Second Assassination Attempt on Trump Thwarted
After two near-assassinations on Donald Trump in two months—the first in July and the second on Sept. 15, where a gunman lay in wait for Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course—the Secret Service is facing widespread criticism for its spectacular security failures.
Although both assassination attempts were thwarted, two gunmen at different venues were able to get close enough to Trump to kill him, and the first one almost did so. Those close brushes with disaster continue to cast doubt on the agency’s leadership and the ability of its members to carry out their core mission.
On Capitol Hill, the Secret Service is at the center of multiple investigations, including the House’s probe into the first assassination attempt. That probe has now been expanded to include the second incident.
Ryan Routh, the 58-year-old suspect involved in the golf course drama, was within several hundred yards of Trump when his rifle was spotted through the shrubbery, authorities said.
According to an FBI report, Routh started staking out Trump’s golf course at about 2 a.m. last Sunday. Twelve hours later, as Trump was golfing, a Secret Service agent walking the course’s perimeter glimpsed a semi-automatic rifle poking through the fence bordering the course.
The agent fired at him and Routh fled. He was later arrested by local law enforcement and has been charged by federal prosecutors with gun crimes. [See Sidebar]
The notion of a gunman lurking near the golf course undetected for a half a day has rattled nerves, especially in the wake of the attempted assassination of Trump just two months earlier.
“That’s unquestionably a security failure,” said John Sandweg, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in an interview with Politico. “There’s no denying that.”
He noted that the Secret Service “faces increasingly intense demands and stratospherically high threats.” The agency often leans on other local forces to help with its expanding responsibilities, but that magnifies the chances that vital information will fall through the cracks, the former ICE director said.
“In the end, no protection is 100 per cent, one of Trump’s former bodyguards told Politico. “It’s just not possible. Not on a golf course, not in a building, not in a farm field. Law enforcement officers wear bulletproof vests and carry firearms because people are unpredictable and violence happens.”
Trump himself has praised the agents who protected him, posting online his thanks “for doing an “outstanding job.”
Lawmakers Call Out Secret Service Leadership
Nevertheless, the two assassination attempts have sparked public wrath toward the Secret Service and calls for genuine reforms.
In the wake of the golf course incident, Republicans harshly criticized the agency’s leadership and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.
In a joint interview with an ABC News anchor, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-PA, chair of the House task force investigating the attempted assassination, and Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colorado, shared their findings that the Secret Service was woefully unprepared for July 13 rally.
“The lack of preparation for the Butler event leaves us shocked as to how in the world the most elite group—those we rely on to protect our leaders—was so casual about their mission,” Kelly said. “We cannot accept this as Americans. There is no place for complacency in the Secret Service.”
Both lawmakers called on Americans to tone down rhetoric around politics amid concerns that the tense atmosphere around November’s election is playing a role in the heightened threat environment.
“Mike is a very conservative Republican. I’m a very proud Democrat,” Crow said. “And what we’re trying to show folks is we can go through an election cycle, we can have fierce and tough debates, and we can show people that we will settle our political differences and debate, but we’re going to come together on an issue that Americans expect us to come together on,” Crow said.
“I think there are some really patriotic, great people working in the Secret Service, but it’s the leadership. … I have no faith in Secretary Mayorkas,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday in an interview with Fox & Friends, referring to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is also publicly calling on the Secret Service to be moved out of DHS and placed back under the Department of Treasury, its original parent agency.
Secret Service Admits Failure
A report released by the Secret Service last Friday validated some of the criticism leveled against the agency in the wake of the shootings at the Butler event.
The report confirmed the agency was responsible for massive “communication deficiencies” on July 13. “Some local police entities were not informed” that besides their own communications command post on site at Butler, there was a second one—the Secret Service command center, the report said.
Even those local police who knew about it did not have direct access to the Secret Service frequency. They needed to go through an intermediary channel to get messages to Secret Service personnel.
Local forces had texted and radioed multiple alerts to their Secret Service counterparts about a “suspicious male” loitering near the gathering at 5:10 p.m., an hour before the shooting, and then later when he was spotted on the rooftop.
Due to the convoluted communications system, however, these urgent messages never reached Secret Service agents, sniper teams or Trump’s immediate bodyguards.
Grade-school kids playing “Capture the Flag” have demonstrated better team work and more competence than the Secret Service did at this event, security experts have pointed out.
Rowe acknowledged before Congress that “complacency … that led to a breach of protocols” seeped into the advance planning for how to protect the former president at the July 13 rally.
“As a result of these failures, what has become clear to me is we need a paradigm shift in how we conduct our operations. As was demonstrated on Sunday in West Palm Beach, the threat level is evolving and requires this paradigm shift,” Rowe said.
Although “a paradigm shift” is supposedly in the works, skeptics have noted that not one employee at the agency has of yet been fired for the security failures at the Pennsylvania rally.
Sen. Ron Johnson: Secret Service Not Being Transparent
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has slammed the Secret Service for “continuing to drag its feet” in identifying who was accountable for its failures on July 13.
In an appearance on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures, Sen. Johnson lashed out at acting director Rowe for making a show of being transparent without actually divulging critical information.
“Rowe’s testimony to Congress doesn’t tell us anything other than everybody was responsible, which means nobody was responsible, which means nobody can be held accountable,” Johnson fumed.
Members of Congress “still have not been provided with transcripts from the more than 1,000 interviews from the FBI, as well ballistics information in terms of exactly when the shots were fired,” the senator pointed out, going on to detail some of the issues of vital interest that have not been disclosed.
“Did they recover the bullets? What about crime scene photos? I mean, there’s so much that hasn’t been shared. What did they find out about Crooks, about his background? What about the encrypted accounts found on his phone? What is actually known about Crooks after the weeks of investigation?” the Wisconsin senator questioned.
“If you were asked to design an investigation that would drive conspiracy theories, this is exactly how you’d do it,” he added. “[The Secret Service] needs to be transparent. They’re not. They hold themselves above the law. They don’t believe they’re accountable to Congress and the American people.”
Surveillance Footage Tells Troubling Story
At a forum on the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump held at the Heritage Foundation near Capitol Hill and livestreamed to millions, security experts responded to questions from five Republican members of Congress: Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas.
Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL; Ben Shaffer, a Washington SWAT operator who assisted in security at the July 13 Trump rally; and former Secret Service agent and podcaster Dan Bongino took turns responding to the lawmakers’ questions.
The congressmen presented video clips from surveillance footage from July 13, showing that members of the crowd at the Butler speech had attempted, with shouts and pointing, to alert police to the presence of Thomas Crooks an hour before he fired at Donald Trump.
Yet one saw no signs of a police response to these alarms in any of the video clips, until the very last fateful moments. Only then did the videos capture the sight of a few worried-looking officers beginning to circle the AGR building.
They were advancing uncertainly, talking into their phones or walkie-talkies, glancing apprehensively upwards at the rooftop where they suspected a shooter lay hidden. Yet there was no sign of the urgent, rapid-fire action that a true grasp of the emergency would have prompted.
Dereliction of Duty
Rep. Mills asked SWAT officer Shaffer a series of questions at the Heritage Foundation Forum that laid bare how ill prepared the Secret Service was for a potential threat at the Butler rally.
“Is it true the Secret Service “refused the communication platform (coordinating radio frequencies with local police) that was offered by local forces?” Rep. Mills asked.
“That is correct,” came the response.
“And is it true the agency likewise declined the surveillance drone offered by local law enforcement?” Mills continued.
“That is correct.”
“It’s been alleged that Secret Service agents did not show up for the morning-of-the-rally briefing to ensure that last-minute planning was known to all parties concerned—is that true?”
“Yes.”
“And is it true the Secret Service failed to access the water tower that has the highest vantage point—is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
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The Secret Service “had one-third the number of agents covering Trump as were covering Jill Biden in the same region at an indoor event,” former Navy SEAL Erik Prince. “Jill Biden had 12 agents covering her in a closed, secure building. Donald Trump had four Secret Service agents assigned in an outdoor rally.”
“President Trump was definitely deprived of resources that day,” Prince noted. He emphasized that “140 yards is point-blank range” for a sniper. “Thank G-d that 20-year-old aimed for a headshot at President Trump, because if he had aimed center-mass, President Trump would probably be dead,” Prince said.
“A Hezbollah team, or ISIS, or you name the terrorist organization that actually knows what they’re doing, would have been successful that day,” the former SEAL added. “The Secret Service was nearly defeated by a 20-year-old, and we all, including Donald Trump, dodged a bullet that day.”
Rep. Gaetz asked Bongino why it seems that Trump, “one of the most threatened people on the planet earth,” must deal with “limited protection.”
Bongino emphasized that Secret Service “was definitely not a political enterprise” when he worked there. Yet he speculated that politics might have played a motive in the Secret Service decreasing Trump’s protective detail.
“It could be an enhanced security posture for Donald Trump would have made him look more ‘presidential.’ Those are not the optics they wanted for him.”
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives voted unanimously last week to bolster Secret Service protection for presidential and vice- presidential candidates. The bill is expected to pass the Senate in the coming days.
Whistleblower Allegations Point to Security Breaches on Trump Golf Course
Addressing the issue of how the Secret Service appears to have once again underperformed during a threat situation, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sent a letter to Acting Director Ronald Rowe detailing new whistleblower allegations about Secret Service’s security breaches in West Palm Beach on Sept. 15.
As a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), Hawley has been a leader in the investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
“An individual who has in fact protected President Trump at that very location [at Trump’s golf course] alleges there are ‘known vulnerabilities’ in the fence line surrounding the golf course: places that offer a clear line of sight to the former president,” wrote Sen. Hawley in his letter to Rowe.
“As a result, the whistleblower alleges it has been Secret Service protocol to “post up” agents at these vulnerable spots when Trump visits the course. That apparently did not happen on September 15. Instead, the gunman was permitted to remain along or near the fence line for some 12 hours.
Hawley’s questioned Rowe about “whether agents swept the perimeter of the golf course at any point, or whether drones were used to surveil the fence line.
The reality,” he stressed, “is that the would-be assassin should never have been able to linger around the course for that long undetected.”
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A Long Rap Sheet Going Back Decades
Just two months after an assassination attempt on the life of Donald Trump, another gunman, 58-year-old Ryan Routh, armed with a high-powered rifle, was able to camp out in the bushes surrounding Trump’s Florida golf course for nearly 12 hours.
Routh was within a few hundred yards of Trump when a Secret Service agent spotted his weapon pointing through the bushes at the edge of the golf course and fired at him, an AP article reported. The would-be assassin escaped in his car but was caught and arrested.
Police say he left behind a note with an acquaintance expressing his intention to kill former president Trump, but was soliciting others to carry out his plan should he fail.
“This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I failed. I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job,” the note said.
Cellphone records indicate Routh traveled to West Palm Beach in mid-August, and that he was near Trump’s golf club and his Mar-a-Lago residence “on multiple days and times” between August 18 and the day of the attempted assassination, the Justice Department said.
A background check on Routh by various news outlets revealed a long criminal record for a string of felonies going back decades.
Routh’s criminal history in his native Greensboro, North Carolina, includes a 2002 arrest for eluding a traffic stop and barricading himself from officers in an armed standoff, “with a fully automatic machine gun and a weapon of mass destruction,” reported the AP.
In 2010, police searched a warehouse Routh owned and found more than 100 stolen items, from power tools and building supplies to kayaks and spa tubs. Police alleged in an affidavit that he was selling the items to purchase crack cocaine.
“In both felony cases, court records show judges were extraordinarily lenient with Routh, giving him either probation or a suspended sentence, allowing him to escape prison time,” the article said.
Ticking Time Bomb
“Ryan Routh is a ticking time bomb,” Chelsea Walsh, who was in Kyiv as a nurse and aid worker in the early days of the war in Ukraine, told an AP correspondent.
Ryan Routh was there to recruit foreign soldiers to fight the Russians. But crossing paths with him on multiple occasions, Walsh recalled behavior she described as “bizarre and unhinged.”
Whether it was threatening to burn down a music studio that slighted him, hatching lurid plots to assassinate Russian President Putin, or speaking of his own children with seething hatred, Routh struck her as a dangerous person.
Walsh recalled warning U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials about Routh in an hour-long interview upon returning to the United States in 2022. She says she later repeated her concerns in separate tips to both the FBI and Interpol, the international policing group.
“There is one person you need to watch,” she told the agencies she spoke to. “And that is Ryan Routh.”
Walsh’s account turned out to be one of at least four reports to the U.S. government that raised suspicions about Routh in the years leading up to his arrest, the AP article noted.
Those reports, combined with Routh’s criminal record, should have raised alarm, Walsh said. “The authorities have definitely dropped the ball on this. They were warned.”
