Sen. Mike Lee accused the Secret Service of “reckless indifference” in multiple comments this week as new information emerged about the security failures surrounding the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
“At what point does the Secret Service’s reckless indifference to Trump’s safety start to mimic intent to cause him harm?,” Lee asked in a post on X, which he reshared on Thursday morning.
Utah’s senior senator made reference to the Biblical story of King David and Uriah the Hittite. David ordered an army commander to leave Uriah at the front lines so he would be killed by their enemy. David did this to cover up an affair he had with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba.
“King David didn’t kill Uriah the Hittite with his own hands,” Lee said. “But he sent him to a dangerous place and then deliberately left him unprotected.”
What did Sen. Lee ask the Secret Service director?
On Tuesday, Lee grilled acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate during a joint Senate hearing. Rowe was unable to tell Lee why local law enforcement were not at their post in a building adjacent to the roof from which Thomas Mathew Crooks fired at Trump.
Lee was left without an answer explaining why requests for increased security resources were denied to the Trump campaign prior to his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Lee also didn’t receive clarification about why law enforcement did not immediately communicate to Trump’s Secret Service detail that they had seen a gunman on the roof with a rifle.
“At a minimum, people knew that this guy had a gun at least two minutes before the shooting happened,” Lee said during the hearing. “Why on earth was President Trump not removed from the stage at that moment?”
On Wednesday, Lee shared a video taken by James Copenhaver, one of the two victims who were critically wounded at the rally. One attendee, former fire chief Corey Comperatore was killed by the would-be assassin. The video appears to show a figure walking along the roof where Crooks was lying shortly before shots rang out. Although it was not clear whether the video depicted Crooks.
“(E)very new piece of information seems to make the Secret Service’s inaction even more baffling and inexcusable,” Lee said in a post on X. “Maybe Secret Service, while not engaged in any kind of conspiracy, just wasn’t all that concerned about Trump’s safety.”
Secret Service addresses failure
The Secret Service director at the time of the attempt on Trump’s life, Kimberly A. Cheatle, resigned on July 23, just one day after a bipartisan collection of lawmakers demanded she step down.
During her appearance before Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, Cheatle admitted the events of July 13 were “the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service” since the assassination attempt against President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
Lawmakers expressed frustration at her refusal to provide detailed answers to their questions. Cheatle said her ability to be “transparent” may be “limited” because of the “associated risks with sharing highly sensitive protective methodologies.”
Cheatle avoided responses about why there were not Secret Service agents on the roof where the would-be assassin was lying some 600 yards from the stage where Trump stood in Butler County, Pennsylvania.
Cheatle said there was a plan to have surveillance on the roof but did not give details as to why the warehouse was not included in the Secret Service perimeter or why agents did not respond more aggressively to reports of a suspicious person shortly before Trump took the stage.
To the best of her knowledge, she said, Trump’s Secret Service detail likely did not know the suspicious individual, Thomas Matthew Crooks, had a weapon when they were first alerted of his activity.
“If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage,” Cheatle said.