yes, everything

(DJT was supposed to die yesterday)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47844043)

was it?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47844769)

the prosecution case was horribly awful. atrocious.

the mystery video showed up late and the prosecutor concocted a theory about why it showed Rittenhouse's guilt. the theory was forced and illogical and bullshit, but it became the new life in the prosecutor's case. it was like a Hail Mary play.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47845023)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47854125)

what pack are you guys smoking on?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47845323)

if it were mere incompetence the MSM would be all over the issue. but i'm mostly seeing discussion of it on sites like this.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47844056)

He should have never been able to get that close with a rifle.

He should have never been able to get on the roof with a rifle.

He shouldn’t have been able to army crawl any distance on the roof with a rifle.

He shouldn’t have been able to get in position to take a shot.

He shouldn’t have been able to set the rifle down and aim at the former POTUS.

He shouldn’t have been able to get a single shot off let alone multiple shots.

That’s just basic shit that makes me think this was a deep state operation.

Then you have multiple witnesses who saw the shooter on the roof but no cops or SS saw them and that is literally their only job.

Then you have reports that the police noticed him acting suspiciously around the metal detectors and were actively watching him along with having notified SS.

I cannot even begin to comprehend this level of incompetence for something this important. The most logical explanation is that this was condoned or orchestrated by the administration or the deep state.

Libs genuinely believe Trump is a threat to democracy and that he is literally a dictator. I’m sure they believe killing him would be justified and that they were more than willing to sacrifice the head of the SS to achieve their ends.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47844077)

this may be correct. kennedy was being interviewed the other day and said hes repeatedly asked for ss protection and wasn;t granted it until after the attempt on trump, despite bringing to ss's attention that he's gotten death threats.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47860585)

Even with those limitations, it's egregious that they didn't at least (a) put a couple local LEOs on that roof and (b) put up some screens or simple walls blocking sight from (completely unguarded) roof and trees so someone on the roof or in the trees wouldn't have a visual on the podium. Sixty seconds of thoughtful foresight would have ID'ed the roof as a gaping--and easily fixed--hole in the security.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47844177)

Official investigation will show some procedural lapses and a perfect storm of circumstances but SS reacted immediately and with great heroism.

Trump and every official + media outlet will continue praising SS.

Threads like this will be ignored, straw manned, fact checked, etc.

Eventually, after several years, it will flip to "of COURSE the SS was willfully ignorant, this is well known..."

It's a widely accepted fact that the CIA killed JFK, and basically nobody cares

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47844826)

President Biden calls for a review of the protective agency’s actions after the attack, which left an audience member dead and two critically wounded.

Share full article

Former President Donald J. Trump, wearing a blue suit, white shirt and red baseball cap, walking down steps. American flags are behind him, and people wearing dark suits, white shirts and sunglasses are to his side.

Secret Service agents with former President Donald J. Trump at his campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, shortly before the shooting.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

Zolan Kanno-YoungsDavid A. FahrentholdHamed AleazizEileen Sullivan

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, David A. Fahrenthold, Hamed Aleaziz and Eileen Sullivan

The reporters have covered presidential security over various administrations.

July 14, 2024

Updated 7:07 p.m. ET

President Biden on Sunday called for an “independent review” of security measures before and after the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, while directing the Secret Service to review all of its security measures for the Republican National Convention this week.

Mr. Biden’s directive, though brief and without specifics, is likely to increase the scrutiny of the decisions and possible failures of the agency charged first and foremost with protecting the lives of the country’s current and former leaders, and their families.

Less than 24 hours after Mr. Trump was injured at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., members of Congress were promising hearings and former law enforcement officials were questioning why the warehouse roof where the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., fired shots was not covered by the Secret Service’s security perimeter, despite being within the range of some guns.

Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was herded off the stage and pronounced fine, but the gunman came shockingly close to succeeding. A spectator was killed in the shooting and two others were critically wounded.

“Congress will do a full investigation of the tragedy yesterday to determine where there were lapses in security and anything else that the American people need to know and deserve to know,” Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, said Sunday on NBC.

The chair of the House oversight committee also asked the Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to testify at a hearing on July 22.

The demand for answers from the president and Congress will likely spur another reckoning for an agency that has had its share over the past two decades. The Secret Service has faced administrative and cultural overhauls in recent years following reports of debauchery, reckless behavior and narrowly-avoided security failures. Saturday’s assassination attempt will surely be one of the most serious additions to that list.

Yet, there is little time for deep soul searching. The Republican National Convention begins this week in Milwaukee. The Secret Service has promised a heavy presence of uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement officers from multiple agencies, as the days-long convention has been designated a National Special Security Event. That designation is usually used for large-scale events, including the United Nations General Assembly, and allows the Secret Service to pull in additional federal resources.

Representative Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona and a former military corporal, sent a letter to Ms. Cheatle on Sunday, questioning whether the Trump campaign had requested additional resources for the event and whether a proper assessment of the area had been conducted. Mr. Gallego also raised whether Secret Service protection should reconsider its denial of a detail for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an independent presidential candidate whose father was felled by an assassin in 1968.

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The Secret Service routinely relies on local law enforcement when it plans security for events like the one on Saturday. The agency is directly responsible for the security within the designated perimeter of the event. In this case, that was the venue, the audience and the protectee, according to the agency’s spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi.

The building where the gunman positioned himself was outside of the perimeter, which meant it would have been secured by local law enforcement. On Saturday, there were four counter sniper teams — two teams from the Secret Service and two from local law enforcement, Mr. Guglielmi said.

Mr. Guglielmi said the events on Saturday played out rapidly. Before the shooting occurred, Mr. Guglielmi said, civilians reported spotting someone suspicious to the local police. Quickly thereafter, a man was seen on the roof of the nearby warehouse opening fire.

A Secret Service counter sniper saw the man after he started shooting and fired at him, killing him, Mr. Guglielmi said. The gunman, he said, was not “camped out” on the roof. An AR-15-type rifle was found lying by Mr. Crooks’s body afterward.

But former law enforcement officials, including those with ties to the Secret Service, are focused on why the agency’s protective perimeter did not include the nearby building where the gunman staked out such an advantageous position.

“Did we miss something? And if we did miss something, we need to stand up and take ownership of it,” said Robert E. McDonald, a lecturer at the University of New Haven who spent 20 years in the Secret Service. Mr. McDonald questioned why the Secret Service did not have counter snipers watching that building more closely.

“We’re not looking at any skyscrapers here,” he said. “They should be able to see that. And if somebody is up there, they should be able to send law enforcement personnel up there to check that out.”

Image

Snipers on top of a building wearing black shirts point rifles into the distance, with people standing in the foreground below them.

Secret Service snipers responded after shots were fired at the campaign event on Saturday evening.Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times

When preparing for an event like a rally, the Secret Service’s presidential detail advance teams do a walk-through of the site to determine necessary resources and manpower, according to former law enforcement officials. They also decide how expansive the security parameter around the president will be.

One former official said that perimeter is divided into three categories: the inner perimeter directly around the president’s lectern, the middle perimeter and an outer perimeter. One former Secret Service official who has developed security plans for many presidential speeches and events said that the middle perimeter around Mr. Trump should have included the nearby building and that a sniper team should have been positioned on the building’s rooftop.

Law enforcement officials also questioned how long it took the Secret Service to move Mr. Trump off the stage. At one point, the Secret Service appeared to slow down to allow Mr. Trump to put on his shoes and pump his fist, something a former Secret Service official described as unusual.

“If that’s me there, no. We are going, and we are going now,” said Jeffrey James, a 22-year veteran of the Secret Service who retired in 2018 and is now chief of police at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania. “If it’s me, I’m buying him a new pair of shoes.”

Secret Service agents themselves also were privately texting and calling one another on Sunday questioning why Ms. Cheatle had not been more visible to the public after the shooting. While federal and local law enforcement held a news conference detailing the shooting on Saturday night, Ms. Cheatle did not appear.

Ms. Cheatle, who had served in the Secret Service for nearly three decades, worked on Mr. Biden’s protective detail when he was vice president. She was appointed to lead the agency in 2022, leaving an executive position with PepsiCo., as the Secret Service was dealing with the fallout of congressional investigations into the deletion of agents’ text messages during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ms. Cheatle sent a memo to her agents on Sunday praising their response to the shooting.

“The attempted assassination of former President Trump in Butler, Pa., is a moment that forever will be remembered in history,” she said in the memo, which was reviewed by The New York Times. “The Secret Service moved quickly in this situation and neutralized the threat.”

But her memo did not directly address questions about the gaps in preparation and planning that allowed the gunman to get in position to fire at Mr. Trump.

“In the coming days, the Secret Service will face praise and criticism,” she wrote. “Do not get distracted by those who were not there and yet still pass judgment.”

Some members of law enforcement defended the Secret Service’s handling of the incident.

“The agents did their job,” said Cheryl Tyler, a former member of the Secret Service protective division and training instructor for the agency. “That’s a chaotic moment. It’s a stressful moment.”

But she too acknowledged the need to create a boundary around Mr. Trump.

“The outside venues, with no protection, no cover, no building structure, those are hard to protect,” Ms. Tyler said. “You have no boundaries. You have to create a boundary. You have to create a buffer.”

Ali Watkins contributed reporting.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent, covering President Biden and his administration. More about Zolan Kanno-Youngs

David A. Fahrenthold is an investigative reporter writing about nonprofit organizations. He has been a reporter for two decades. More about David A. Fahrenthold

Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy. More about Hamed Aleaziz

Eileen Sullivan covers breaking news, the Justice Department, the trials against Donald J. Trump and the Biden administration. More about Eileen Sullivan

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47845058)

https://x.com/ChuckCallesto/status/1813273610686955839

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47852815)

iow, it passes the Turing Test for an inside job.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47854077)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47854115)

More than anything it was a demoralization campaign and a pretty girthy dick waving by (((TPTB))) that they’re about to have there way and own both parties wholly to no end

The pieces have already been long laid out and they made a nice bedtime fairy tale for the masses to slop up any uncomfortable feelings about their place in the matter (insert Divine Providence, deep state really wants trump gone lol, et al here)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47854195)

=====

Biden’s Team Deliberately Kneecapped Trump’s Security To Allow An Assassination Attempt

BY: SEAN DAVIS

They kept the rooftop open, watched the shooter, kept Trump on the stage, and didn’t do a damn thing until after he had been shot. And we’re supposed to believe it was an innocent oopsie?

Nobody wants to hear this because of the implications, but oh well, because it needs to be said: Joe Biden’s security regime deliberately and with malice and forethought created the conditions that led to an attempted assassin shooting Donald Trump in the head. It is by the grace of God that he lived and our nation is not currently in the midst of a violent civil war.

They deliberately starved Trump’s security team of the resources it needed. And they did it repeatedly, over many weeks and months.

With Trump’s security detail understaffed, under-resourced, and stretched to its limits, Biden’s security regime reportedly diverted even more resources to a hastily planned Jill Biden event that just happened to be in the area.

Biden’s security regime then ordered the most obvious assassination perch in the entire area to remain outside the main security perimeter.

Furthermore, Biden’s Secret Service director ordered law enforcement and counter-snipers OFF the roof the assassin used.

If that weren’t enough, Biden’s security regime also refused to block the line of sight from the assassin’s perch to Trump’s location. When law enforcement radioed in a suspicious person using a laser range finder at the building and even took photos of him, nothing was done to detain the assassin.

The assassin was so obviously a threat that bystanders at the event begged law enforcement to stop him, but nothing happened. And even as snipers on the roof near Trump saw a gunman on the other roof, Biden’s security regime refused to have agents immediately surround Trump or remove him from the stage to protect him from being shot.

Given the lies and nonsense from both Biden’s Department of Homeland Security secretary and his Secret Service director, it’s increasingly difficult to believe this was just a series of independent mistakes (Secret Service director Kim Cheatle at one point this week claimed snipers couldn’t be on the roof because it was sloped and they might fall and hurt themselves). In contrast, when you look at the entire picture, what you see better resembles a deliberate plan to make Trump vulnerable but to appear at first glance to be just a couple of innocent mistakes.

And when you add in how little information we’ve been given about the shooter — apparently the only person on Earth not on the internet — you begin to wonder if maybe a group of people at a different three-letter agency might have been working on a parallel track to find and encourage people to take action against Trump at the very same time he was kept vulnerable by Biden’s regime.

We know this happens because the FBI did it with Gretchen Whitmer: It recruited and urged disturbed individuals to buy weapons and put together a plan to kidnap her. In that case, the FBI wanted a story it could use to slime right-wingers. So it created the story itself.

What happens when an agency like that, or maybe even another three-letter agency, decides instead that it’s had enough of Trump? Some former FBI employees might even call it an “insurance policy.”

So who was the shooter talking to in the hours, days, and weeks ahead of the event? Who was he meeting with? Did anyone suggest or nudge or urge him to go to the Trump rally in Butler? Did anyone suggest or point out to him the building he eventually used? Was he told at any time not to worry about security?

The FBI told us almost immediately that while it couldn’t open the assassin’s phone, it knew he acted alone. That’s kind of strange, when you think about it. They told us almost immediately that they identified him by DNA, despite him having no criminal record. They also said they found explosives in his car. Why didn’t they just identify him by his plates or registration or next of kin? That’s pretty weird, too.

At some point, you just have to say enough with the lies. We saw what they did with the Russia hoax. We saw the Kavanaugh hoax. We saw the Covid origin hoax. We saw the Ukraine hoax, the stolen election, the J6 op, and then the armed Mar-a-Lago raid and the myriad illegal cases against Trump.

They called him Hitler. They said he was an existential threat. They said he would destroy democracy. They said he was the most dangerous person on Earth. Then they denied him security. They kept the rooftop open. They watched the shooter and did nothing. They kept Trump on that stage. And they didn’t do a damn thing until after he had been shot in the head.

And we’re all supposed to believe it was just an innocent oopsie?

https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/16/bidens-team-deliberately-kneecapped-trumps-security-to-allow-an-assassination-attempt/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47855869)

Can you answer my question about Obama's brother in the other thread

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47858326)

====

https://www.city-journal.org/article/how-the-secret-service-failed?

James B. Meigs

How the Secret Service Failed

What disaster science tells us about the Trump assassination attempt

/ Eye on the News / Politics and law, The Social Order

Jul 19 2024

/ Share

It took only minutes for conspiracy theories to start flooding social media when news broke on July 13 that a sniper had almost assassinated former president Donald Trump. Some conservatives asked whether U.S. Secret Service agents assigned to the Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally were actually plotting Trump’s demise. Left-leaning partisans suspected the shooting was somehow faked to garner sympathy for the candidate. According to the media monitoring site NewsGuard, appearances of the words “inside job” and “staged” surged more than 3,000 percent on the X platform immediately after the shooting.

It’s easy to understand why the public seeks more compelling narratives to explain this shocking event. The facts known so far are hard to accept: a suspicious man was spotted roaming the rally grounds and was reported to authorities, but the event went forward anyway. According to ABC News, a USSS sniper team spied the shooter on a nearby, unprotected rooftop a full 20 minutes before he opened fire. Nonetheless, as the Federalist’s Sean Davis writes, “They kept the rooftop open, watched the shooter, kept Trump on the stage, and didn’t do a damn thing until after he had been shot. And we’re supposed to believe it was an innocent oopsie?”

That’s a good question. Every aspect of the Secret Service’s catastrophic failure on July 13 should be investigated by Congress, by independent researchers, and, one hopes, by a nonpartisan commission of the type that investigated the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown and the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. Investigators should keep open minds regarding even the most outré theories; almost anything is possible, after all. But I suspect the answers uncovered by an honest inquiry will strike many as surprisingly—even unbelievably—mundane. That’s the upshot of most disaster investigations: rather than discovering intricate plots or amoral villains, investigators usually find simple mistakes made by ordinary people who’ve been numbed by routine and blinded by all-too-human cognitive biases.

After Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, and other great disasters of the late twentieth century, a loose-knit group of engineers and sociologists began studying such incidents looking for common themes, warning signs, and ways to prevent similar catastrophes in the future. We usually assume that big disasters are caused either by massive mechanical breakdowns or by some sort of deliberate recklessness—even malfeasance—on the part of those involved. (Conspiracy theories fall in that latter category.) But Yale sociologist Charles Perrow, a pioneer in the relatively new field of disaster science, notes that careful reconstruction of accidents such as the Three Mile Island meltdown typically “reveals the banality and triviality behind most catastrophes.”

In the hours and minutes before an organization falls into chaos, Perrow found, the managers and workers involved don’t usually think they are flouting rules or courting disaster. They assume that they are following routine procedures. And they are as shocked as the rest of us when everything falls apart. Such disasters are also typically a long time in coming. Researchers find that over time, even high-performance organizations such as NASA gradually cut corners, take on greater risks, and allow workers to grow complacent. When disaster strikes such organizations, it isn’t usually because of a single spectacular mistake but rather a long series of small decisions that progressively shaved safety margins and dulled alertness.

Was that the case with the Secret Service’s failure to protect Trump? It’s too soon to say. But congressional investigators would be wise to keep the lessons of disaster science in mind. USSS director Kimberly Cheatle has agreed to appear before the House Oversight Committee this Monday, July 22. (Other inquiries are also in the works.) Cheatle certainly deserves a thorough grilling. Congressmen who treat the hearing as a chance to grandstand will miss a deeper opportunity, however. It is important to identify failures of top leadership as well as any dereliction of duty on the part of agents at the rally. But if we hope to restore the USSS to competence, it is not enough to single out wrongdoers in this incident; we also need to understand the institutional pressures that have degraded the once-venerated agency’s effectiveness.

Columbia University sociologist Dianne Vaughan spent a decade studying the Challenger disaster. After that catastrophe, most observers blamed the accident on reckless NASA managers who ignored obvious dangers. Her research found something very different. She discovered NASA to be a very rule-bound organization. But the agency’s many rules, traditions, and operational pressures subtly nudged NASA engineers into accepting—and, in her words, normalizing—greater and greater risks. The officials who approved the doomed launch believed they were following the rule book. NASA’s safety problems were not merely the fault of a few rogue managers, she realized; they were baked into the culture. “Locating blame in individuals perpetuates the problem,” Vaughan concluded. The individuals responsible for the disaster might be fired or even jailed, she added, “but unless the organizational causes of the problems are fixed, the next person to occupy the same position will experience the same pressures and the harmful outcomes will repeat.” Likewise, Congress should not fall into the trap of thinking that firing a few lax performers will fix the problems at the USSS.

The House Oversight Committee and other investigators should take lessons from disaster science to help guide inquiries that do more than give politicians 90-second clips on TikTok. Here are some questions Congress and other investigators should ask.

How unusual were the decisions made on July 13? For outside observers, the poor decisions and lack of urgency that USSS agents on the scene showed seem inexplicable. Campaign security veterans have noted how unusual it is to leave a roof located just 130 yards from a campaign rally stage unprotected. Congress should seek records from other campaign events to see whether such lax practices have in fact become more commonplace. Director Cheatle told ABC News that the building was used as a staging area for local police and therefore out of the direct supervision of Secret Service agents. The “Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,” she said. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter.” (The implication that she was passing the blame off on local officers raised hackles among law enforcement groups).

According to ABC News, the suspect, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was first spotted by law enforcement over an hour before the shooting. He was noted acting suspiciously but faded into the crowd. Over the next 40 minutes, he crossed paths with officials several more times before ascending to the roof. But apparently local police had not been given specific protocols on how to follow up on a suspicious encounter. Congress should ask who has the authority to halt an event when troubling activity is detected. Are local or state police authorized to raise an alarm that would require removing the candidate from potential danger? Or does the Secret Service keep that prerogative to itself?

What competing goals might have undermined the agency’s focus? Some conservatives have criticized Secret Service Director Cheatle’s very public emphasis on achieving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion metrics. The agency aims to have women make up 30 percent of recruits by 2030. Critics noted that the 6-foot-2-inch former president towered over the female agents trying to protect him as part of his security phalanx. The Secret Service responded by saying that it is “appalled” by the criticisms. But the purpose of the agency is to protect key politicians, not to advance other social goals. It is legitimate to ask whether shorter, less powerful people—of either gender—are appropriate for a president’s or candidate’s immediate detail. And anyone protected by the Secret Service has a right to be concerned that its female agents are held to lower fitness standards than male agents, as Manhattan Institute senior fellow Chris Rufo has documented.

But there is a bigger question Congress should ask: How much do DEI concerns distract agents and supervisors from the agency’s core mission? The Secret Service’s 2023 annual report describes one meeting in which USSS leaders “facilitated an exercise on unconscious bias.” (The theory of unconscious bias asserts that most Americans hold implicit racist attitudes which subconsciously nudge them to discriminate against black people. The theory has been persuasively debunked, yet implicit bias exercises remain a common element in DEI training programs.) Clearly, some agents on the ground in Butler last Saturday made crucial errors. Would less time spent sitting in DEI seminars, and more time training in the field have helped?

More broadly, is the Secret Service spread too thin? The agency was established after the Civil War to fight rampant counterfeiting. After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, it was tasked with protecting presidents. In recent decades, though, the small agency has taken on many additional roles, including investigating cybercrime, identity theft, missing children, credit-card fraud, and more. Congress should explore whether most of those roles could be handed off to the FBI or other law enforcement agencies. In any high-risk field, having too many conflicting priorities can undermine attentiveness.

Is the Secret Service ignoring the “weak signals” of trouble? Karl Weick, of the University of Michigan, and Kathleen Sutcliffe, of Johns Hopkins, used lessons from disasters to develop their concept of the High-Reliability Organization. A key strength of these accident-resistant institutions is being attentive to what the two business professors call the “weak signals” of potential trouble. For example, in the months leading up to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil platform blowout, the rig’s computer systems were in poor condition, and several fire alarms had been disabled. If those seemingly minor problems had been seen as warning signs—weak signals—of deeper problems in the rig’s management, the devastating accident might have been prevented.

Similarly, for years the Secret Service has sent out its own weak signals—and not-so-weak signals—that its operations are sloppy and undisciplined. In her 2021 book Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, Washington Post investigative reporter Carol Leonnig describes the agency’s “frat-boy culture of infighting, indulgence and obsolescence.” She reviews decades of screwups, including a 2012 incident in which USSS agents doing advance work for a presidential trip to Cartagena, Columbia spent time drinking and cavorting with prostitutes. In 2014, an intruder armed with a knife made it deep into the White House. (A female agent tried but failed to block his path, due to “the size disparity between the two.”) Since then, several intruders have penetrated security cordons around Mar-a-Lago. No doubt, most USSS agents are dedicated professionals. But the agency as a whole appears to be anything but a High Reliability Organization. Congress should demand a new approach.

Why are Secret Service operations so disorganized? Conspiracy theorists say that it is not credible that Secret Service agents and local law enforcement officers made so many maddening mistakes on July 13. (And certainly, the possibility that they were merely following instructions must be explored.) But it is more likely that the loose organization and poor communications seen that day are typical for the agency. Many post-disaster investigations show that the organizational problems leading to a particular deadly incident had been present for years—but noticed only when the catastrophe finally occurred. Congress should explore whether that was the case in Butler.

A key problem appears to have been poor coordination between Secret Service agents and the local and state police on the scene. A Secret Service advance team walked the fairgrounds with local law enforcement on July 8. The federal agents decided that the group of warehouses to the north of the stage would be covered by local police rather than by the Secret Service. “That created a blind spot,” the New York Times writes, “outside the security perimeter but well within rifle range.” According to ABC and the Washington Post, the Secret Service later asked for a local police cruiser to be stationed by the closest warehouse, but the tiny Butler police department couldn’t fulfill the last-minute request. Such details hint at an ad hoc, haphazard operation.

Some security veterans have noted that lapses often occur in the “seams” between different law enforcement groups. That seems to have been the case at the July 13 rally. According to numerous sources, several local officers reported Crooks’ suspicious movements (including his use of a rangefinder) and even circulated a cellphone photo of the suspect. Reports went out over the radio network. But somehow, even after the suspect was seen climbing up on the warehouse roof, Secret Service agents either didn’t hear the messages or didn’t treat them seriously enough. Congress should ask who is responsible for making sure serious warnings get passed to supervisors. Investigators should also explore whether a cultural problem is at work here: Do Secret Service agents put less credence on reports coming from local police units who they consider unsophisticated?

Poor communication across the seam between local and federal officers might also explain the extraordinary delay in engaging the shooter once he was in position on the warehouse. The Secret Service sniper team had Crooks in view for a full 20 minutes. Why didn’t they take action? Some experts speculate they assumed he might be a member of a local law-enforcement team. It makes sense that Secret Service snipers are trained to avoid friendly fire incidents. But the agency needs to explain why it didn’t have a protocol in place to identify friend or foe rapidly. And, once agents spotted a possible shooter in position, why didn’t they rush Trump off the stage?

Is “safetyism” crippling the Secret Service? Director Cheatle’s explanation for why the Secret Service didn’t station its own team on the warehouse roof is being widely mocked: “That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point, and so there’s a safety factor that would be considered there, that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she told ABC News. “So, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from inside.” Anyone who has seen a photo of the building’s barely sloping roof knows that her statement is ludicrous. But investigators should dig down. Was Cheatle merely tossing off a thin excuse for the lapse? Or did her statement reflect a deeper philosophy within the agency?

In The Coddling of the American Mind, authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt define “safetyism” as an obsession with safety “to the point at which people become unwilling to make reasonable tradeoffs demanded by other practical and moral concerns.” Similarly, disaster researchers find that institutions that insist on doing everything by the book often lack the flexibility to respond to new, dangerous situations. Congress should explore whether such attitudes have infiltrated the Secret Service. Did agents really decide to leave a perfect sniper perch unprotected out of a misplaced sense of safety? Does safetyism explain why it took so long to take out the gunman?

These are some of the questions Monday’s House Oversight Committee hearing should ask. And more far-reaching investigations should follow. Their findings will be crucial to reforming the Secret Service, an agency that had run off-track long before July 13. And a better understanding of that day’s events might even help put some conspiracy theories to rest. In the end, of course, the best way for federal officials to counter conspiracy theories is to be competent at their core jobs.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47870977)

Yours in Christ

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47870990)

===

Fog of Confusion Clouds Epic Security Failure at Trump’s Rally

Law-enforcement authorities have conflicting recollections of their responsibilities at ill-fated rally

By Sadie GurmanFollow

, James FanelliFollow

and C. Ryan BarberFollow

July 20, 2024 5:00 am ET

Everyone agrees something went disastrously wrong at Donald Trump’s rally in western Pennsylvania last weekend, when a gunman was able to fire a shot that grazed the former president’s ear. But they don’t agree on what or why.

More than a half-dozen law enforcement agencies were responsible for securing the Butler Farm Show grounds and have since provided a patchwork of conflicting accounts of how Thomas Matthew Crooks could get on a rooftop with a clear line of sight to Trump.

Lawmakers hope to get a clearer understanding of one of the most stunning security breaches in decades next week, when they have summoned Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and the heads of several local police agencies to Capitol Hill to explain their actions that day.

“We had details around the timeline, but it doesn’t give any clear answers as to what happened and why it was allowed,” Rep. Gary Palmer (R., Ala.) said after federal authorities briefed lawmakers this week. “In a situation like this, the question that needs to be answered is, how did it happen?”

The 20-year-old Crooks fired at least six rounds from the roof of the American Glass Research building roughly 400 feet away from where Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving Trump bloodied and defiant. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing Crooks, whose motive remains a mystery.

Earlier on the day of the shooting, Crooks was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the event site, law-enforcement officials said, further underscoring the apparent cascading security failures.

Among the biggest questions unanswered by accounts to date: Why the roof of the building from which Crooks took his shot wasn’t secured, and why—even though officers had flagged Crooks as suspicious an hour before Trump spoke and had lost sight of him—the former president still went out to speak.

The Trump campaign publicly announced the rally at the farm show grounds on July 3. The following Monday, July 8, the Secret Service met with locals to start prepping. They held another meeting July 11, where they did a walk-through. On the day of the rally, local snipers and Secret Service counter-snipers also met in person to go over their operational plans with each other, a local law-enforcement official said. The local officers wanted to make sure their federal counterparts knew where they would be stationed, the official said, so there would be no “blue-on-blue,” meaning the Secret Service wouldn’t mistake their snipers for intruders.

But both sides appeared to have differing impressions of where the Butler County Emergency Services Unit would be stationed at the building.

Some federal law-enforcement officials had been under the impression that local police officers were supposed to be stationed on the roof. But the Butler County unit, a tactical team with officers from at least nine local departments, told the Secret Service it had no plans to be on the roof and would instead position members on the second floor to have eyes on the venue, the local law-enforcement official said. The unit believed that the roof’s slant would have partially obscured the snipers’ view. Plus, the team didn’t want its snipers exposed to the heat, which rose above 90 degrees throughout their nine-hour shift.

The Secret Service told lawmakers it, too, decided not to stage snipers on the roof, and left securing that building to the locals. Secret Service snipers positioned elsewhere would be able to see the roof from their elevated vantage point, the federal agency reasoned; it also opted not to fly its own drone overhead that day.

Those decisions enabled Crooks to climb to the roof by jumping on an air conditioner and left officers inside the building as Crooks was just above them, taking aim at the former president.

“There was local police in that building,” Cheatle acknowledged in an interview with ABC News, calling the shooting unacceptable.

Crooks shouldn’t have gotten that far.

He had attracted suspicion more than an hour before the attack, when officers saw him pacing around the edges of the rally with a backpack and a range finder. He didn’t appear to have a weapon. The officers radioed their concerns to other agencies, including the Secret Service. One took a picture of Crooks and shared it around. But then, the police lost sight of him.

The local law-enforcement official said the Butler County Emergency Services Unit’s counterassault teams had been watching Crooks and knew he was acting suspiciously, but his behavior didn’t meet the threshold for them to engage with Crooks. Leaving their posts also would have created a hole in the unit’s security plan, the official said.

Several local officers broke free from their duties directing traffic to help look for the man but didn’t find him.

Despite the possible threat, the Secret Service allowed Trump to take the stage. It couldn’t be determined whether agents sought to dissuade him.

When witnesses alerted police to a person on the roof, Butler Township officers checked out the building. One of the officers was hoisted on top of another, and was pulling himself up to the roof when he found Crooks, who pointed a rifle at him. The officer, unable to engage the gunman, lost his grip and fell to the ground.

Reports of a gunman on the roof crackled over the police radio. Then, shots fired.

Kristina Peterson, Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha contributed to this article.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#47871547)

https://x.com/breaking911/status/1834351094040068168

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5555754&forum_id=2#48095226)