DHS Could Be at Fault in Trump Shooting, Former Secret Service Agent Says
Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell /
The investigation into the U.S. Secret Service’s failure to secure the Pennsylvania campaign rally where former President Donald Trump was shot late Saturday afternoon should focus on whether the agency followed preventive protocols, a former member of the Secret Service told The Daily Signal.
“If they followed the methodology that the Secret Service uses, that worked for me for 24 years,” said Ken Valentine, a retired agent who helped protect three presidents of both parties—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. “It’s super-solid. It can always be enhanced and improved, but I suspect what we’re going to see is that there was non-execution of agreed-upon protocols, and we’ll just see what those are.”
Valentine said if he had been in Trump’s security detail on Saturday, he would have focused on preventing anyone from the top of the building from which the 20-year-old gunman fired upon the rally. One of the bullets grazed the former president in the right ear, bloodying Trump.
“What they reacted to was gunfire,” Valentine explained. “What I wanted them to react to was the verbal word that ‘We have a man with a gun on a roof.’ You’re trying to prevent the actions that you can’t be fast enough to react to.”
Law enforcement identified the shooter as suspicious more than an hour before he opened fire, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News after a briefing between members of the Senate and the Secret Service.
Valentine wonders whether the Department of Homeland Security failed to provide the Secret Service with all of the resources it needed to protect Trump.
“I think Secret Service is stuck in a department that tolerates the Secret Service, but doesn’t appreciate the mission of the Secret Service or what they’ve been asked to do,” he said. “So, I think the investigation is going to reveal all of that, and I’m not, not going to shy away from judgments once all the facts are in.”
“If the top priority of DHS for the Secret Service was anything other than protecting these people, then that’s a failure,” Valentine said. “That’s got to be the No. 1 mission of the Secret Service.”
For Secret Service agents, “your whole goal is to thwart and to prevent action, because action is always faster than reaction,” he said.
“What you saw the other day was, really, a failure of the preventive efforts to stop action,” the retired agent said. “Someone was allowed to scale a building within rifle-shot of a secured venue, and then get off shots into that secured venue.”
If protocol was not followed, it’s possible the shooter could have taken advantage of that alone, Valentine said.
The reported assassination threat against Trump from Iran should have informed the Secret Service’s preparation to protect Trump, according to the former agent, as the Secret Service is a “threat-driven, intelligence-based agency.”
The Secret Service needs to take responsibility for its failure on July 13, Valentine said.
“I think, on the forefront, you have to accept responsibility for the failures, whatever they were, no matter who’s actually responsible for whatever big and little failings there were,” he said. “The Secret Service is in charge of protecting former President Donald Trump, candidate for president, and when he leaves the stage bleeding from a gunshot wound, your first reaction is that we own that, because we do.”
That said, the Secret Service’s reaction to the gunfire was “heroic,” according to Valentine.
“I can’t overstate the fact that these agents, some of whom are friends of mine, they jumped into the fray as bullets were in the air, and they covered [Trump], and then they evacuated [him],” Valentine said, “and that is exactly what we rehearse.”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said Tuesday that her agency was solely in charge of security at the rally. Valentine described that as odd, as the Secret Service typically works in conjunction with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners.
“You have that uniform presence, and then you have Secret Service, and their goal is to identify threats that are out there and then be able to communicate those threats when they encounter them. And for some reason, that wasn’t in play,” the former agent said.
Valentine, who is a friend of Cheatle, doesn’t think it’s necessary to call for her resignation.
“I don’t want to disparage anyone, but at the end of the day, there are going to be failures, things that were not done, that should have been done that would have prevented this, and so I hate that for everyone involved,” he said. “People died out there.”
The man who was fatally shot during the assassination attempt on Trump was former fire chief Corey Comperatore. Comperatore died shielding his family from the gunshots. Two other people were seriously injured.
The administration of President Joe Biden intervened to prevent the Secret Service from briefing a House committee investigating the assassination bid, The Washington Stand reported. Valentine called that “really not acceptable.”
“If Congress has questions, then they’re typically going to get [answers], or they’re going to make noise until they do get them,” Valentine said. “Congress, in their oversight role, has a right to answers.”
Though Valentine is proud of the Secret Service, he recognizes the failures of last Saturday afternoon.
“I’m proud to be Secret Service, but you know, the failures have to be owned, and we’ll deal with them, but they were there,” he said.