In the summer of 2024, two assassination attempts were made on Donald Trump’s life. These were the first assassination attempts on the life of a current and former president in over forty years.

In the first assassination attempt, Trump was shot in the ear while speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Two months later, the Secret Service narrowly thwarted a second assassination attempt at Trump’s Palm Beach golf course. There, a gunman staked out the course for hours in the hopes of shooting Trump. Thankfully, the Secret Service was able to stop this attack at the last minute before the gunman could fire off a shot.

In the wake of these assassination attempts, a bipartisan House Task Force has been investigating them. On Tuesday, this task force released a report detailing the “preexisting conditions and leadership failures” that led to the assassination attempts. In this report, the task force disturbingly indicated that its investigation into the second attempt was seemingly stonewalled.

From Fox News:
“The Task Force notes that as of the date of publication of this report, [the Department of Homeland Security], [U.S. Secret Service], FBI, and [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] have not produced any documents responsive to the Task Force’s requests regarding the preparation for, events of, and response to the second assassination attempt that occurred on September 15,” the report said.

Lawmakers found “critical vulnerabilities” in the security of that site. The report said Secret Service agents identified the golf course’s outer perimeter as “a favorable position for potential snipers.”

The report also called on the Secret Service to review its protocols for golf courses – which would be a significant policy overhaul, given Trump and past presidents’ historic penchant for golfing.

Report Calls On Congress To Take Action

The report also recommended that Congress should potentially take the Secret Service out from under the purview of the DHS.

“The current structure potentially weakens USSS, a small but critically important agency, in advocating for its budget and other priorities inside a much larger entity,” the report stated. “The failure in [Butler, Pennsylvania] was far from the first significant USSS failure in recent history, and it is fair to question whether USSS should continue to be housed within DHS.”

After four decades of zero assassination attempts against current or former presidents, one would think that the DHS and Secret Service would be especially eager to cooperate in full with this task force. The fact that they don’t seem to be doing so begs the question: what are they trying to hide?

Many have been suspicious about these assassination attempts from the very beginning. Indeed, the failings of the Secret Service ahead of the first assassination attempt in particular have been glaringly obvious.

The Secret Service should be applauded for thwarting the second assassination attempt. However, it’s still raised some eyebrows that the Florida gunman was able to get close to making an attempt on Trump’s life so soon after the first.

There’s no excuse for the DHS and Secret Service to not fully cooperate with this investigation. Here’s hoping that they respond to this report by producing the requested documents. In the end, the American people deserve to know the truth.

Key Takeaways: 

• Trump shooting task force releases bombshell report.
• New report claims DHS and Secret Service haven’t produced documents about the second assassination attempt.

Source: Fox News