Slippery Slope and the Secret Service

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Incompetent...or Worse

The truth is, Crooks did everything but wear a flashing red neon sign that said, “Shoot me! I’m about to murder Donald Trump.”

In the days since the assassination attempt against Donald Trump, we’ve been told by Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle that the agency put the safety of Secret Service agents ahead of the man they’re assigned to protect.

That makes no sense.

The implication came in Cheatle’s explanation to a reporter that a rooftop 133 yards from Trump was considered too big of a risk to agents’ safety due to its slight, gentle slope, and therefore no agent was posted on it.

"That building in particular has a sloped roof, at its highest point,” Cheatle explained. “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. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”

Ludicrous.

That’s far from the only part of this story that defies common sense and logic.

Read on for details.

The Saturday shooting was the first time a US presidential figure was wounded by an attempted assassin since Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Cheatle has called the assassination attempt “unacceptable” and “something that shouldn't happen again.” “It was obviously a situation that as a Secret Service agent, no one ever wants to occur in their career," said Cheatle.

Some found it odd that she framed the disaster in terms of a career ding for Secret Service agents.

Cheatle also claimed that a “very short period of time” passed between the time Thomas Crooks was identified as supicious, and the shooting.

That isn’t true.

According to information that has been released since, the Secret Service knew prior to Trump taking the stage that a threat existed. But they allowed him to take the podium anyway, and were slow to react once the threat was realized.

Dozens of people in the crowd, perhaps far more, alerted police to the man with a rifle and a ladder, behaving suspiciously; then seen climbing onto the roof of the building; then seen laying down and aiming, preparing to fire.

As I mentioned, Cheatle claims the building in question was left to local police to secure. They have denied that. Regardless, the notion that the Secret Service would carve out and hand off arguably the most important risk to Trump—makes no sense.

And it’s not as if officials could have assumed there were no worries. In fact, according to new reports, Crooks had been identified as a person of interest an hour or more before the rally.

Was the Secret Service confident the local police had highly-trained and experienced tactical team members and snipers? Did the police have a direct and immediate line of communications with the Secret Service for any emergency? Were the on site Secret Service agents conducting vigilant oversight of the building supposedly left to the hands of local cops?

There is so much more that defies logic, such as Cheatle’s idea that the nearly-flat rooftop was too precarious for Secret Service snipers to navigate.

Professional snipers are well-trained to shoot under the most challenging of circumstances. They’re trained to keep a steady hand even in adrenaline-pumping emergencies or after a heart-racing run. They’re trained to have clear eyes and perfect aim even when it’s difficult to see, even when they’re hot and tired, and yes, even on a gently sloped rooftop.

Every Secret Service agent at the rally should have noticed that the building lacked protection on the roof. Many of them should have spotted Crooks, and communicated the emergency in the minutes prior to the shooting. Action should have been taken. Members of the crowd should not have been the first ones to see what seemed to escape meaningful attention of the pros.

The events imply a lack of appropriate rigor and concern.

A security official from another country asked me why drones aren’t routinely used at all of these events. For a few hundred dollars, officials can get complete coverage of the tops of buildings, among other things.

Analysts trying to deflect from the terrible errors have stated that “lone wolfs” like Crooks are difficult to stop. But the truth is, Crooks did everything but wear a flashing red neon sign that said, “Shoot me! I’m about to murder Donald Trump.”

Accountability

Donald Trump could very well have been killed due to an absurd comedy of errors or worse.

This wasn’t a case of the unpredictable and the unavoidable.

It would be odd, considering the circumstances, if the Secret Service were left to conduct its own review of what it did wrong.

"The buck stops with me," Cheatle told the reporter. "I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary.”

Members of Congress are firing off oversight letters, ensuring that Cheatle will not be left alone to conduct the lookback of her own agency’s failures.

Cheatle said she would not resign from her role.

If I had to predict: I give her less than 30 more days in it.