Judging Freedom - SPECIAL: Judge / Johnson / McGovern : Assassination Attempt of Donald Trump

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

SPECIAL: Judge / Johnson / McGovern : Assassination Attempt of Donald TrumpSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, July 15, 2024. It's six o'clock in the evening here in northern Italy. It's 12 noon on the east coast of the United States. A special edition of Judging Freedom in light of one of the more tragic recent events in American history. Take a look at what happened. Get down, get down, get down, get down. What are you doing? What are you doing?

Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car.

Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car.

Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car.

Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car.

Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car.

Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Go to the car. Ready? Move! Move! Go! Hawkeye's here. Get ready. Get ready.

Are we ready? Shooter's down. Shooter's down. Are we good to move? We're clear. Let's move. We're clear. We're clear.

We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear.

We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. We're clear. Are we good? Shooters down. Are we good to move? Are we clear? Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson join us now. Gentlemen, I didn't think we'd be seeing each other today, but tragedy strikes when you least expect it. Even though I'm in this land of wonderful fresh food, my stomach has been in a knot since I woke up Sunday morning here and learned from a text from my brother, Jim, what had happened on Saturday evening. So, Larry, let's start with you. If you can give us a little bit of a ballistics background. How do you think this 20-year-old got across an open field and up to a rooftop

where he had a clear shot at the former president of the United States, who supposedly was being protected by a large cadre of Secret Service agents and officers. It looks like the police that were assigned out in that area assumed that he was a Secret Service, assumed that he was some type of law enforcement, because otherwise they'd say, oh, nobody, because apparently he had a shirt on that appeared to be, let's call it a military shirt, green with a U.S. flag patch on his right shoulder. So, you know, I think it's highly likely they just assumed he was part of the crew because he wasn't carrying a cased, you know, a firearm that was put inside of a case. He was carrying it out of the open. I mean, he should have been stopped

the number one right there uh that's just the beginning of the screw-ups here well and i i as i've said repeatedly over the last couple of days i don't know if this is utter incompetence or if this is part of a deliberate plot there's no other there's no other explanation for it, that either they deliberately tried to set up Trump to kill him, or this was just a reflection of how utterly incompetent the Secret Service is. law enforcement or intelligence communities that would either look the other way or set up the former president of the United States because they fear his second term in office? The answer is very clearly yes. There is plenty of evidence of that, and it goes back nine or ten years and the bottom line is that the fbi has been thoroughly corrupted by people for eight years running or people working pretty much for the democratic national committee and democratic party i i can prove that if you just look at the other investigations that the FBI was supposed to make, like on Russiagate, Russian hacking of the DNC.

They never did one. They farmed it out to a contractor, and he came back with negative conclusions. There was no hacking of the DNC. Fast forward to when an FBI lawyer falsified documents, falsified documents in an application for a FISA warrant, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, a felony, okay? Now what happened? Well, Chuck Grassley, who used to head up various committees to supervise the FBI, he wrote this tweet, which I've committed to memory, but I'm going to read it to you anyway, okay? Here's Grassley, a tweet in his own hand. Very rare that the department of, quote, just us, end quote, all right. Not justice, just us. Very rare that this department would recommend

jail time for one of its own. That was for this fellow Kevin Clinesmith, who falsified the FISA application. Now, Grassley, but they did recommend jail time for Clinesmith, the former FBI attorney who falsified the paperwork to spy on Trump and prop up phony collusion probe violations. They violated the civil liberties of Carter Page. Now, it's outrageous that the D.C. judge gave no prison time to this fellow, Kevin Clinesmith. First sentence again, very rare that the Department of just us will do anything according to the Constitution. What they're doing is covering up for FBI, other crimes. And of course, you know who the president has appointed to direct this independent investigation, right? You got it, the FBI.

So yeah, I'm really sorry to answer your question in the affirmative. Yeah, it's been so subverted, so corrupted that we can't really depend on the FBI to do an independent investigation. Larry, how did this 20-year-old get across a field with a long gun and climb up a ladder? How did the ladder get there? How did he get to the roof? Yeah, these are the questions that really, to me, indicate that he had some support.

Let me stop you for just a second. I want you to answer. Chris, can you put up the that really, to me, indicate that he had some support. Let me stop you for just a second. I want you to answer. Chris, can you put up the photo from NBC News, which might help Larry talk? So where does he start? Does he start on the lower left where the green is? Yeah, he starts to the left of where it says Butler Farm Showgrounds. To the left of that, he'd park back out there and then walked over to this building.

Now, this collection of buildings, if you look at it, this shows that this had been planned in advance. There was no way that he knew on the day of, oh, yeah, this is where I can get access to climb up on that roof and I'm going to have a direct line of sight to the stage where Donald Trump's going to be. Do you think he was probably up there before Saturday, scoping out what his site would be? Yeah, either he was or somebody else he was working with.

I don't think this was a lone wolf. I think definitely he was involved with some other don't think this was a lone wolf. I think definitely he was involved with some other people, both the placement of the ladder, the planning of getting there, because you had no way of predicting that you would necessarily have a clear line of sight unless you'd done some prior advance work. And I mean, and this goes back to the problem of how did he know that the Secret Service wasn't going to have people up on that roof, which they should have. That was the only elevated structure around that ground where Donald Trump was speaking that would have required a counter-sniper team or somebody up there just

to secure it to make sure that nobody got up there. How many human beings were there protecting Trump, federal, not local or state? That's probably not even known. How big was the Secret Service team protecting him that day? You have uniformed guys, you have SWAT team guys, and you have the guys and gals in business suits. Probably about 50. I mean, you had the ones in the suits, and then you also had the tactical guys that they're supposed to do the perimeter security. They showed up in all the ninja gear

later after this. And nobody was up on the roof, the rooftop, which was the highest structure visible to Trump and the best place for a killer or

potential killer to perch himself. No federal agent was up there. See, Judge, Secret Service sends somebody out in advance. They do an advanced survey. And that survey, they check the entrances and exits for the actual building or site that they're going to have the speech. And then they extend the perimeter around, let's say, around 500 yards because they want to look for anything in that 500-yard area, the circle, 360 degrees,

that could present a position from which somebody might shoot the president. And so you go out and you literally climb up on top of the buildings and you look and you establish line of sight. Well, if they either failed to do that or they did it and just said, never mind, we don't need anybody up there. We'll just put our counter sniper team up on this behind Trump and they'll aim out there, be ready to take out anybody, which as we saw, didn't work. So this was, like I said, this is either utter incompetence, this is so substandard of performance, or this was done deliberately to create a vulnerability so that somebody could kill Trump. Chris, put up the email from the local police officer. Ray McGovern, I want you to comment

on this. I'm going to read it aloud. So we're looking at a full screen. We see a photo of a police officer with a high-powered rifle. He has published this photo himself, along with the following email. My name is Jonathan Willis, W-I-L-L-I-S. I'm the officer in the famous photo of the two snipers on the roof at Trump's rally. I came here to inform the public that I had the assassin in my sights for at least three minutes, but the head of the Secret Service refused to give the order to take out the perp. 100%, the top brass prevented me from killing the assassin before he took the shots at President Trump. Ray McGovern, this cop either is lying in which case he should be prosecuted or is telling the truth in which case the top brass of the secret service or whoever it is that prevented him from

doing his job should be prosecuted well i don't think he's lying there's no real motive or incentive for someone like this to come forward like that. He identifies himself as an officer. I really would like to know which police or federal force he belongs to. But here he is. He's a witness. Where is he right now? I don't know. How about the red-haired guy? The red-haired guy who saw the person on the roof and shouted at the Homeland Security people, the Secret Service and the FBI, couldn't get any attention. How about him? Where is he? I sure hope that they're in witness protection and that it's not run by the FBI. This is very serious stuff. What else could I say? Well, that much. All right. Well, let me ask you about

intelligence, Ray. Every case stroke, every photograph, every fiber, holding up my iPhone, every fiber optic data that comes into or goes out of this, not because it's me, but everyone in the United States is being surveilled by the NSA. If this kid went up there and took photos or took measurements or communicated or sent themselves any notes, wouldn't those people who capture, who invade our privacy 24-7 have known about it? They would have, Judge. The problem is, would they be free to say what they know? Now, there's a long history to this. The NSA, who does most of this, knew that there was no such thing as a hack against the Democratic National Committee. They would have had evidence of that, and they had none. So there's a long history of

the FBI being protected by the NSA and other people in the so-called security state. So it comes as no surprise. Now, what does President, that Biden's son, okay, his laptop was a Russian intelligence operation. The FBI had the computer, had his laptop, and they let these 51 former intelligence directors lie. And so that Trump could raise that at the last debate in 2020. And Biden could say, oh, Mr. Trump, don't you know that 51 former heads of the, including four heads of the CIA. Right, right. Larry, is the level of protection, Larry, for Donald Trump,

the same level of protection as there is for Joe Biden? Oh, no, no. It's probably 50% less and maybe even more. Is that standard, is it the same 50% less for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and George W. Bush? No, well, actually, probably Clinton and Obama right now, they will have less security around them than Trump does but the what we do know for a fact from you know Dan Bojano has been in touch with other Secret Service buddies there the the Trump campaign had requested updates additional resources and those were denied by the director of Secret Service

with the full full suppression by Oras, the director of Homeland Security. And note as well, they have completely denied up to this point any Secret Service protection for RFK Jr. That is absolutely unconscionable. But again, it's not so much the numbers. It's the fact that the leaders, the failure of the leadership, because I think that the message you just read from the police officer, my understanding is that there was radio traffic. So those officers who are up on the roof were communicating back to the TAC, which stands for Tactical Operations Center. So they literally have an operations center that's set up with computers, radios, so that they can, and television screens, so they can see the area, they can

monitor, they can communicate back and forth. And that officer up on the roof was requesting permission to shoot well before that. They had the suspect in their sight. He says three minutes. I'll take him at his word. You can see on video, it was at least two minutes. And what people need to understand- When he is asking, here's my read from what you just said, Larry. When this officer Willis is asking whoever he reports to in Secret Service for permission to take the assassin out. Other police are privy to that conversation. Other police at the scene, meaning CIA, and excuse me, meaning Secret Service snipers, in addition to local police or Pennsylvania State Police,

again, we still don't know who this fellow worked for, would be privy to the same conversation. Wouldn't you think they would be as astounded as he was that permission was denied? Yeah, not necessarily. The local police, state police, sheriff's department, they would not necessarily have access to that communications channel. So the snipers would have a dedicated channel back to the guy, the officer in charge. And they were requesting permission to shoot.

And again, here's the failure. At that point, if they said, well, we're not sure if that's a friendly local or whatever, don't shoot, they still should have taken action to get Trump off the stage until they verified what was what. That's another failure that took place. But what people need to understand is that you can see that officer, when you look at the video, he's looking through the scope, then he raises his head up to look downrange because when he's looking through the scope, he's only seeing actually, he's probably seeing like this part of the target, the shooter, and nothing else.

And so he's wanting to make sure he's on target. And then all of a sudden they hear the shots and they fire. There's no way that you could hear shots and then try to get on a scope defined and located and get shots off in the time they did, unless they already had him targeted. They knew he was there. And so the question is, why did the person in charge of Secret Service that day not allow action to be taken against what was clearly a threat? Chris, do we have a photo of the, I don't know if it's in the video or if we don't have it, of the female Secret Service officer who appears to be ducking

rather than protecting the president. I don't know if she was going for his shoes because he kept saying, where are my shoes, where are my shoes? He may have been in a state of shock and thought that he had lost his shoes. He may actually have lost his shoes because they tackled him with such ferocity in order to knock him down. It's a little odd, this photo that's circulating out there of the female officer who's not using her body to protect the president. She's ducking herself. Where does this go now, Ray McGovern? Who investigates this? The FBI is going to investigate the Secret Service? That's not going to be a credible investigation, is it? Well, the president says that the FBI, come on, no conspiracy theories. The FBI let them do their job with thorough, swift investigation, quote, end quote. Well, okay. So where is this Jonathan Willis? In whose custody is he? He include the person in charge of the local security there at that event should be fired, or at least placed in administrative leave, for God's sake. Trump has on Biden, does he know who fires anybody? And instead,

Biden is thanking the Secret Service, thank you for getting on us and doing a swift and thorough investigation. Where have we heard that before? Chris, let me see that picture again that you just had up there, the still. Maybe my criticism of her was too harsh. She may be supporting the former president's body. Look, you can see one, two, three, four agents trying to get him off the stage. He wants to show the public there and the world that though he's bloodied, he's still alive. So maybe my criticism of her was not warranted. Larry? No, it's not unfounded. Look, the problem is, even in this photo

it's an iconic moment, it's going to live in history like right up there with the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, that kind of thing. But the Secret Service screwed up there. You should not have been able to see Donald Trump. Their job is to get him off the stage without anybody then being able to see. Because how do you know there wasn't another shooter? If there had been another shooter, then they've got a direct target right at Trump. And so this was, now I think the female agent there, she was going down to recover a hat or something of Trump's that had fallen to the ground. But again, you know, this is, the current director of the Secret Service put an emphasis upon having a lot more

women involved. And if you watch some of the women who are out there, A, they're too short, and their muzzle discipline, their firearms discipline, how they're handling their handguns, good God, they're pointing it at people. And it's okay to point it at somebody if you think they're a threat, but just having it carelessly in your hand and moving it around and not controlling that muzzle, you know, again, it's just sloppiness on their part. He, Trump appeared to have his arm around the woman as they were going down the steps. Chris, put the photo of the local police officer, Jonathan Willis, and his email up there again. The police officer who said he asked for permission to take out the uh the assassin there now larry can you or your uh

ex-fbi sniper buddies tell who he is and who he worked for from the garb the uniform that he's wearing and the equipment that he has a lot of equipment up there whoever this cop is yeah i mean the the question that my buddy Chris Whitcomb, Chris was a FBI hostage rescue team sniper, very accomplished shooter. And the thing that puzzled him was why they set up this tripod, because normally he said the snipers, the counter snipers want to be in a prone position. It's possible he was from a local, say, a Pittsburgh SWAT team, local police. Or, in fact, you can't tell by his uniform whether he was part of the Secret Service or part of local police.

All right. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen. This is a tragedy of monumental proportions. I have not hesitated to criticize Donald Trump where I thought a human being. He interviewed me twice with the Supreme Court of the United States. He has hugged and kissed me a half dozen times. And to me, what happened on Saturday was sickening. Just as sickening are the cries to tamper with the Second Amendment, which we'll talk about the next time we're on together. Gentlemen, I thought... Let me say it very much. Nothing really has been discussed here about motive.

I mean, who has motive? Cooley Bono. Who benefits? Well, do you think that some agency, domestic or foreign law enforcement or intelligence put this kid up to this, Ray McGovern? the investigation. Okay. That's big. Yes, I think it's possible. What happened to Seth Rich? These are not conspiracy theories anymore. They happen. They need to be not covered up. They need to be exposed to the light of day. Now, when I say motive, who has a better motive than the people who are afraid that Trump will come in as president

and put them in jail? And I talk about not only Blinken and Sullivan and the rest of them, but the people who are responsible for lying through their teeth about Russiagate and disemboweling President Trump and not allowing him to do anything constructive on the foreign affairs front. So I think one has to keep in mind motive, opportunity. And, you know, what happened is so clear in the favor of those people who would like to see him gone. I think you need to keep that in mind. That's why I intervened here now.

Forgive me, but I've been called a conspiracy theorist before, but most of the conspiracies that I've reported on happen to be true events. You don't have to ask for forgiveness from this show or this anchor or your sidekick, Larry, or the tens of thousands that are watching us. It'll be well over 100,000 shortly. Larry, do you agree with Ray's warning? Yeah, yeah. No, listen, this, a lot of this can be explained by incompetence, but not all of it. And this kid had some help, and who was helping, who helped plan it, who supported. And we need to get those answers because I think when you listen to the rhetoric of the Biden administration and the actions of the CIA, the FBI, proven actions in the past, they have launched what could only be called a coup and have not been punished for it.

All right. Thank you, Joe. Go ahead, Ray. Let me just add that as far as I know, and it doesn't look like he is, my friend Larry is not suicidal, and neither am I. And so we both look forward. I wish this were funny, you know. We both look forward to being with you next time,

Judge. And I applaud your giving us the opportunity to say things that are not said elsewhere. So thank you for that. It's part of the success of judging freedom, is the two of you and your 10 or 15 regular colleagues who don't get a chance to say this stuff elsewhere. Gentlemen, thank you. I'm going to go back to my vacation. But Larry Johnson, Ray McGovern, thank you very much for joining us. I don't know if we'll be seeing each other again before I return to the states in two weeks. But if events warrant another program like this, we will do it. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.