America's Talking - ‘Total Failure:’ Oversight Committee Subpoenas Head of Secret Service

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

U.S. House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said Wednesday he is subpoenaing the head of the Secret Service, the latest step in the ongoing investigation and scrutiny of the agency after the near assassination of former president Donald Trump on Saturday. U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in particular has faced criticism and calls for her resignation over how the Secret Service handled, and in many ways failed, during Saturday's event. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, July 19th. It has been an historic, nearly tragic, and completely surreal week in presidential election news. Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The head of the Secret service faces outrage and increasing pressure to resign because of the failed security efforts at that rally. And President Joe Biden is facing increased calls from top officials in his own party to exit the presidential race. With some media outlets reporting he could make a decision as early

as this weekend. Despite all of this, Trump participated daily at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and he officially accepted the GOP nomination for president. We will discuss the Republican Convention and other presidential election news in a separate segment. But joining me now to discuss all aspects of the failed attempt to assassinate Donald Trump is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, let's focus on the shooting and its aftermath. Tell us more about the security blunders and where we are at with the investigation into the Secret Service. We are at the beginning of what I suspect will be a very long and very thorough investigation. the Secret Service, a federal security group that has been thrown into controversy, chaos,

and even public feuding with local law enforcement. I mean, there's a lot of angles to hit this from, Dan. You know, we interviewed at the Soonersquare.com, a former head of the Secret Service and really, the guy who helped found the TSA as well. So he knows what he's talking about. And he just, you know, raised some serious concerns. And those are concerns that a lot of people are talking about. For instance, how could this shooter get on a roof that was only about 130 yards from the former

President Donald Trump? 130 yards in shooting is a pretty short distance. You don't have to be a military-level sniper to make that shot. 130 yards is not far at all. You know, often perimeters will go up to, you know, be 500 yards or something. So 130 is really a pretty deep penetration into the perimeter. He was there for so long. the more, Dan, I'm sure you've seen, but there's increasing reports coming out that maybe the Secret Service had already identified this guy as a person of interest, that maybe a police officer had actually encountered him and then back down.

We've seen these online viral videos where many, many attendees at the rally are pointing out the shooter to law enforcement before the shooting happened. right and so there's a lot of big questions here thankfully the president is safe he's doing fine of course his ear is bandaged and we'll see you know just how gnarly that ends up being but he is safe and the Secret Service has a lot of questions to answer yeah let's let's talk a little bit more about those the video from rally goers these are private citizens presumably mostly on camera of phones videotaping the suspect in the in the case, Thomas Matthew Crooks, walking around just outside of the perimeter as much as an hour before the rally began. And then this video of attendees recording the shooter crawling on the rooftop,

just barely from where Trump took the stage. And then the Secret Service coming out and saying, we didn't have anybody on that roof because it was a sloped roof. and unsafe. It's just U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheedel, who many are calling to resign, she's got a lot of answers, questions to answer. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are calling for her to resign. Senators, Elon Musk, who, you know, immediately endorsed Donald Trump. You know, he shared that same sentiment, which has been widely shared. I don't think she's going to make it. DHS Secretary Alejandro O'Me Orcas did publicly defend her initially at the White House briefing. But the more time that goes on,

the more questions there are. I mean, the idea that a rope of that, a roof of that slope would not be safe. It's kind of silly when you see it and you see the shooter on it. You know, it's not safe, Dan, is snipers. Yeah. It's not safe. Right. But, you know, so she's facing a lot of calls.

It's been interesting to see that the Secret Service has tried to push the blame off on local law enforcement and say, well, you know, the local law enforcement was responsible for the outer perimeter and Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter, the close protection. And, you know, the sources we talk to did confirm that usually the way Secret Service operates is they will be in charge of the close perimeter. And then the softer, more outer perimeter can be delegated to local law enforcement. But ultimately, secret service is in charge of where officers are stationed, what they do, how they communicate. there's no local law enforcement making decisions about that. They're just standing where they're told to stand. You know, they're holding their spot. And Secret Service is definitely in charge of the operation. There's no question about that. And so, you know, local law enforcement and even the National, you know, Fraternal Order of Police has pushed back hard and publicly called out to the Secret Service and said, you cannot blame local law enforcement for this. You know, these guys did their best. They reacted when the shooting happened. It's whoever, it's the Secret Service who is in charge. of setting up the perimeter of saying who's on what buildings, on seeing who's, you know, what

line of sides. That's the person to blame. So, you know, I think they're trying to deflect here, but it doesn't look good. And I think Cheetos states are numbers. Cheetos has been subpoenaed to appear before Congress next week. We'll see if that happens. There's also questions, Casey, about whether diversity, equity, and inclusion policies within the Biden administration, you know, whether that's led to a fewer quality and employees being hired. We saw a few of the Secret Service agencies who, let me say this, heroically, as soon as the shots were fired, got on the stage to protect Trump. But some of them were like five feet tall. And, you know, President Trump is a tall man that they couldn't even

protect his head and upper body just because of their height. That doesn't seem to me to be a smart decision there. I've met the president. I get to interview him in the White House during his first term. And it may not be apparent on camera, but he's kind of a huge person. He's, I think, about six foot three. He's very broad. He's towering.

When he's in the room, he's the biggest person in the room. He's the tallest person. He kind of stoops down to speak to people because he is tall. And it's just like one of the first things you notice about him when you see him in person, how tall he is. And so the idea that you would have, you know, know, a five-foot-four woman or some of these, you know, whoever it is, it's, it's drawn a lot of criticism. You know, this Cheatel has made DEI hiring a big priority for her, you know, in her tenure.

And I think a lot of people feel afraid to ask those kind of questions or criticize it or don't want to be seen as being kind of, you know, associated with a certain type of person who makes a big deal about those kinds of things. But it was, it was just very apparent when you saw the video, when you saw someone half Trump's size trying to cover his body. I think her head was like below his heart. If you look at the photo, I mean, that's the main thing you need to cover is his heart. And her head was kind of bent down below, maybe right on his heart or right below his heart. So it was just kind of a striking image of this drift towards DEI.

It kind of gave, it was so serious that it gave people who were normally silent permission to criticize DEI hiring. But that DEI hiring is widespread all throughout the federal government. but maybe on some of these extremely important positions. I mean, hey, I think if they find a six-foot-four woman, put her out there. That's great. I don't think it's really about the gender. But decide, you can't be small guarding the president, in my opinion. Thank you for joining us today.

Casey, listeners can keep up with this developing story and more at thecentersquare.com.