Questions Surround Secret Service After Failed Trump Assassination Attempt
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Perhaps the best thing to do is talk about this assassination attempt on President Trump. I think it stunned us all. I was watching it in real time. I was getting ready to host a show that was going to go on the air, the big weekend show that was going to go on immediately after the president spoke. He was only a few minutes into his speech when the shots rang out.

It wasn't entirely clear what had happened at the beginning, but immediately when you play back the video, you can hear the pop, pop, pop, pop, which is the sound of gunfire. Now, I cannot thank enough or applaud the men and women who just instinctively jumped on the president to protect him and make sure that they surrounded him so that he would take no further damage.

That's a certain characteristic in some people that not everybody has. And yet they did it and they jumped to his aid instantaneously risking their own lives. Now, above and beyond that, I am going to be a bit critical and skeptical of the United States Secret Service.

But I come at this with a lot of experience. When I was the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and even before that when I was the subcommittee chairman for national security, we read through some reports. These are these boring reports that nobody ever really wants to look at. And one of the things that we found is they do these extensive surveys of government employees. Interestingly enough, the United States Secret Service was dead last in its morale.

So there are literally hundreds of departments and agencies within the federal government, and somehow, someway, the Secret Service was dead last in its morale. We also found, as we have a hotline there at the Oversight Committee, of which I used to chair, I obviously don't chair it anymore, but we would listen to people call in with various complaints. Some were whistleblowers, some were just complaints, and some were who knows what.

We'd get about 15 to 25 calls per day, and interns would sift through those. We'd come up with reports and metrics that I, as the chairman, could review. And what was interesting is when you look at the legitimate concerns and questions that were coming in from whistleblowers and alike, guess what? The number one department and agency which we had complaints was the United States Secret Service.

And so when you put those side by side, it really demanded that we do a much more thorough investigation into what's happening. That led to a couple of years with some really good staff work, myself and a couple other members diving into what was wrong with the Secret Service. What we found was that there was a lot of neglect, poor management.

horrific things that you can't believe with one of the most vaunted, one of the most respected law enforcement agencies in the world. But when you peel back the curtain, there was some serious, serious problems, serious problems with training and the way that people conducted the management of the Secret Service.

Their mission was so far and wide. They do everything from protecting currency to looking at overseas credit card transactions to dealing with horrific pornographic material of children, again, across state lines or even across global lines, because oftentimes these pornographic images are tied to credit card transactions.

or nefarious uses of currency, and thus the Secret Service is involved, in addition to their protective detail. See, the Secret Service is not just one of personal protection for the protectees. That is only but part of their mission. And the Secret Service is divvied up into multiple different departments and groups. So the personal protective division is dealt with differently than, say, the uniform division,

division. So when you go to visit, say, the White House, you'll see men and women with nice white shirts and ties and wearing a hat and walking around the White House grounds. That's far different than the protective detail or the investigative units or, and again, the tactical units. There are lots of different groups out there. But here are some of the findings.

We found that the Secret Service was not truthful in its testimony to Congress. They were not truthful in the information they were disseminating to the American public, something that I find is happening right now in real time. They're not being honest about what happened and how it happened based on the comments that I have heard from Alejandro Mearcas as well as the Secret Service spokesperson who says that

additional resources were not denied. I know that to be false. I know that to be false because I've talked to the protectees firsthand, and they will tell me a far different story than what the Secret Service is telling us. I tend to believe the protectees. But through this investigation, we found that the mission was too wide. There were far too many things that they were asked to do.

And oftentimes these agents, particularly in a presidential election year, were given demands on their time that were just untenable. We had people who had families and young kids, and yet they would work in some cases 45 days straight on the road and in a hotel every single night in a different city.

Or maybe they had to park it somewhere, you know, for a week away from home, 45 days in a row. No chance to even do their basic laundry, let alone take a deep breath. And we expected these men and women to be as sharp as could possibly be at all times. We found that they were advertising for new Secret Service agencies in their recruitment efforts on pizza boxes.

And probably one of the more devastating things that we found is that the average training time for a Secret Service agent was 40, I'm sorry, 30 minutes per year. We found people in, for instance, the uniform division that were hired and put on White House grounds with minimal training at best, not even given a radio.

Remember when people were jumping the White House fence and trying to make their way into the White House? In fact, the Secret Service told us that the one jumper who was wearing Crocs didn't make it into the White House. He was immediately tackled. Well, that ended up being false. It took me about a week or a few days to figure that out and call their bluff on that.

through some whistleblowers and other just inquisitive actions. And yet the Secret Service was lying to the people and they were lying to me and the Congress. And it was just so offensive. 15 minutes of training. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more right after this.

Listen to the all new Brett Baer podcast featuring Common Ground. In-depth talks with lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle, along with all your Brett Baer favorites like his all-star panel and much more. Available now at foxnewspodcasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We talked to one Secret Service Uniform Division person when I, you know, we asked him,

Now, somebody jumped the fence, is running towards the White House, gets into the White House. Why didn't you chase him? And why didn't you follow him into the White House? Do you know what the answer was to this question? Well, they don't give me a radio. So I didn't know what was happening. And the people who did get a radio, there was so much cross chatter that nobody could understand what was being said. Again, a lack of training.

But what was also interesting is this is a Secret Service uniformed division officer. He said, you know what? We're not allowed to go in the White House. Say what? In fact, this person said he had never been in the White House, ever. And this is a person who works for the Secret Service on the White House grounds.

He said their job is to essentially patrol. I said, well, what do you do if you don't have a radio? You haven't been properly trained and you're not allowed in the White House. What do you do? And he said, I don't know. I look at the squirrels. I walk around the grounds. It's just window dressing. These were some of the deep, deep concerns. Now, remember all these incidents that had happened earlier.

There was a man with a gun next to Barack Obama on an elevator at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. That person was part of the local protection unit for the CDC, but he had a gun and the Secret Service didn't know about it. Then the Secret Service director lied to us and she ultimately, Director Pearson, had to step down from that office.

I could go on and on with these horrific things. Let's remember that shots were fired at the White House. They didn't even figure it out for days, if not more than a week, that shots had actually hit the White House, let alone find the perpetrators of these shots hitting Barack Obama's children's window. We had another incident where the Secret Service director called me because I was keen on doing this investigation where shots were fired at Vice President Trump.

Biden's Delaware residents. Did they catch this person? Did they find out who did it? Did they know what had happened? And by the way, Joe Biden at the time was in Delaware. No, they never caught him. They never found him. You know why? I wanted to get the actual videotape. I said, you better bring the videotape because I want to see it. I want to see what went down there. I want to see what you're seeing. It took them a day and then they finally coughed up that, oh, we don't have cameras.

We didn't have a camera on that. At this point, Joe Biden had been the vice president for years and the Secret Service had no visibility. They had agents there. They had a booth where these agents were expected to help protect the vice president of the United States, but no video. Are you kidding me? I told them they could go to Home Depot or Lowe's or

go online and on shop and they could, for a few hundred dollars, they could buy cameras. They literally went and got a tripod and set it up a day or two later so that they had some visibility and some cameras in case something like this had happened again. But why should I, as a Republican congressman, be the one that highlights this with the Secret Service? This culminated in a report.

And we issued this report back in 2015. We did it in a very bipartisan way. It was co-authored with Elijah Cummings, the Democrat from Maryland. He's since deceased, but he was a good man who worked with me hand in glove in putting together this report. Bipartisan report, an agency in crisis, talking about these issues. So as we look at what went down with Donald Trump and the apparent shooter,

supposedly, again, the information is flowing and we've got to be sensitive to that, but less than 150 yards away, somehow, evidently, allegedly, shooter was able to get on top of a building wearing camouflage with a rifle and take some shots that killed one person, seriously injured two others. We hope they make it.

and hit the president of the United States by only a divine intervention, scathing his ear and causing blood to be dripping from the former president. But as we look at that situation, it just begs the question, why were there no drones? Was there a drone? What were they seeing? The shooter...

Was he able to get a line on the president? And you hearing eyewitnesses, again, they would all need to be verified. But if you go online, it's very quickly you can find a number of people who are yelling, telling local law enforcement and the Secret Service, hey, there's a guy with a gun. And yet nobody seems to react. There is video of the Secret Service sniper before the event. They're looking around with binoculars.

But then they move to their guns and looking through their sights as if they're targeting somebody. And if you watch the video as I have, I don't know if it's been doctored, but at least what I've seen so far, assuming that it's true, and again, unverified, that as soon as his shots ring out, the United States Secret Service sniper takes out the target. Now, that begs the question, when did he see this person? How long did he have? Was he allowed to shoot first?

Could he have shot first? Did somebody tell him not to shoot? What is that? Well, director, pardon me, the committee chairman, James Comer, who I've spoken with about this, is going to be conducting this investigation.

He'll be overseeing a process which will not just be start to finish in the July 22nd hearing. At least that's what it's initially scheduled for. He will not just be simply making the conclusions. But I do think what you're going to find is a Secret Service director who's going to have to come testify, and she better do so truthfully. When we had Director Pearson come testify, she was not honest, and she lost her job.

We went through Director Clancy, who was not able to get a grip on what was going on with that agency. He too had to resign. But now Joe Biden, less than two years ago, hired this new Secret Service director, and she came from the Pepsi Corporation. Now, Pepsi's an incredible company. They have lots of brands, Quaker Oats, Fritos, all kinds of drinks. I mean, Pepsi's

a significant corporation. But that was her background, is securing Quaker Oats and Fritos. And now she's the head of the United States Secret Service. It begs the question, was she properly prepared to deal with the intricacies of a department in peril? One of the videos you'll see online is her insisting that they were going to try to get the ratio of females to males in the Secret Service up to 30%. That was one of her goals.

But you can also watch some video of an agent, and obviously adrenaline is flowing, but there is a woman agent right by the president having trouble holstering her gun. Now, that may just be the heat of the moment. Maybe this is a 25-year veteran. I don't know.

But it's a question. And that's why these are so important. You know, the United States is different. We're different than every other country on the face of the planet. And that is we are self-critical. And the reason we're self-critical is we want to make it better. We want to make sure it never, ever happens again. My frustration...

Talking to this microphone right now is we did years worth of investigation to make sure something like this wouldn't happen again. I recognize that the Secret Service has to be right 100% of the time. They can never, ever have a mistake, but this was a catastrophic mistake.

This is not somebody sneakily, you know, in a tree that they couldn't see or coming up with some new way to sneak in close that, you know, bypassed, you know, we have to reevaluate, you know, security. Evidently, this is a guy in camo who's 20 years old, who's up on a rooftop, a white rooftop wearing camouflage with a gun settling in to take a shot on the president and

Some people will say, oh, it was outside the perimeter. No, the perimeter is anywhere that somebody can take a shot at the president of the United States. That's the perimeter. That's what we have a Secret Service for. Some question, well, did the Trump administration or the Trump campaign, did they ask for more resources? My starting point on this is they shouldn't have to ask for it.

Donald Trump is the leading candidate for the presidency of the United States. He's a former president of the United States. He shouldn't have to ask for it. This should be assumed that they would provide the greatest care and detail. That means coordination. That means good site plans. It also means that people like RFK Jr., he's polling at 15% in some states.

His father, his uncle were murdered by an assassin's bullet. RFK Jr. should have his own security detail. He's asked for one multiple times. And by the way, the Secret Service keeps telling us that they have increased resources, not decreased resources. But I can tell you, again, mentioning again, I have talked to people who are protectees, and that is just not true. Their security profile has been diminished significantly.

if not eliminated, and that's a decision from Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Homeland Security and the director of the Secret Service. One other thought here that I thought was very revealing. When they had the press conference the night of the shooting, it took a ridiculous amount of time, almost six hours after this attack. That press conference was an embarrassment. First of all, in the press conference,

They said there's no continued threat. How did they know that? How did they know that? They said they had not yet identified the shooter. I think they had, but they said they had not yet identified the shooter. Yet he was a 20-year-old male. Well, if you hadn't identified the shooter, how do you know he's a 20-year-old male? And if you haven't identified him, how do you know? Have you searched all of his social media? I thought you said you didn't know who he was. Again, I think they were being dishonest in their comments.

But through that press conference, in trying to show what happened, they leaned a lot on the state police. And they leaned on an FBI SAC, the special agent in charge, who evidently had come in, I think, from Philadelphia. Maybe he was out of Pittsburgh. But he was, again, secrets. The FBI now is the lead agency in.

It was not their operation. And maybe that's good. Maybe it's good to have some eyes looking at this that wasn't part of the Secret Service. But why was the Secret Service not represented there? It was their operation, their duty, their responsibility, and yet no representative from the Secret Service was there to answer questions. And isn't it interesting that the Secret Service restructured after 9-11, that they took that Secret Service—

And they moved it away from the United States Treasury and they moved it to the new Homeland Security. But now there's a shooting and they have to do an investigation. They move it over to the FBI. I was working at the time with people on both sides of the aisle to actually restructure the mission of the Secret Service. They were far too thin. They had 7,800 agents, officers, and administrative staff working.

Compare that to the 110,000 people at the Department of Justice. But their mission is so broad, so wide, that I really do question, are they focused? Because a lot of people, I think, think of the Secret Service and it's just a protective detail. It's not. Like I said, they're looking at credit card transactions and currency issues and counterfeit currency. They got a lot on their plate. So

As I watched that press conference, I thought they're doing a great disservice. First of all, it took too long. They could have reassured the American people. President Biden came out and made comments. I did not like those. I think the spirit in which he was trying to calm people down was maybe a nice thing. I think the direction was not something I'm going to be critical of.

But two hours after the event, the president was asked, the one question that somebody barked out at President Biden was, wasn't an assassination attempt. And his response was, he didn't yet know. He said he had his opinion, but he didn't have all the facts. You're the president of the United States.

Secret Service, Homeland Security, FBI, they all report through you. You're supposed to have this information at your fingertips at all times, especially two hours after an assassination attempt. If you want to calm the nation, Mr. President, you need to be candid with them and tell them exactly what you knew at the time. And I don't think he did that. Nevertheless, we're very blessed that Donald Trump was not killed, was not assassinated.

But as I said at the beginning of this podcast, my heart goes out to the family whose loved one didn't come home that day. They went there to go see a former president, potentially the future president, and they're no longer with us. And two people that are still fighting for their lives. Now, maybe by the time you hear this podcast, hopefully something miraculous has happened for the positive. But we got to figure out as the American people how we're going to deal with this.

A lot of people say, oh, we need to change the rhetoric. Okay, I'm willing to look in the mirror on that. But you know what? Democrats, you've been barking about Donald Trump being Hitler for the last several years. President Biden, according to NBC News on Monday, just said, we're putting the debate behind us. It's time to put a bullseye on Donald Trump. What do you think that means to an impressionable 20-year-old? I don't know. Maybe they heard that. Maybe they didn't.

But what does that mean to the American public when you say those things and then come out and say, well, we need to tone down the rhetoric? Maybe he too should look in the mirror. Well, this series of events is not what anybody anticipated going into what is supposed to be an incredible event in Milwaukee at the convention. I look forward to being there, at least for part of it. I hope you're able to watch it. And I think it'll be a miraculous moment when President Trump takes to the microphone once again.

I think the excitement and the roar of the crowd, that iconic image of Donald Trump defying even what the Secret Service wanted to do, raising his fist in the air, blood coming from his face, American flag in the background, yelling, fight, fight, fight. That will live on in American politics pretty much forever. Well, we'll get back to our regular podcast in the future, but I hope this gives you some insight and some thoughts. I appreciate you allowing me to share these with you.

And I hope you come back soon to listen to some more Jason in the House podcasts. I'm Jason Chaffetz. Thanks for listening. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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