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Kathianne
07-31-2024, 07:35 AM
I don't go with conspiracy theories, I don't think what happened to Trump on the 13th was a conspiracy, more so a planned attack from the top down. It is the culmination of the division of the people of the US, into extreme sides. As I've said before, both sides are doing this, but the left is light years (maybe days in current time frame) ahead of the right. I've been watching and listening to the testimony these past weeks-not all, as I leave for work around 9:30, which is 12:30 EDT, so a lot of it I'm seeing. Again, if you want the full argument, you need to go to link, as it now seems a fact of publishing now, much is embedded that cannot be c & p:

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/07/31/members-of-congress-are-now-saying-it-the-secret-service-was-set-up-to-fail-for-political-reasons-n3792498


Members of Congress: The Secret Service Was Set Up to FailDavid Strom 8:00 AM | July 31, 2024



AP Photo/Evan Vucci
I have really bent over backward to give the Secret Service more than reasonable slack to explain how they could fail so catastrophically in their duty to protect once and future president Donald Trump.


I really have, and am still pretty certain that nobody in the government was involved in the specific attempt on the life of Trump in Pennsylvania. It doesn't bear thinking of, so I am not going to unless there is extraordinary evidence to prove it. It seems beyond belief that Secret Service agents around Trump, who have been with him a long time, would participate in something so evil. And Trump is confident that his agents didn't.


But I am well past the point where I have to conclude that the Secret Service was set up to fail in protecting Donald Trump and that it was a goal of the Biden Administration to have him put in danger and possibly killed.


It actually pains me to say that because, while I think that the Establishment has been getting increasingly scummy and have malicious plans for Americans, I thought there were limits beyond which they would not go. This is the United States of America, and we should still be able to assume that our leaders are not outright evil, or at least that they would recoil from anything this evil.


I no longer believe that, and serious Members of Congress--not the fringy ones you might expect to go there--are voicing the same concern.




Yesterday I wrote about my belief that Alejandro Mayorkas--the Secretary of Homeland Security and ultimate boss of the Secret Service--consciously chose to weaken security around Donald Trump. It seems to me to be the only explanation for the extraordinary number of failures that led to the shooting that took the life of a great American, seriously wounded others and got Donald Trump shot in the head.




There are lots of reasons to believe that this is true. Any one or two failures can easily be explained by oversights or incompetence, which are normal even in elite organizations. Stuff happens, and if it happens at the wrong time and in the wrong place, tragedies can occur. That is just a fact of life, however uncomfortable it is.




But this case is different. There weren't one or two failures; a long series of inexplicable failures strain credibility. The shooter was identified hours before, photographed, and spotted with a gun. Nobody was on the roof or watching it, and police were made aware of his being on the roof with a gun minutes before the shooting. And the command center was informed of this fact. There's lots more.




A video of local law enforcement swarming the building with guns drawn minutes before the shooting shows that they, at least, knew there was a serious danger to the president.


He was on the stage speaking at the time.




Then there is the fact that both the Secret Service and the FBI have been basically locked down, stonewalling any attempts to get information, releasing falsehoods such as doubt about whether Trump was shot--allowing publications to spread this calumny--and avoiding any accountability. The FBI Director lied before Congress about there being doubt that President Trump was shot. Yesterday his Deputy testified under oath that there was never any doubt that he was struck by a bullet.


Not a single person involved with the failure has been fired or suspended. Not one. It would be "unfair persecution" to even suspend anyone at this point.


Come on.




Now, Alejandro Mayorkas has replaced Director Cheatle with the man whose job was to oversee the protective details, which failed.


Let that sink in. The man who should be one of the investigated is RUNNING the investigation.






Everybody knows there is a coverup because, well, they are covering everything up. They are as tight lipped with information as any CIA officer, and that violates every principle of crisis communications. Every one of them.






These are the very people who have done everything in the world to put a target on Trump's back, insisting he is Hitler, that he is a threat to Democracy, that he is a dictator-in-waiting, and amping up the political heat to the highest level it has been at since the 1860s. They have been using lawfare, jailing Trump's supporters, calling them domestic terrorists, and even engaging in assassination porn. Some still are, and the President of the United States smiled when talking about the Speaker of the House being "dead on arrival"--twice when he was asked to clarify.


Violent rhetoric is out there, and it is the left engaging in it.





Director Rowe blamed the event on a failure of imagination. He and the Secret Service, he wants us to believe, never imagined that his protectees were in danger. He literally said that, and we are supposed to believe that? Of the Secret Service?


No. Somebody imagined this alright.




Sean Davis at the Federalist has been beating the drum on this for a long time, and I have been reluctant to follow because it seems so implausible to me that the corruption at the top would go this far. But he has a point:




What WOULD they have done differently, other than just not show up at all? They LEFT THE OBVIOUS PLACE FOR A SHOOTER TO PERCH HIMSELF UNGUARDED, were warned that an armed gunman was on the roof, and did nothing until there was blood on the ground.


Nothing. The local police did more.




The "investigators" haven't been talking to the local police who were there, if you can believe that. The snipers from Pennsylvania were supposed to meet with the snipers from the Service before the event, but were stood up.


What is going on?




Former Seal Team member and current Congressman Ryan Zinke asks the obvious question: was this incompetence willful and knowing? The latter, now, seems more plausible.


I find that incredibly difficult to say. But aside from your natural unwillingness to contemplate something like this happening in America, why wouldn't you conclude this? If it happened in Russia, Venezuela, or any banana republic you would have concluded thiis long ago.


America wasn't a banana republic. Is it becoming one? After the years of hoaxes and lawfare, the only thing keeping us from saying it is the reserve of credibility is empty.




Director Rowe must go. He is exactly the wrong person to be in charge of this investigation since he should be one of the people investigated. Don't be fooled by his empty mea culpas. Admitting that there was a failure is the easiest thing to do because it is incontrovertible. He is engaged in a coverup of something, and we need answers from somebody not involved.




Was there a government plot to assassinate the former president? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and unless you can prove that Majorkas or somebody similarly high up actually was involved in this event, I am not convinced.


But he and those around him clearly were involved in stripping the security around Trump. They denied resources, incited violence, and waited for somebody to take an opportunity.


And on July 13th, that happened.

Gunny
07-31-2024, 09:13 AM
I don't go with conspiracy theories, I don't think what happened to Trump on the 13th was a conspiracy, more so a planned attack from the top down. It is the culmination of the division of the people of the US, into extreme sides. As I've said before, both sides are doing this, but the left is light years (maybe days in current time frame) ahead of the right. I've been watching and listening to the testimony these past weeks-not all, as I leave for work around 9:30, which is 12:30 EDT, so a lot of it I'm seeing. Again, if you want the full argument, you need to go to link, as it now seems a fact of publishing now, much is embedded that cannot be c & p:

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/07/31/members-of-congress-are-now-saying-it-the-secret-service-was-set-up-to-fail-for-political-reasons-n3792498

Recall I have repeatedly stated the government is on autopilot. This shadow group that's been running the government in Biden's name doesn't know what they are doing beyond their destructive process of the system. It is more obvious and telling in our military capability than anything else. Point is, cruise control might get somewhere with little effort, but it is never on top of any situation.

When DEI accepts mediocre talent and mediocre support systems, expecting exemplary results is pipe dreaming. IMO and stated at the time, this all started with affirmative action and has gone downhill since. They've had 40+ years to degrade the quality of manpower and infrastructure and the chinks in the armor we are seeing now are just the tip of the iceberg. We aren't prepared for anything.

Kathianne
07-31-2024, 10:52 AM
Recall I have repeatedly stated the government is on autopilot. This shadow group that's been running the government in Biden's name doesn't know what they are doing beyond their destructive process of the system. It is more obvious and telling in our military capability than anything else. Point is, cruise control might get somewhere with little effort, but it is never on top of any situation.

When DEI accepts mediocre talent and mediocre support systems, expecting exemplary results is pipe dreaming. IMO and stated at the time, this all started with affirmative action and has gone downhill since. They've had 40+ years to degrade the quality of manpower and infrastructure and the chinks in the armor we are seeing now are just the tip of the iceberg. We aren't prepared for anything.

My point exactly.

Kathianne
07-31-2024, 12:07 PM
Related:

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/07/31/ridiculous-local-law-enforcement-in-butler-strike-back-at-secret-service-director-n3792512

Kathianne
08-01-2024, 08:23 AM
Every day there is more to relate to this:

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/08/01/shocking-new-video-from-butler-even-worse-for-secret-service-n3792546


Shocking New Video From Butler Makes Secret Service Look Even WorseDavid Strom 8:00 AM | August 01, 2024



AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
The mainstream media has been soft-pedaling, almost memory-holing, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump from less than three weeks ago.


It's not that they have been totally ignoring it; rather, they have been spinning it, casting doubt on the fact that Trump was actually shot, and most especially turning a blind eye to the now obvious fact that the FBI and Secret Service are engaged in a coverup of massive proportions.


Nobody called out FBI Director Wray for his perjurious testimony that the FBI wasn't sure that Trump was actually shot. He lied before Congress, and several media outlets ran with the story as if it were true. Wray's own deputy testified before Congress that there was never any doubt about the issue, but the meme was out there, and leftists have pushed it into the public consciousness.


I have written several times about the Secret Service's coverup and my belief that Alejandro Mayorkas is ultimately responsible for setting up a situation in which Trump would inevitably get attacked and perhaps assassinated. He is the Secretary of Homeland Security, expressed full confidence in the Secret Service and Kimberly Cheatle AFTER Trump was shot, and when she resigned he elevated the very man whose job was overseeing the protective details.


Nobody in the mainstream media appears to be unhappy with the coverup, most are ignoring the obvious lies, and they are, it appears to me, trying to memory hole the entire affair.


It's almost like they are disappointed Trump wasn't removed from this Earth.


Now we have this:




As you can see in this video, Thomas Matthew Crooks was NOT hidden from view when he was crossing the roof of the building from which he took his fatal shots. In fact, he was videotaped from a grandstand behind Trump, at a much lower height than the perch afforded to the Secret Service.


Minutes before the shooting. You can't tell me that nobody from the Secret Service saw him.


EXCLUSIVE: PITTSBURGH — A video from James Copenhaver, one of the victims critically wounded in the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Trump, shows a figure moving across the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building just minutes before gunfire rang out at Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.


In the video taken at 6:08 p.m. on July 13, the person appears on the roof of the building adjacent to where Trump is speaking and can be seen walking from the 1:00 second mark to about the 2:50 second mark.


Officials believe gunman Thomas Crooks, 20, began shooting with a collapsible AR-15-style rifle three minutes later, around 6:11 p.m. Counter snipers fatally shot Crooks shortly afterward, and law enforcement officials found eight shell casings near his body.


If he could be seen from the grandstand crossing the roof, he certainly would have been visible to the Secret Service snipers whose job it was to defend Trump. How does something like this get missed by people whose sole job is to prevent it?


Think about that. Hard.


If you have an innocent explanation beyond "every single agent in charge of this event had a lobotomy," I would like to hear it.


Seriously. I don't like what I am thinking.


How does any of this add up in a way that makes the Secret Service look innocent? Long ago we had to abandon the idea that simple incompetence was at work, but the evidence for something more sinister keeps piling up.




Sean Davis of The Federalist has been one of the few journalists who has been screaming from the rooftops about how corrupt and even conspiratorial this looks, and I admit that although I love Davis' work, I thought he was too far ahead of the evidence.


But I have to admit, he was right. It's pretty obvious that the level of "incompetence" and "mistakes" necessary for this event to have happened as it did isn't plausible. There had to be a level of intent.




They had to have seen him. The local police were swarming the building, guns drawn, minutes before the shooting. A warning had been radioed into the command post. It was ignored.


And the man in charge of the protective details is now in charge of the investigation, stonewalling Congress, his allies at the FBI are obviously lying to Congress under oath and casting aspersions on Donald Trump. The very same FBI that hid the Hunter Biden laptop, lied to the FISA Court to spy on Trump, used an obviously faked "dossier" to hound Trump, leaked lies to the media, and censored true information online.


Oh, and just paid out millions to agents who we know beyond doubt because we have their text messages conspired to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.




If the highest levels of the Secret Service didn't conspire to allow this to happen, they sure have no interest in assuring us of that fact. Millions of us are now convinced that they did, have plenty of circumstantial evidence showing that they did,


Evidence like the fact that the assassin was visible crossing the roof. And not just from a great height, but from below where the counter snipers were. Rowe claims that Crooks was hidden from view; clearly he wasn't, and we have video evidence to prove that.


If there is an explanation for this, you would hope the Secret Service would provide it instead of stonewalling. But even Members of Congress can't get answers, so it seems clear to me that they want to run out the clock, hoping that a Harris administration will help them cover it up for years to come.


If there is an innocent explanation, FBI and Secret Service, please share it instead of stonewalling. Perhaps there is some hidden reason why the Trump protection detail was starved of resources, why the Secret Service refused to use an offered drone to defend the site, and why the counter-snipers didn't meet with the locals before the event.




Interim Director of the Secret Service Rowe claimed that the failures stemmed from a "lack of imagination," which may have been the most ridiculous assertion made before Congress in my lifetime.


He literally said that the Secret Service couldn't imagine anybody wanted to kill Trump. He said that.




Oh, I am pretty sure that the Secret Service is fully aware that people "want to do harm" to their protectees. It is their job--literally their job--to prevent this, so no imagination is required to discern the possibility.


"Failure of imagination." Oh, come on. He is laughing at us now.

Gunny
08-01-2024, 11:25 AM
Every day there is more to relate to this:

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/08/01/shocking-new-video-from-butler-even-worse-for-secret-service-n3792546

I'm going with incompetence.

On the other and, I can't imagine a shooter, much less multiple shooters not seeing Crooks. I'm not even counting the ground pounders who could understandably miss someone walking through the crowd. Shooters in elevated positions, each with a specific area to cover, should have been all over this guy. Maybe they need some Marines to teach them their f-ing jobs:rolleyes:

Kathianne
08-02-2024, 09:51 AM
The one who made the orders, investigates himself. Gee, why are we not trusting the government anymore?

https://hotair.com/david-strom/2024/08/02/director-rowe-is-the-one-who-crippled-trumps-secret-service-team-n3792586


Director Rowe Personally Crippled Trump's Secret Service TeamDavid Strom 10:30 AM | August 02, 2024



AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
The tap dancing, lies, and coverup of the Trump assassination attempt by the Secret Service, FBI, and now the mainstream media is so far beyond bureaucratic ass-covering that it's hard to conclude that the events in Butler were not desired.


I still maintain that it is unlikely in the extreme that anybody inside the government recruited Crooks to take his shots at Trump because it seems so implausible that any sane person would recruit an untrained kid to do the deed, but it is now clear to me that the top levels of the Secret Service and Homeland Security wanted Trump in danger.


For weeks, I wanted to believe that massive incompetence led to the events in Butler. I really did because the alternative didn't bear thinking of. I thought the lawfare campaign was banana republic stuff, but assassination? That is Putin-level evil.


But consider the facts: the security "breakdowns" were so massive and implausible when combined that any large police force could have done a better job than the most elite protection unit in the world. The shooter was identified, tracked, photographed, filmed on the roof, the Secret Service was warned multiple times, the shooter was in the line of sight of the snipers, and Trump was trotted out onto the stage and kept there as the shooter was lining up his shot in full view of the Secret Service snipers.


None of that is disputable.








The Secret Service is now stonewalling and has put the very man whose job it was to oversee security in charge of the investigation, and he has been lying to Congress.


The FBI has been obfuscating and lying for political reasons (the FBI Director said he didn't know if Trump was shot, while his Deputy testified there was NEVER any doubt), and instead of answering Congress's questions, he refers to the Secret Service, which refers questions back to the FBI.


Nobody is talking or taking responsibility.




A sniper wrote a long email to his colleagues about the corruption and lies, and the Secret Service illegally deleted it from their servers.


Let that sink in. They broke the law in doing so. Not an obscure law, but one of the most fundamental laws having to do with retention of government records.


Now we learn from a whistleblower that the Acting Director of the Secret Service personally pulled resources from the Trump team, including the very people whose job it was to identify and track a potential threat. They weren't there, despite it being a critical resource to deal with precisely this type of threat and standard to provide them.


Rowe did that and now is in charge of investigating himself.


Sen. Josh Hawley on Thursday sent a letter to Rowe citing “disturbing information” from at least one whistleblower citing Secret Service planning failures for the Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign event “and your own involvement.”


Hawley said he had received detailed information that Rowe personally directed “significant cuts” to the Countersurveillance Division, a department that performs threat assessment evaluations of event sites before the events occur and did not perform its typical evaluation of the Butler site and was not present that day.


“This is significant because CSD’s duties include evaluating potential security threats outside the security perimeter,” Hawley wrote, adding that a CSD’s threat assessment likely would have provided more measures to protect the rooftop of the American Glass Research building where shooter Thomas Crooks perched and opened fire on Trump and the crowd.


“The whistleblower claims that if personnel from the CSD had been present at the rally, the gunman would have been handcuffed in the parking lot after being spotted with a rangefinder,” Hawley continued. “You acknowledged in your Senate testimony that the American Glass Research complex should have been included in the security perimeter for the Butler event.”


Further, the Secret Service didn't meet with the local law enforcement details before the assassination attempt and hasn't SINCE even during what is supposed to be one of the most critical and intensive investigations in history.


So far it has been three weeks, and the people who identified the shooter tried to capture him before the assassination attempt, and first arrived at the scene have been totally ignored by the investigation.


Watch:




Can you give an innocent explanation? I can't. Even Dan Bongino, who has been a week or two ahead of the rest of the media on this story, and his evidence has proven impeccable (he was a Secret Service protective detail agent for over a decade and has inside sources) is now voicing suspicions, despite being reluctant in the first week or two to consider anything besides massive incompetence.


Scott Adams talks about the Dilbert principle: organizations can be far, far more incompetent than you can imagine, and my inclination was to apply this principle to the Butler incident.


No longer. I just can't. One, two, or three of these screw-ups could be explained by incompetence, but not all of them, and especially not the multiple incidents of outright perjury before Congress.


The snipers had a line of sight on the shooter. He was visible running across the root. The locals had informed the Secret Service that he was there. The locals were swarming the building minutes before the shots rang out. We have video of all of this. All of it.


If you can give an innocent explanation for the mountain of evidence that this was allowed to happen, I really want to hear it, because a plot to get Trump killed is the worst-case scenario. I really don't want to believe it.


Right now I believe it. Please prove me wrong.

fj1200
08-02-2024, 12:04 PM
I'm still shocked that there was a competent, capable, local, sniper anywhere on site instead of a SS sniper. Completely shocked that they would outsource that function.

revelarts
08-29-2024, 04:37 PM
Congressman blasts FBI for releasing Thomas Crooks’ body for cremation days after Trump shooting: ‘Unheard of’

https://nypost.com/2024/08/16/us-news/congressman-blasts-fbi-for-releasing-thomas-matthew-crooks-body-for-cremation/


"trust us"

Sheesh

Gunny
08-29-2024, 05:16 PM
Congressman blasts FBI for releasing Thomas Crooks’ body for cremation days after Trump shooting: ‘Unheard of’

https://nypost.com/2024/08/16/us-news/congressman-blasts-fbi-for-releasing-thomas-matthew-crooks-body-for-cremation/


"trust us"

SheeshI don't see the point. They want to keep a dead body around why? All this extra crying is just hype, IMO. The shooting and shooter aren't in question. The conduct surrounding the security detail itself is what is in question.

revelarts
08-29-2024, 05:36 PM
Dan Bongino To Matt Gaetz: This Is How 'Cover-Up' Around Trump Assassination Attempt Would Work
Aug 26, 2024
At a House Republican forum on the assassination attempt against former President Trump, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) questioned witnesses about what went wrong that led to the shooting of the former President.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCP-m9NXQ28