The U.S. Secret Service is more interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) than its mission, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) said following the failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, making the remarks during a sit-down interview with Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle at the Republican National Convention on Thursday.
Marshall agreed with the widely held sentiment that God was protecting Trump that day.
“I spoke with President Trump on Monday morning, and it was the most reflective I’ve ever heard him. I’m a physician. I’ve seen many people go through these near-death experiences, especially the experiences when you’re supposed to die — when there’s a really bad car wreck and it’s like, how did this person survive this?” he said.
“President Trump should have been assassinated, but God spared him,” he continued, marveling that Trump turned his head at the exact right moment.
“I don’t know how you place a bullet through his ear and miss his head. I really don’t, but, certainly, by moving his head, that’s what allowed him to be spared his life. And that’s why I think this divine — this Divine Providence that all of us feel every day — many, many of my friends are fighting for President Trump and, really, all our national leaders,” he said.
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Marshall discussed the investigation into the assassination attempt and the fact that members of Congress tried to chase down Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle after spotting her at the convention.
“So you point [out that] this was a mass failure,” he said, reminding listeners that the failed assassination attempt on Trump still took the life of another person, Corey Comperatore, who was protecting his family.
“We need to acknowledge that. Remember that two other people [were] critically injured. This was a massive failure. Look, I think the Keystone cops could have prevented this from happening if they just had a good plan. I think you’re going to find that there’s a total cultural issue within the Secret Service,” he said.
“Our phone call, an hour long, we learned nothing. We learned that they broke into his [the attempted assassin’s] phone. He looks at pictures of President Trump. We know that he visited this area, but we learned next to nothing, and they confirmed that, probably an hour before the assassination attempt, they knew of this person, that he had a rangefinder and a backpack. I use a rangefinder. I’m a bow hunter, so I use it to see, ‘Well how far away is the deer; how far away is the turkey?'” he said.
“Why would you bring a rangefinder? That person should have been grabbed, taken downtown to the station, and said, ‘Young man, what are you doing here with a rangefighter?’ And I think he would have cracked in a moment. So, I think that there’s a big cover,” he said.
“You realize that half the Secret Service officers have quit last year, so half of their department have been totally turned over,” he continued. “They’re more focused on DEI than they are their mission. I think that’s what the big investigation is going to show here.”
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Marshall explained that he thinks the Secret Service is “surprised” that attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks “doesn’t fit the typical psychological things that they find.”
“There wasn’t a mantra, like, he wasn’t pro-Iran…there was no manifesto, but I think this was a very simple, young, confused, 20-year-old — emotionally distraught, and we don’t know exactly why, but, certainly, I think as much as he was, he wanted to assassinate a famous person, and, certainly, President Trump presented him with that option there in his hometown,” he said.
“But, also, it seems like their refusal to say that there is a motive or that they’ve been able to identify any evidence of a motive or anything like that, they’ve not really been forthcoming with us either in the media; they haven’t done many news conferences,” Boyle observed.
“I remember that first news conference that night. The Secret Service wasn’t even there, right? That was very notable,” he said. “Even CNN was calling them out over that.”
“At the end of the day, this is why Americans don’t trust our federal government,” the senator said. “And, by the way, in surveys within the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] — so, Secret Service is now part of DHS; I think it’s probably the first mistake they did moving them over there — but half of the people in DHS don’t trust or respect their senior superiors,” he said.
“And I want to say that the rank-and-file secret service men and women that I met are great people. They’re doing their job. It’s the plan that’s wrong. They executed the plan that they were told to do, but there’s something wrong with the culture to say, how could they miss something this particularly obvious,” he added.