‘ALL OF THIS IS INTENTIONAL’: Trump Surrogate Blames Secret Service for Enabling Assassination Attempt
Tyler O'Neil /
MILWAUKEE—A lawyer, media consultant, and surrogate for former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign blamed the Secret Service for “intentional” decisions that she said enabled the shooter to wound Trump and kill at least one other person.
“I think the intentional decision was that we didn’t have enough Secret Service,” Mehek Cooke told “The Daily Signal Podcast” in an interview Tuesday at the Republican National Convention. “The intentional decision was that we had fill-in [Secret Service] officers that were not trained to protect a former president.”
(Secret Service relied on Pennsylvania police to survey and secure nearby structures, The Washington Post reported.)
She called all these decisions “intentional” and said they resulted in Trump’s coming within “close to a half an inch” of being assassinated.
“All of this is intentional,” Cooke reiterated.
Cooke cited reports that some rallygoers noticed the shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, on a roof before he opened fire at Trump. She faulted the Secret Service for not heeding reports that “many people said … ‘There’s somebody up there with a gun!'”
She tied diversity, equity, and inclusion policies to the Secret Service’s failures in the shooting Saturday evening at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and called on President Joe Biden to fire Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
“It’s because of the mediocrity of this administration, a dereliction of duty, and if Biden had any common sense today, the first thing she should have done is apologize and then fire this DE and I hire,” she said, referring to DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
“We lost a great man, [a] fire chief, husband, father … under the watch of Kim Cheatle,” Cooke said. “She should be fired. Shame on her and shame on Joe Biden.”
Cheatle told ABC News in an interview Monday that “the buck stops with me,” but she plans to stay on as director of the Secret Service. The agency has begun an investigation into security failures.
“The Secret Service is working with all involved federal, state, and local agencies to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again,” Cheatle said in a written statement Monday. “We understand the importance of the independent review announced by President Biden yesterday and will participate fully. We will also work with the appropriate congressional committees on any oversight action.”
Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent who now is a political commentator, called the assassination attempt a “catastrophic failure” for the Secret Service.
Critics have noted Cheatle’s focus on increasing diversity in the Secret Service, especially by recruiting more women as agents.
“I am very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates … particularly women,” Cheatle told CBS News last year.
Cooke suggested the shooting should doom the entire DEI movement.
“I hope that every single employer is looking at DE and I and realizing what is at stake,” Cooke said. “When you don’t base employment based on merit, this is what it leads you to: death, destruction.”
She also argued that “this is not what America is. This is not what the American dream is.”
“I am an Indian immigrant. I want to be hired not because I’m a woman, not because I’m an immigrant, but because I can perform the job to the best of the abilities that the job description states. And no, you shouldn’t hire me to protect President Trump,” Cooke quipped.
Speaking of Trump’s bravery in raising his fist repeatedly and shouting, “Fight!” after the shooting, she called Trump “the American gladiator.”
The lawyer celebrated Judge Aileen Cannon’s Monday dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump, and cited the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
“I think lawfare is dead and this is going to continue to backfire amongst Democrats,” Cooke said. “We had the Supreme Court specifically state that the president enjoys presidential immunity for official acts.”
“Thank God for the Supreme Court,” she added. “They were a backstop for democracy, for the rule of law, so all of these cases are going to be pushed out and eventually go away.”
Cooke suggested the Democratic machine, acting on behalf of the Biden campaign, has targeted Trump in extreme ways.
“Remember, they tried to take down his business, they tried to take out his family, they tried to [stop him from] even appearing on certain ballots, and then they go after him in terms of his official acts,” she said. “When I tell you he is the most targeted president in U.S. history, it is on every single level, and he is still running to make America great.”
“If they can do this to a presidential contender and former president, can you imagine? None of us are safe if the rule of law is not abided by,” Cooke said.