Until yesterday, I’ve said nothing about the Secret Service’s obvious failure to protect former President Trump, who is only alive today not due to the Secret Service, but a fortuitous turn of the head. He literally came within a millisecond of having his brains blown out. Even more disturbing, he literally came within a millisecond of being assassinated by an assassin who was allowed to prowl the grounds of Trump’s Saturday night rally for as long as one to three hours—hours—after he was identified as a suspicious character.
The reason I didn’t say anything about this jaw-dropping security failure is because after something like this happens, we become a news cycle full of nonsense. Well, now that we know what we know, it is obvious that the U.S. Secret Service is a clear and present danger to our democracy.
My colleague Kristina Wong’s Saturday timeline of events should take everyone’s breath away.
SOMETIME AFTER 1:00 P.M: After the rally grounds were opened to the public at 1:00 p.m., the assassin lands on security’s radar after a magnetometer picked up his range finder, a device that looks like binoculars. Whether you are a golfer or an assassin, the only use for a range finder is to hit a target.
HOURS LATER—AROUND 5:00 P.M: Security spots the guy with the range finder hanging around the American Glass Research (AGR) building—the building he would soon climb up and get off eight shots at the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
5:45 P.M: Local police stationed inside the AGR building spot the assassin “scoping out a roof near the rally” and call in his presence on a system-wide channel Secret Service is supposedly listening to.
SIX MINUTES LATER—5:51 P.M: Secret Service spots the assassin. Two minutes later, the assassin is confirmed as a threat.
This right here is the most important part…
6:00 P.M: “Officer then sees Crooks return to the [AGR] building, carrying a backpack. He issues more warnings to command. “Crooks sits down and begins looking at his phone.” Then Crooks is seen pulling out his “range finder to gauge the distance between where he was” and Trump’s podium. The officer reportedly uses the open channel to report all of this.
Are you ready for this… Two minutes later…
6:02 P.M: TRUMP WALKS ONTO THE STAGE!
The Secret Service didn’t tell Trump to hold on for five minutes so they could check out this threat. They allowed him to walk on stage minutes after a guy was spotted with a backpack and range finder scoping the stage.
Improbably, it gets worse…
Here’s what the Secret Service allowed to happen in the nine minutes—nine whole minutes—before the former president was shot.
While Trump was on stage, the assassin climbed on top of the AGR roof, brought out what we’re told is a semi-automatic rifle, and set up his shot. A local police officer then climbed to the roof. The assassin pointed his gun at the local. The cop dropped to the ground and called this in.
In the meantime, rally-goers were trying to warn security about a guy on the roof.
6:11 P.M: The assassin is allowed to get off eight shots before the Secret Service finally takes out the threat.
The very worst part of this is the following…
A roof approximately 450 to 550 feet away and directly within Trump’s line of sight was not manned by security, even though Donald Trump is the most famous man in America, one of the most hated men in America… That roof was not secured, even though the corporate media have been calling for his assassination by comparing him to Hitler… That roof was not secured, even though Iran has reportedly issued a fatwa on Trump, and Biden has left our southern border wide open.
And why was the obvious security threat of a roof left unguarded?
According to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle:
That building, in particular, has a sloped roof at its highest point. And, so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof…And, so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from inside.
I’m sorry, but that is nothing less than a lie. Here’s a photo of the building’s roof published by the far-left Washington Post.
Here’s another photo.
So the Secret Service director is straight-up lying about her reasons for not securing a roof that would look inviting to any assassin.
And even if the roof was too steep (and it wasn’t even close to too steep), why not station security around the four points of the building?
This is either unforgivable negligence on the part of the Secret Service that demands mass-firings and a top-to-bottom housecleaning that only ends with the resignation of DHS Director Alejandro Mayorkas, or—and I do not say this lightly—it is something sinister coming from an administration that has already tried to keep Trump off the ballot, imprison him for life, bankrupt him, raided his home, arrested him, and told America he is the next Hitler, a dictator, and unique threat to democracy.
And how are we to believe anything coming from the very same federal security apparatus that lied to us for years about Trump colluding with Russia, that brazenly lied to us about Hunter Biden’s laptop being Russian disinformation?
Normally I would close a piece like this with the following statement: I reserve the right to change my mind as more information comes out, but the Secret Service, Mayorkas, and the corporate media are neither offering more information nor screaming for more information.
What we know is this…
The Secret Service allowed Donald Trump to take the stage when they knew an obvious threat was prowling the grounds.
The Secret Service director is lying about her reason for not protecting that roof.
Listen, we all hate our politicians. I get that. But the thing is this… Politicians are special because they represent us. They represent our will. They represent how we wish to be represented. This is especially true for a sitting president like Biden and a presumptive nominee like Trump. Biden and Trump represent tens of millions of us, and if they are assassinated, that is a direct attack on tens of millions who chose those two men to represent them. That’s democracy. Democracy is found in the people we choose to represent us… So when the Secret Service allows something like this to happen, the Secret Service—which has one job—is a clear and present danger to democracy.
WATCH — Secret Service Director: ‘Buck Stops with Me,’ but ‘I Do Plan to Stay On’
John Nolte’s first and last novel, Borrowed Time, is winning five-star raves from everyday readers. You can read an excerpt here and an in-depth review here. Also available in hardcover and on Kindle and Audiobook.