The Secret Service has had a rough summer, and they’re nowhere near out of the woods regarding the public relations nightmare that began when Donald Trump got shot on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. On September 15, someone tried to kill Trump again in West Palm Beach, Florida, so that it couldn’t get worse, right? It did, though it wasn’t another assassination attempt.
If there weren’t two attempts on Trump’s life within 65 days of each other, this wouldn’t be much of a story, but we’re in a cumulative effect stage with the Secret Service. This agency allowed Trump to get shot, and now one of their uniformed officers shot himself last week (via WUSA9):
A U.S. Secret Service (USSS) agent accidentally shot and injured himself Saturday evening. He is expected to survive.
According to USSS, the agent was on duty during the "negligent discharge" while he was handling his weapon shortly before 8 p.m. in the area of 32nd and Fessenden streets Northwest. His injuries were not life threatening, and the officer was taken to a hospital for evaluation and treatment. USSS says no one else was injured in the incident.
The firearm involved was a rifle, and it was reportedly near the Israeli embassy, according to Susan Crabtree of RealClearPolitics:
UPDATE: This was a Uniformed Division Officer attached to Foreign Missions branch, not a special agent, who shot himself in the foot (literally) last night. These officers protect more than 500 foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington Metropolitan Area. They respond to…
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) September 22, 2024
This was a Uniformed Division Officer attached to Foreign Missions branch, not a special agent, who shot himself in the foot (literally) last night. These officers protect more than 500 foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington Metropolitan Area. They respond to complaints and calls for assistance primarily from foreign embassy personnel.
One source says the UD Officer shot himself in the foot, i.e. in a "negligent discharge" with a duty rifle near the Israeli ambassador's residence.
Not a great time for a shooting, misfire or not, outside that residence to occur -- to say the least.
She also added how this negligent discharge incident might have occurred:
The Secret Service, in recent years, has lowered the frequency of its gun training after COVID for an unknown reason, possibly because of a manpower shortage. The agency previously required all gun carriers within the National Capital Region to qualify monthly. But the training is less frequent now.
The agency does require all special agents assigned to the presidential protective division and the vice presidential protective division, who protect the president and vice president and their families, and the technical security division, to qualify monthly, but not others.
Uniformed Division officers, who serve as the White House police, also do not have to qualify monthly, according to one source.
This agency couldn’t protect Trump, and now they’re literally shooting themselves in the foot, figuratively speaking. It circles back to the incompetence at Butler, where the agency allowed a rooftop less than 500 yards from the rally stage to remain unprotected. The rooftop where would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks took shots at the former president. We still don’t know the whole picture because this agency has adopted a bunker mentality. Most of what we know is due to the disclosures from local law enforcement.
Kimberly Cheatle was forced to resign from the agency after a disastrous hearing before Congress about this assassination attempt. Following that circus, we learn that acting director Ronald Rowe reportedly denied further resources to Trump’s detail. Then, the second attempt on Trump’s life, where Ryan Wesley Routh waited on the course of Trump International Golf Club for 12 hours with a scoped rifle, getting within 350-500 yards of the former president as he played. The Secret Service said their security plan worked, which was an agent sweeping a couple of holes ahead of Trump and seeing Routh’s rifle barrel sticking out of the shrubberies, leading to an exchange of gunfire from the agent. Routh fled only to be arrested later. The agency then said they told Trump he needed more resources to continue playing golf.
Two assassination attempts within 65 days, one of which led to Trump getting shot and now a uniformed officer shooting himself. On top of that, let’s not forget that the Secret Service allowed a drunk man to enter National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan’s home. It was an all-around disaster for this agency, which had been barraged with whistleblowers alleging that the advance team was ill-trained. Some of the security personnel on the ground at Butler weren’t Secret Service, but DHS agents who had only taken an online seminar before the assignment, and the walkthrough with local law enforcement was a total shambles, leaving an atmosphere of confusion that contributed to the security breach.
Secret Service isn’t what it used to be.