Thoughts on the Attempted Assassination

I have waited a few days before writing anything about the assassination attempt. Too much furor and too many bad guesses and conspiracy theories are flying around. Did the Secret Service fail? Well yeah. They had a very public failure to protect. I have always liked the USSS and worked with them often. I worked many protective service details in 30 years with the GOV, so I know the hardships, the risks and the work that goes in on those long hour high stress many movement details. The Service’s policy of zero tolerance for mistakes always impressed me. They have to succeed every day at numerous locations around the world with a variety of protectees and missions and are supposed to be the best in the world at this job.

Here are a few thoughts I put down about issues I have been thinking about after a 20-year-old untrained kid who smuggled a rifle in and beat all the security measures that day and missed killing President Trump by the mere turn of his head.

1. The press and social media will get most of the initial stories wrong. After any large event don’t believe what you are being shown is the actual truth- or even half-truths no matter what the media says. Half-baked halfwits get to say any damn thing they want- and are never held accountable for their errors. Case in point-the shooting happened on a Saturday afternoon-a worldwide news story. On Sunday morning MSN was still showing the headline “Former President Startled by Loud Noise.” Abject morons. Story of the year and 16 or so hours later they did not bother to rewrite their initial tag line. Some of the best coverage I saw was from the BBC- always surprising to me they are more trustworthy and less biased than American TV. (They were the network featuring the redhead redneck holding a beer while being interviewed about seeing the shooter on the roof. Next week he may be on local Channel 6 describing what the tornado sounded like or what the UFO people did to him.)

2. Talking heads are worthless. They are filling live TV time with their limited opinions and the anchorpeople nod their heads like they are listening to the Oracle of Delphi. I need to get one of those jobs talking shit from my den about stuff I don’t know anything about. Better than an inaccurate weatherman who never gets held accountable either. I saw a former assistant undersecretary to some DC agency pontificating at length about how Secret Service works. Seriously? If you never stood around guarding a dignitary and risking your life for others, then STFU.

3. Any idiot with a TV and a keyboard can post asinine ideas, conspiracy theories and completely bent ideas-another case in point, look at me typing away about my thoughts on it! Realize some absolute crap is being made up and published and treated like it is real. Did you see any of the BS posted about how the sniper watched they assassin for minutes prior to the elimination shot? Keyboard commandos pretending to have inside info said the sniper could not get the Green Light to shoot the guy from command post. It’s all made up- looks real, but it just isn’t true.

Another post on FB claims to be from the Counter Sniper himself airing his frustration and how he got fired for shooting without permission. Get this. Every Secret Service Agent is a federal agent and is fully authorized to use deadly force to save lives, just like any other policeman in America. They don’t have to get a Green Light from anybody, and if you count the seconds from first shot to last it is scant seconds. Counter Sniper made a fabulous shot through the bad guy’s left eye in about 5 seconds after he opened fire. Federal Agents and more to the point, the newly minted most famous Secret Service Counter Sniper is not airing grievances on Facebook.

All the woulda and coulda and “why didn’t he”, or “why didn’t they”, are issues for real investigations not Hot Pocket Munchers up too late on the Internet- and certainly not tried in the court of talking head TV. Every policeman and agent at every event is there to protect the dignitary and the public and put their own life at risk to do so. USSS in particular have it as a core function of their job. If you have a job or ever had a job…or would someday like to have a job, you might be serious about it- but not like this job. It’s about protecting the life of the president, past presidents, VP, first lady and their families. They are serious 24/7.

4. Speaking of which, did you hear the one about how some local cop climbed the ladder, saw the bad guy with the rifle then retreated? Look this is social media sensation created, had no names, photos or witnesses to attribute it to. Facebook crap, posted and left to fester by trolls. Again, you can believe me on this, any lawman assigned to protect the former president would have blown that kid out of his cheap tennis shoes if he so much as laid eyes on him. Gunning a bad guy with a rifle at a rally would require a couple of muscles and very little mental processing.

5. The Counter Sniper should have done something different. Take your pick of internet expert ideas. (Thank God the former internet Chairborne Commandos can quit saying how to win in Ukraine and can focus on something else they no nothing about.) Here we are a few days later and learn the angle of the sniper perch vs the bad guy roof may have impeded line of sight. Yes, that can happen. It’s the real world- it doesn’t always go your way. You and I weren’t there and saying what he and the spotter should have seen- just doesn’t take in all the factors in play which we are not privy too. (And now that the FBI has claimed “Domestic Terrorism” they will shut the lid on the details the case will run for years and very little will leak out. BTDT.)

Protective Service is a gamble, every time you run one-hopefully making it too hard to come take a shot. That Counter Sniper Team engaged and eliminated a shooter in scant seconds- heroes. Shot of a lifetime by some of the best snipers in the world. You or I could not qualify for the job I don’t care if you can hit a 200-yard bullseye. They are all prior Tier One military agency professionals who pick up a second career with the Secret Service…and they deploy daily or weekly working to prevent the very bad day we hope never comes true. Heros.

6. The bad guy was a bad shot. He did not make the high school rifle team, his gun was crap, etc etc. The sonofabitch came within 2 inches of changing world history and would have made the head shot if Trump had not turned his head at that moment. Miracle. The shots were hurried, and still killed one spectator and wounded two people besides Trump, but he almost pulled it off. I saw a blurry zoomed picture of the rifle on the rooftop. Seemed to have a small optic on it. A 5.56 or .223 is very accurate and within the 130-50 meters the press is claiming, it could have worked. With a sighted in rifle that should have been a chip shot. We will never know why he missed or if his lack of ability, excitement, humidity or down slope angle contributed…but he was not a bad shot. He beat the security posture and sent deadly rounds down range. Good he didn’t try center mass, or maybe he did. We will never know, but we all know he came within an ears width of murdering the former president.

7. I listen to insiders during these big events. Dan Bongino is a radio host who is a former Secret Service Agent. He had a lot to say on Monday following the shooting, and he was very critical of the Service. He has been on the ground working details and is still in contact with agents on the job and the information he says he received was disturbing at best. I worked with the Secret Service many times and always enjoyed the agents and their mission in my 30 years with the Fed, so I would cut them some slack, but the former agent/talk show guy does not. Listening to the long list of information he said he got from other agents, it struck me how agencies certainly do change over time, and post-Obama era politics has gotten so deeply imbedded in the entire government like never before. Word that the agents assigned to the Trump detail have been having problems getting support help for the former president who also just happens to be current candidate for next president is stunning. Apparently, more assets have been diverted over to First Lady Jill Biden away from the Trump detail. Is it politics which created some of this shooting scenario? Lack of assets on the ground…and in the sky. Where was the plan for any aerial coverage? Did not have to be a helo. Could just be a drone-any school kid can fly one. RFK Jr has been complaining for months he can’t get Secret Service protection and he is a candidate for president. Yesterday he got protection.

8. I liked the Russian comment-they said they did not believe the White House sponsored this assassination attempt, but they certainly fostered an environment conducive and supportive of anything-goes to eliminate Trump. Kind of like they want to Prosecute Trump for creating the condition to commit Treason or Tearing off Mattress Tags to incite INSURRECTION on Jan 6th.

Continued persecution and prosecution against this political opponent have been non-stop during the Biden administrations era of failed policies. As of late they have also been shouting from the rooftops and in every media sound byte “If Trump wins it will be the end of democracy as we know it” …and Biden said something to the effect five days ago how Trump should be put in the” bullseye.” Enough is too much. The Dems have had the Hate Express going on for too long and it has come back to them and to us. Constitutional note: if you have a failed administration voted out of office…that is the very definition of democracy, not the end of democracy. Just the end of your party control.

9. The Secret Service has suffered huge losses of face in the last year, from not being able to figure out who left bag of cocaine in the White House, to a female agent attacking a supervisor and then having a DEI appointed Director more worried about pronouns and minority quotas than protection. She grew up in the Service, then was head of security for Pepsi and then came back to the GOV as Director of USSS. One news story said she waived a female agent trainees’ failure at basic school to separate innocents and gunmen training to ensure female hiring quotas were not impacted. Did it happen? I don’t personally know, but I have seen similar in my time with the government plenty of times. Congress is apparently enraged by this security failure and is calling the Director to testify ASAP, and many are calling for her head. Your whole agency is dedicated to protection, and in this case the assassination was not prevented by anything your people did on the ground that day. There are Leaders and there are Managers. Time to resign or wait to be fired.

10. The Secret Service made the situation worse by letting out an announcement stating local officers should have found the shooter or prevented the shooter from acting. This went viral this week, and the Fraternal Order of Police blasted back in their own press release about how unfair such a thing was to say and especially so during a campaign election season. Any public event staffed by Secret Service presence has state and local police in huge manpower supporting roles and the FOP said the USSS was going to need cooperation for the campaign season but may not get it if the USSS could not be trusted. Any Secret Service agent will freely admit they could not pull off protection details without heavy cooperation and support from local police. Why let your PR person try to blame shift in public? Those words hurt.

11. Oh, and speaking of more bad PR, apparently the Director of the Service today said the reason they did not have anyone on the shooter’s roof was it was sloped, and no one would want to be on that sloped kind of roof…. yeah, just like 99% of every other roof in the world, and a whole lot like the sloped roof the Counter Sniper team sat on. Who said better to say nothing and be thought a fool instead of opening your mouth and confirming it? The Service needs to stop talking to the media and take their lumps with Congress.

12. Lastly, the female agents on the detail are getting heat. I was very impressed with the agent with her hair up in a bun. She was right in the scrum on stage. Bent her arm up in the air to add additional coverage because she was short and got under Trump’s armpit walking him off. Her sister agent is getting lambasted all over the internet. You know the one who could not get her gun back in the holster four times in a row, so she just kept it out a while longer. Not great gun handling at best. On the other hand, being more fair, she was having the worst work day of her life and I am pretty sure from the expression on her face her blood pressure was maxed out and fine motor skills go to shit with that much BP and stress going on. Some keyboard experts pointed out the many short female agents were so much shorter than the 6’3” Trump he was still at risk being moved by short people! Funny. At the RNC Convention today he had tall agents. Maybe the internet is good for something after all.