Why Did Secret Service Brass Feel the Need to Coordinate its Response to the IG’s Investigation Into the First Trump Assassination Attempt

Trump assassin dead shooter

Secret Service leaders meddled in an independent government investigation of the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and are still not following many basic agency security protocols for presidential candidates, presidents, and vice presidents in the final days before the election, according to emails reviewed by RealClearPolitics and several sources in the Secret Service community.

As Secret Service failures came to light in the weeks after the July assassination attempt, USSS managers sent emails to employees asking them to alert them to any “direct requests for information or interview” from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, or DHS OIG. The internal government watchdog is conducting its probe of the failures that led to the near assassination of Trump, the killing of fireman Corey Comperatore, and the wounding of two other rally-goers at the western Pennsylvania campaign event.

The emails, which RealClearPolitics reviewed, contained the subject line “DHS OIG Inquiries” and directed employees to tell their supervisors if an OIG official reaches out to them so Secret Service managers could coordinate “an organized response.” Supervisors sent the email five days after the same inspector general issued a negative report on the Secret Service’s actions before and on Jan. 6, criticizing the agency for failing to detect a pipe bomb near Vice President Kamala Harris and not flagging signs of potential violence to other agencies.

Normally, responding to DHS OIG investigators without talking to superiors would not warrant coordination with supervisors, the email stated. But after the first assassination attempt against Trump, USSS leadership needed to provide the proper context and a coordinated response.

“Generally, not an issue; however, this is NOT the normal course of action, and the Service needs awareness and to ensure an organized response with information in the correct context,” Secret Service supervisors wrote in the emails, noting that “only we know what we do.”

— Susan Crabtree in Secret Service Brass Interfered in IG Assassination Probe

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7 thoughts on “Why Did Secret Service Brass Feel the Need to Coordinate its Response to the IG’s Investigation Into the First Trump Assassination Attempt”

  1. Do federal agents always clean up the mess when they’re conducting an investigation? I didn’t know they did that sort of thing.

    They posted a guard there until their investigation was complete. Yet, they did not post a guard at the Las Vegas shooter’s house until that investigation was complete. His house was broken into after the shooting. Weird.

  2. Why did they coordinate their response? When you’re making up a bullshit story, it’s critical to make it as believable as possible.

    1. Used to have a supervisor who would say we all need to sing from the same sheet of music. That usually meant someone higher up was coming to visit.

  3. OK, former govt employee, here.

    This is a nothing burger. All federal agencies prohibit answering questions, without first being granted permission to do so. Indeed, that policy allows an agency to discipline a “whistle blower”. No, an agency cannot take adverse action against a formal “whistle blower”, but in 2007, the USSC ruled that a government employee CAN be disciplined for unauthorized communication.

    Note: While a govt employee, I did “hear” that a person could individually talk to an outsider, so long as an agency PIO, or lawyer, was present to control the conversation.

    All that may have changed since I left govt service a decade ato.

    1. I personally doubt, very strongly doubt, that your experience has anything to do with what the USSS is doing here.

      I doubt it because I will never be convinced that the USSS, the FBI, and the ATF were not intimately involved in the assassinations attempt. They found the shooter, groomed him, sold him a bill of goods that the scene would be prepped and then the bomb in his vehicle would provide cover for a getaway. Then they let him get on-scene, replace the usual understaffed detail with people who’d had 45 minutes of virtual training on asset protection, and let him get off eight shots before a local cop shot at him, hit the rifle, and the USSS counter-sniper team had to shoot him.

      24 hours later, the FBI has scrubbed the scene with a power washer and within 30 days, they cremated the shooter. Gee, all the evidence is gone.

      1. “24 hours later, the FBI has scrubbed the scene with a power washer and within 30 days, they cremated the shooter. Gee, all the evidence is gone.”

        Your conclusion would not be my “go to” first choice, but one cannot dismiss it, either.

        In the military, we all understood the phrase, “We must all be on the same page” was a re-statement of the old Japanese sobriquet, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered”.

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