Dan Bongino, the conservative commentator and former Secret Service agent who correctly predicted another assassination attempt would be made against former President Donald Trump, says he thinks Sunday’s shooter was connected to a larger network.
“It’s really weird that he would come in here and know exactly that spot and have a good vibe that he was not going to be detected in any kind of preoperation surveillance by the Secret Service,” radio talk-show host and podcaster Bongino said Monday on his radio show. “Was he tipped off that he was going to be there? Is there a state actor involved? Are the Iranians involved somehow?”
Authorities identified the gunman as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who was pulled over and arrested shortly after the incident on Interstate 95 near West Palm Beach, Florida.
While Trump was playing golf Sunday at his course in West Palm Beach, authorities said, a man put the muzzle of a rifle through a chain link fence at the next hole.
According to Fox News, the man was between 300 and 500 yards from Trump. When he put the gun through the fence, a Secret Service agent or agents opened fire.
On Aug. 26, testifying to Republican lawmakers, Bongino predicted another “incident” with the Secret Service, claiming that the agency is worse off today than it was before the assassination attempt against Trump on July 13 at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“[If] you think this is the last incident, you’re out of your mind,” Bongino said.
Bongino said Monday that he was able to predict a second assassination attempt because the Secret Service has major problems with training and manpower.
“What they did was wrong,” he said. “The Secret Service has effed up again. They deserve no accolades at all.”
Bongino suggested there could be a mole in the Secret Service who helped the shooter identify Trump’s exact location Sunday.
“How did he know how to set up and where to set up, and that Trump was going to be there?” Bongino asked.
“Is there a guy or a woman in the Secret Service having a relationship with someone who is not who they say they are?” he continued. “The Iranians have been running these traps in Israel and elsewhere. …How do we know that there’s not some kind of ‘honeypot’ trap, and that some agent, or some DHS personnel, someone who has to be notified, is not in a relationship with someone?”
The Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS.
The Secret Service needs to assign security details for its protectees based on threat, not title, Bongino said.
“We do this protection by title and not by threat, which is going to get someone killed,” he said. “When is this going to sink in? After his head gets blown up on live TV?”
“Is there a political motive for the inadequate security footprint around President Trump?” Bongino asked.
The legacy media should be asking many questions about how the two shooters, on July 13 and on Sunday, could have pulled off their assassination attempts alone, he said.
“This ‘lone gunman’ thing is getting hard to believe,” the former Secret Service agent said. “Both of these shooters found holes, unique holes, from a long-distance threat in a security plan that should have been locked down [by] someone.”
