During the Monday forum hosted by the independent investigation into the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) raised the uncomfortable question surrounding the shooting: Did the Secret Service allow it to happen?
Rep. Gaetz began the discussion with Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who suggested that the Secret Service, or even the American government at large, have not learned anything from the assassination attempt and noted that hypothetical perpetrators such as ISIS or Hezbollah would have done worse and succeeded in killing Trump.
"I guess my question to you is, because this has been laid bare and these weaknesses have been exposed, are you concerned that we are likely to face not another [Thomas] Crooks, but perhaps a threat like you described, a team from a foreign adversary, a terrorist organization, trying to expose and exploit the weaknesses that we have now seen?" Rep. Gaetz asked.
Prince answered, saying he was "very concerned" at the Secret Service and government's apparent lack of willingness to learn from the mistakes made in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Florida Congressman then noted that he had "some experience in observing what a government agency does when they are not telling the truth and they are trying to hide something, and the pattern recognition always goes to some form of scapegoating" as his questioning turned to former Secret Service agent and commentator Dan Bongino.
Gaetz claimed that members of the Secret Service's "Pittsburgh field office have been put on leave and I have also seen the story change, where initially, the Secret Service was blaming folks in local government, and then there was admission that there were not appropriate responses to requests for additional manpower."
As a result, Gaetz asked Bongino how the Secret Service would respond to this information, who said they did not deny requests for additional manpower right before the event but advised Gaetz and the other Congressmen not to let the Secret Service make that excuse as they had consistently denied Trump extra protection before.
This was where Gaetz asked the big, uncomfortable question: "The key question here is whether this was your run-of-the-mill government incompetence or whether you see features of such disregard for the duty at hand that you believe that there is some malice."
While Bongino did not say there was definite malice in denying Trump extra protection, the Secret Service could have become politicized and influenced its decision-making.
Gaetz reiterated that the Secret Service's job was commendable: "But just like in the military, just like at the FBI, I worry about the political capture happening at headquarters and then that culture informing decisions in a way that is very damaging to the country. So what Mr. Bongino just said ought to be the most important work at the United States Congress, to figure out if these decisions were run-of-the-mill incompetence that you have got to deal with, the better tech, and the better processes, the better HR, get rid of the DEI."
"But if it is something even darker and more devious than that, that must be rooted out because what we have seen at these other agencies of government is it does not cure itself; it has to be excised."
