By Rick Manning
The Secret Service allowed a deranged assassin to wander unimpeded and scope out former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally location for hours prior to his attack resulting in one death, two critical injuries and a wounded President Trump.
Unfortunately, this is part of a larger story of how the Biden administration, particularly Department of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, has deliberately created peril for its political opponents.
The horrible sight of President John F. Kennedy slumped, dead in the backseat of his limo in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963 is an image which has to be ingrained in every public official responsible for overseeing the Secret Service.
Mayorkas may also remember JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy being assassinated by an angry Palestinian terrorist at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California on June 6, 1968 following his victory speech after winning the California presidential primary.
The response to the Robert Kennedy assassination caused the Secret Service to provide protection to candidates for the presidency rather than just to current and former officeholders. Yet, Mayorkas repeatedly denied Robert Kennedy, Jr. the benefit of Secret Service protection in spite of his significant independent candidacy and reportedly several serious threats to Kennedy’s life.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on President Trump, the former president urged Biden to provide protection to Kennedy as did Americans for Limited Government. Within a few hours, Mayorkas announced that protection would be extended to Kennedy.
It has also been reported that Mayorkas rejected multiple requests from President Trump’s campaign for additional protection due to extreme threats that he has received. Including a specific threat from the Iranian government in the ultimate attempt at election interference. Yet, somehow, the nation witnessed a clown car worth of protection errors in Butler, Pennsylvania, which almost resulted in a national catastrophe. The failure cost a family their father and husband, with other families praying constantly for the recovery of their loved ones.
If this were the only instance of Homeland Security’s negligence in providing appropriate security for government officials, it would be enough to demand a full investigation into whether political motives drove these decisions. An unthinkable possibility a few years ago now appears possible given the Biden-Harris’ harsh campaign rhetoric that Trump is a threat to democracy itself. Yet, the continual denials of appropriate and competent protection for this administration’s political opponents is hard to explain.
We also know that so-called protesters have been harassing GOP president appointed Supreme Court Justices at their homes for more than a year with Justice Brett Kavanaugh having an assassin show up at his home with plans to kill him and his family.
What did the Biden-Harris security team do?
Virtually nothing. The Biden-Harris Department of Justice assigned a single U.S. Marshal to protection duty for each Justice, with no orders to arrest those attempting to impede judicial proceedings due to their attempt to intimidate the Court’s more conservative members.
As Biden has talked about cooling the rhetoric since the Trump assassination attempt, the White House is ratcheting up attacks on the conservative members of the Supreme Court. After all, it is not like a crazed socialist didn’t attack Republican members of Congress while they practiced for the Congressional baseball game just a few short years ago. Majority Leader Steve Scalise nearly lost his life in that political attack, and if his security detail had not been there, the terrorist would have been using GOP Members of Congress for target practice.
Every one of these attacks is the responsibility of those who commit them. But it is at best malpractice to not provide adequate protection for those in Biden’s “bullseye.”
It is my hope and prayer that these decisions to deny appropriate protection security for opposing candidates and Supreme Court Justices have been made out of gross incompetence and not malice. Unfortunately, the consistent failure to provide adequate security to Biden-Harris’ political and ideological opponents could lead some to conclude that this is a campaign of planned intimidation.
Imagine if the assassination attempt on Trump had succeeded, the discussion we would be having right now with the same set of facts about the security lapses.
The deployment of the Secret Service and the U.S. Marshall’s Service for protection details is serious business, which cannot be politically tainted. This is something which every American should be able to agree upon.
And it doesn’t help when the Director of the Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle, who has now resigned, stonewalls basic questions from Congress about failings associated with the July 13 assassination attempt on President Trump a full nine days after the near disastrous failures.
The Director’s failure to answer got so absurd that far-left Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez called her testimony that she has to wait sixty days to get a report on what went wrong, “unacceptable.”
In Congress’ investigation of the failures of the Biden appointee led Secret Service leading to President Trump being an inch away from death, they must also look at the decision to not provide any protection for Robert Kennedy, Jr, or adequate protection for Supreme Court Justices to assure America that the Biden-Harris team is simply incompetent and not something much, much worse.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
