, and Patrick Sullivan, a former Secret Service agent.
They were asked what discussions they had with the Secret Service prior to the rally. When questioned by the panel both Lenz and Herold said they had conducted a site survey of the rally with the Secret Service prior to July 13.
The Agency did not bring up how to secure the building where the gunman, Thomas Crooks was able to access the uppermost area said the witnesses.
Lenz also told the committee that local law enforcement snipers didn’t receive guidance from the Secret Service about how to cover the building where the gunman was and, prior to finishing that transmission, “you can hear the shots being fired through my open microphone.”
The Task force has until mid-December to wrap its work and also issue a report on its findings and the recommendations to prevent future violence against the candidates and its purview now also includes the second attempted assassination against Trump in the West Palm Beach, Florida. The task force was expected to travel to Florida on Friday but that particular trip was cancelled as the state braces Hurricane Helene.