Some of the agents who were protecting President Trump before his assassination attempt were hastily reassigned and received little training - and the problem hasn't been fixed, whistleblowers alleged.
The security detail for President Trump included Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents who received poor training from Secret Service, sources told Republican senator Josh Hawley (Mo.)
The Secret Service has been slow to answer questions about the security failures that led to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
Many have questioned why an obvious vantage point on a nearby rooftop was left unguarded. Secret Service has also faced scrutiny for failing to act on reports of a suspicious person before the shots rang out.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) who were reassigned to the protective detail told Hawley that their training was limited to a glitchy, two-hour seminar on the computer.
“Imagine 1,000 people logging onto Microsoft Teams at the same time after being informed at the last minute that everyone needed to login individual," one agent said.
"Once it got rolling, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio working on the prerecorded videos (which I’m told are the same videos as last year). All told, they restarted the videos approximately six times …. The content was not helpful."
The Secret Service said in a statement that its commitment to reform is "unwavering." But another whistleblower told Hawley that the training problem hasn't been fixed since the assassination attempt.
"Nothing new, nothing improved since the assassination attempt on former President Trump," the whistleblower said.
Some have speculated that Trump was targeted in an inside job. The new information from Hawley suggests a less ominous but still troubling explanation: incompetence.
Hawley alleged in an interview with Fox News' Jesse Waters that most of the agents in Butler were with HSI, and the site's lead agent wasn't following the normal protocols.
"She was not checking people's IDs. She did not use Secret Service agents," Hawley added. "Most of the agents there that day were not Secret Service agents. They were Homeland Security agents."
The FBI has been unable to shed much light on the shooting, describing the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as a lone wolf with no clear motive.
