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July 30, 2024 - The Dan Bongino Show

56:17

New Video Surfaces In The Secret Service Scandal (Ep. 2297) - 07/30/2024

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	Thank you.
	Folks, this hearing could not be going any worse.
	I'm listening to Acting Secret Service Director Ron Rowe, who is part and parcel to the problem.
	Up there and again tell you he's going to take responsibility and people are taking responsibility yet amazingly no one's been fired.
	There's a dead body, two people shot and President Trump with a piece of his ear that was shot off.
	I don't understand this.
	More evidence has surfaced, more videos.
	Listen, we're going to do something different today and I want to just ask you to just please be patient.
	If you sense any problems tell us in the chat.
	We're going to do our best to try to run some of this hearing and comment live time while doing the show.
	It's kind of in a bit of a lull right now with a lot of Democrats asking stupid questions like gun control type stuff.
	But some of the stuff that's been said so far is just ridiculous.
	Folks, just be patient with us.
	We appreciate it.
	It's going to be quite a show.
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	More videos emerged.
	A lot of big things to talk about.
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	All right, fellas, let's get this show started.
	So first, Susan Crabtree, again, who I've had on my radio show now a couple of times, has blown the door off this thing in this Real Clear Politics piece, confirming again what her and I and other good reporters have already told you, that Ronald Rowe, the acting director testifying up there now, cannot possibly be part of an investigative effort of an act of grotesque malfeasance that he was a part of.
	Please read this piece in the newsletter today.
	Bongino.com slash newsletter, please.
	Acting Secret Service chief played key role in limiting resources for Trump.
	Susan Crabtree goes through methodically how this guy right now testifying was one of the guys responsible for limiting protective assets to the Donald Trump detail.
	Folks, I'm just asking you a simple question as a friend.
	Forget being a former Secret Service agent and knowing all these guys and working with them.
	Just as a normal human being, pretend I have nothing to do with this at all, I sold candy in a candy store.
	If I rob a bank, do you put me in charge of robbing a bank of the investigation of the actual bank robbery?
	Of course not!
	If your brother or sister robbed a bank, do you put them in charge of Of this investigation of a family member?
	Because there's a conflict of interest.
	Ron Rowe has a conflict of interest.
	He is the answer to a lot of the investigative questions as to why there were insufficient assets available at this site.
	Folks, the bombshells just keep coming.
	Another Susan Crabtree special.
	Look at this tweet.
	I did not have this.
	This is exclusive to her.
	Exclusive.
	A Secret Service counter sniper sent an email Monday night to the entire uniform division, not the agents, saying he will not stop speaking out until these supervisors are either fired or removed from their current positions.
	He said, listen to this, folks, perk your ears up right now.
	Put those little quiet place creature like antennas in your ear, whatever, and pay very close attention to this because I told you this the other day.
	This is completely independent of this guy's email.
	The counter sniper secret service officer said the agency should, quote, expect another assassination attempt before November.
	Sounds like something I told you.
	Thank you.
	If you'd like to read the email, it's attached to the tweet.
	Folks, it's right here.
	We'll put it up on the screen.
	You can read the whole thing.
	The gist of it is, this is going to happen again.
	I warned you about this yesterday.
	That the Secret Service has been a failure for decades.
	The management has had no vision for this.
	Guys have been lucky.
	Some guys have managed to do a lot more with a lot less and get around mistakes by being creative.
	I've gone over this a thousand times, how not just me, but other agents out there doing sites have managed to cobble together boxes of car parts and stuff as shields against weapons because we didn't have enough posts.
	The guys there on the ground have done a pretty good job in keeping the agency lucky.
	This guy addresses this in the email, how it's not the ground guys, it's the leadership starving these guys of assets.
	Except the guys on the ground in the Pittsburgh office who conducted this advance, this is a totally different story.
	Man, I don't know what you need to hear.
	These problems are not solvable overnight.
	They've got to get these guys in the pipeline and trained and out there functioning as counter-sniper officers.
	This is a year of training and vetting.
	You can't just hire someone off the street.
	How do you know they're not an Iranian spy?
	So you're going to put a guy with a high-powered rifle next to the President of the United States without proper vetting?
	You understand the risk you're taking?
	The management dug this hole two decades ago.
	There's no getting out of this overnight.
	There just isn't.
	I wish there was an easy way to explain this to you.
	They don't have the guys in the pipeline, man.
	So let me sum up what Roe has said so far.
	He said he's making and taking corrective action.
	I'm going to address a few of them right here because none of them are sufficient.
	First, he said, well, I went to the site.
	Congratulations, man.
	It's a freaking murder scene.
	You went to the site?
	What do you want, a cookie?
	What do you mean you went to the site?
	You should have been at the site the day of.
	You and Kim Cheadle, the former director, should have been there the day of.
	Turning over and handling the crime scene transfer to the FBI. Why were you not there that day?
	What were you doing?
	Second, he says, well, we have vetting plans in place to now vet site security plans by supervisors.
	Folks, that's not new.
	A supervisor always has to vet your site security plan and sign off on it.
	I believe there's even lines on it, on the survey and the final survey for supervisors to sign off.
	So his corrective action is nothing more than the same action they took before.
	He's just saying that.
	They're going to vet security plans through multiple layers of management now?
	That's exactly what they did before and it failed.
	Number three, he says they're going to start using drones.
	Now?
	We had some wiseass in the Secret Service, a retired guy, send out an email.
	You idiots don't know anything about drones.
	I guess we're not idiots because your director, the guy who's ass you're kissing, has now said, hey, yeah, now we're going to use drones.
	I guess we're not so stupid.
	Maybe if you had a drone, you would have seen the guy on the roof with the gun shooting people and murdering someone.
	This is a corrective?
	You just figured out drones now?
	And this is supposed to inspire faith, man?
	Folks, what the f*** is going on here?
	This is the best we can do?
	This guy's part of this.
	And he's out there celebrating this response.
	The public doesn't want to hear that.
	Your advance team put those guys in danger.
	They almost got killed too because we failed.
	This isn't the time for a victory lap.
	What part of that don't you get?
	This is our job.
	We're paid to do this.
	It's not volunteer work.
	We're paid to keep the protectees alive.
	We're not paid to fuck around.
	The hell do you think we're doing out there?
	Number four, he says they're going to fix communications.
	Now?
	Now you're going to fix communications.
	It's never occurred to you before, protecting the highest threat profile figure in the entire globe, Donald Trump, to actually have open lines of communication through your security room and command post with actual law enforcement personnel with guns on the scene?
	Now you're going to do that.
	That may be the one thing he said that makes sense.
	I still can't understand how they didn't have communications that day.
	There were radios in the command post.
	Someone wasn't listening to them.
	And it's why I'm telling people who are emailing me, what you're hearing is not what happened.
	The radios are there.
	Sounds like an awfully convenient excuse.
	Oh, they were turned off.
	Really?
	Really?
	This one was hilarious.
	Rowe says they're going to expeditiously start approving security assets.
	He's the one that denied the security assets.
	Can you put up the Real Clear article again, please?
	By Susan Crabtree, one of the few reporters out there doing work.
	Ron Rowe played key role in limiting resources for Trump.
	So his corrective is to what?
	Stop being Ron Rowe?
	He was the guy who stopped the assets from getting out there.
	You think he's gonna give you an honest evaluation of asset restriction to the Donald Trump detail when he's the one who did it?
	He says that they're gonna have a quick staff response.
	To inquiries for the side agents on the scene that made all these security decisions.
	From what I'm hearing from people, they've made none of these people available to Congress.
	What are you talking about?
	The Trump detail?
	I haven't heard a peep.
	I've got people reaching out to me now.
	Why aren't the Trump detail guys speaking out?
	I don't know.
	I guess they've got nothing to say.
	Then another, did you hear this part of the hearing?
	Again, we're trying our best to pull it up.
	They ask Ron Rowe, what did it take for you to evaluate this guy as a threat?
	He's there 90 minutes in advance.
	An hour in advance, he's walking around outside the perimeter with a backpack, which immediately suspicious.
	He seems to be doing pre-op surveillance.
	Then they find him with a rangefinder as he's trying to clearly evade police officers and take furtive action.
	And Roe responds, it was a golf range finder.
	He wasn't there to play fucking golf, dude!
	He had a backpack, not a golf bag.
	Can you stop using this stupid excuse that a guy with a rangefinder with a backpack acting suspiciously wasn't enough reason to keep Trump off the stage?
	You just didn't do it.
	You failed.
	The team failed.
	Stop.
	Well, it's a rangefinder for golf.
	What was it?
	The golden bear out there?
	Freaking Jack Nicklaus?
	It was some crazy kid they'd already been tracking the entire time who had a bag and didn't enter the magnetometer checkpoint because clearly he had something there he didn't want people to see.
	Freaking golf?
	Why would you even say something so freaking stupid?
	Folks, again, I'm not in this to make friends here.
	You guys do whatever you want out there.
	I'm telling you to the guys in the agency trying to help me out to fix this thing.
	God bless you and thank you.
	I know what you've done.
	I know you're patriots.
	I work with you.
	I worked with you.
	I know who you are.
	And you know who I am.
	And I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for trying to fix this disaster we've been talking about for decades.
	Books have been written.
	Articles.
	People have reached out to members of Congress.
	Nothing was done.
	Nothing was done.
	And now someone's dead and Donald Trump was shot in the head.
	Also, there was an effort by Roe, it appeared, to again pawn this off on the locals.
	We told them, it's your job to check.
	It's your job.
	I can't explain this to you in strong enough terms.
	The Secret Service's job is laid out in Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 3056. It's clear as day.
	You can go read it right now.
	3056. It is legally and administratively the Secret Service's job to keep them alive.
	It is not the Beaver County Pennsylvania Police Department or Butler County.
	They were kind enough and heroic enough to provide assets.
	That's it.
	That is it.
	If the Secret Service can't do its job and it wants Beaver County to do it, I'm sure Beaver County will get deputized, take the $3 billion budget, and figure out a way.
	Roe's like, this is, man, we were, you know, we told him to get up there and cover this spot.
	Well, maybe you should have checked.
	It is unacceptable to blame these guys.
	It is not their job.
	They are there as a courtesy.
	They owe us nothing.
	There is nothing in the Beaver or Butler County Police Department guidelines that indicate that they are responsible for Federal Secret Service protectees.
	I assure you, nothing.
	They are there as a courtesy.
	We should have staffed it.
	You've got three high points you need staffed.
	It's not Beaver County's job.
	Well, you got some of it?
	All right, guys, do us a favor.
	Let me read this spot.
	I'm going to take a quick break.
	I'm going to figure this out.
	I'm going to try to run some of this hearing live.
	If you don't have sound or anything, these guys are great.
	Just help us out here a little bit.
	You get where I'm going with this.
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	All right, let's try to pull this up, see what we got here, see if we get this hearing, and let us know in the chat.
	We'll be watching if you can hear this.
	Assassination attempt and domestic terrorism.
	I don't hear anything.
	Assassination attempt.
	Why make the distinction?
	What is different about that?
	We think it's important to cover all the possibilities here and the reality of what we're dealing with and what we've all seen, Senator.
	And we've learned lessons from the past.
	The baseball...
	The tragic shooting at the baseball field was referenced here.
	We've learned the lesson from that.
	That was not opened properly, and we've made changes in the Bureau, and it's reflected here in terms of how this investigation is being approached with a completely open mind and inclusive of all the possibilities, including domestic terrorism.
	I fear that.
	They're telling you now this guy's got anti-immigration views as if the motive wasn't him.
	And then our updated timeline dated today, this goes by minute by second, and we will continue to update this timeline as more information becomes public.
	This is the way you do investigation.
	We need to find out literally second by second what happens so the public understands the truth.
	Without objection, so ordered.
	Senator Butler?
	Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
	Thank you to both of our chairman and ranking members for holding this incredibly important hearing critically for the American people to understand the safety and security that is being provided to our national leaders.
	Thank you both for Thank you for being here and for, again, answering the hard questions.
	This is a time of, I think, heightened attention, deservedly so, not only for our national leaders, but for the teacher who decides that they're going to go and participate in their Or the firefighter who wants to hear the voice and vision of the potential next leader of this country.
	My thoughts and prayers really are with those Pennsylvania families who have lost loved ones or have been critically injured.
	As I offer my questions today, it would be in service to those to prevent the future.
	But in the one question of looking backward to the event on the 13th, Director Abate, can you just talk a little bit about how did Mr. Crooks, how was he able to get an AR-15 onto the roof of that building?
	Does your investigation illuminate anything that we have learned to help to make that point more clear?
	We don't have definitive evidence yet as to how he got the rifle up there.
	Based on everything that's been collected thus far, photos, video, eyewitness accounts, we do believe he likely had it in the backpack.
	Broken down in the backpack?
	We're still assessing that.
	I'm hearing that too.
	Our laboratory has taken, looked at the rifle itself and measured that against the backpack itself.
	And if placed in this backpack, it would extend outside.
	It would have been visible.
	We don't have anyone who's observed him, who observed him with the backpack, with a rifle, a barrel, or other part of it sticking out of the backpack.
	But the rifle would not have fit fully into this backpack to be concealed and whole.
	Only two solutions, folks.
	Either it was disassembled in the backpack, or as I said to you the night, it happened.
	He placed it in advance there, buried it or hid it.
	We don't know if it probably brought in the backpack.
	There you go, I'll get ahead of this.
	I believe and based on everything we have we assess that he returned to his vehicle at that time got the backpack and then proceeded back to the area and to the AGR building and then he's observed of course on the roof just you know minutes later holding the backpack in front of him in fact there's um dash cam footage from a police vehicle that shows him briefly traversing the roof with the backpack in front of him and then it's just minutes after
	that that he's actually seen by the officer who I described With the rifle on the roof.
	It's possible that he broke the rifle down, but we don't have conclusive evidence of that and took it out of the bag on the roof in those moments before and reassembled it there.
	That's one of the theories we're looking at and working on right now.
	Thank you for that.
	You take me right, Acting Director Roa, thank you for your years of dedicated service and jumping in in a hot time.
	But you take me right to this point of communication.
	There's been a lot of conversation about the, and even in your written and verbal testimony, you have talked a lot about the communication and the disparate nature in which it's happening across the different channels.
	One sort of foundational question that I have is, are all elements of an event communicated on the same channel?
	If I lost my kid and I'm at a big rally, are local law enforcement talking on the same channel about me losing my kid, that they're talking about a suspicious individual?
	So when it comes to the locals...
	They likely have some type of common channel that they work off of in a county or an adjoining municipality.
	When it comes to the Secret Service, we do have various channels for various agents and our uniformed division officers working specific aspects of that advance.
	So it's not possible that the delay in communication or the losing of the thread of tracking this individual was sort of lost in the commotion of all of the other communications that could have been or maybe was not separate from the communication channels that were happening.
	Senator, I can only speak to the Secret Service lines of communication, and we did not have anything beyond suspicious person that was communicated to us.
	What else did you leave?
	Suspicious person with a rangefinder, dude!
	Was there any communication with the Secret Service that was talking directly with the former president's detail?
	That feels like there's been some question by colleagues about why the call wasn't made to delay the event.
	Help us understand the communication that either was or was not happening directly with the former president's detail to make the call to delay 10 minutes.
	We've all been to these events.
	They never happen on time.
	But to delay while this was being investigated.
	So the detail, they were operating on their net, which our security room was monitoring.
	But again, Having information of...
	A suspicious individual.
	There were other calls that day of individuals that came to the attention of law enforcement, of people that needed medical attention.
	No, no, medical's different.
	Stop that.
	That particular, regarding the assailant, that never really rose to a level of, we should not put him out there.
	Had we known that there was a dangerous individual out there, we would never let a protectee go out on stage.
	He was dangerous.
	He shot him in the head.
	Thank you.
	Senator Hassen, I recognize for your question.
	Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
	I want to thank you and Chairman Derman and the ranking members for holding this joint hearing today.
	And thank you to our witnesses not only for being here, but for your careers of service to our country.
	What else do you need for this suspicious individual?
	I am really grateful that former President Trump is safe and extend my sympathies to the family of Corey Comperetur, who was physically shot at the rally, and my sympathies to everyone who was injured.
	On July 13th, major failures nearly led to the assassination of a presidential candidate who is also a former president of the United States.
	The Secret Service has to be fully transparent about how this happened and how it's going to change moving forward, understanding there's also a need to balance Congress's engagement in oversight with allowing law enforcement to conduct an ongoing criminal investigation.
	I want to thank the agents of the Secret Service for selflessly acting to protect elected officials and their families and our former president.
	We're grateful for their sacrifices and their service and I want to thank all law enforcement and particularly law enforcement officers and first responders who worked to minimize harm to the crowd on July 13th.
	I want to start with you.
	New Hampshire hosts many political rallies.
	Protecting the speakers and attendees at these events requires extensive coordination between state and local law enforcement, the Secret Service staff, and obviously campaign event staff.
	As a former governor, I've experienced some of the challenges that this type of coordination can create, but we know that this coordination is really essential to public safety.
	It's clear that there were significant coordination failures on July 13th.
	You told us earlier that the local SWAT team told the Secret Service that local law enforcement had eyes on the AGR roof.
	But there are reports that members of a local SWAT team never met with the Secret Service in the days before the Butler rally.
	What steps does the Secret Service take prior to political rallies to ensure that the agency is effectively coordinating with the candidate's security details with state and local law enforcement and the campaign event staff?
	So as part of the advance process, Senator, as happened in Butler as well, There's a police meeting, and basically that initiates the advance.
	That's bringing in all the, not only emergency management officials, but all the state and local law enforcement agencies that may have aspects of supporting or assisting in that advance and on that visit.
	The focus of that police meeting, one, is to exchange numbers and business cards and then coordinate time for walkthroughs.
	Yes, I told you this yesterday.
	Get to the point!
	Why were there no agents there?
	There were walkthroughs of the Butler Farm site with local law enforcement agencies that were supporting that visit.
	And that was directly as a result of having that police meeting to begin the process of figuring out, dividing up the labor areas of responsibility.
	So what you're telling me is that at that meeting, the Secret Service, the first meeting led to the walkthrough that the Secret Service does with local law enforcement and that at least some members or directors of the local SWAT team would have been part of that process?
	Well, as I understand it, the Beaver County, they were seconded to assist Butler, but the Butler ESU team were part of the advance process.
	Okay.
	How many agents did the Secret Service provide to plan and secure this event?
	And how many people from state and local law enforcement agencies supported the security of this event?
	So in totality between law enforcement, state and local, and federal, there were 155 personnel at the Butler Farm site that day.
	Ask them how many Secret Service agents.
	All combined Secret Service.
	It's in the 70s.
	And then we had support from Homeland Security investigations that were providing post standards.
	And then we had approximately 70 or so Okay, thank you.
	I want to go to one other issue before my time expires.
	You've talked today and in our secure briefing about the interoperability of the Secret Service's counter drone capability, that it failed early on and so it didn't catch the drone floating over the site by the shooter.
	First, what changes are, you've addressed this a little, but what changes is the Secret Service making to ensure that it has backup technology?
	But also, what efforts did the Secret Service undertake to coordinate with other law enforcement regarding anti-drone capability at the rally site?
	We're working to determine that right now, Senator.
	We're getting the redundancies in place.
	It's been two weeks.
	It is a little complex.
	It's not complex.
	State and locals don't necessarily have this ability to do that.
	It does require coordination with the FAA because it could impact commercial problems.
	So coordinate with the FAA? Okay, thank you.
	And Mr. Chair, I'm just going to follow up, and I think one of the things that you're hearing from a lot of folks, but I'm not sure we're really clear on yet, is how is it that somebody who clearly is arousing concern from law enforcement isn't identified as suspicious, and how is it that that information doesn't get to the former president's details?
	So I'll follow up in writing.
	Thank you.
	No follow-up in writing.
	Get the answer today.
	What do you mean you'll follow up in writing?
	He still hasn't answered it.
	Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
	Director Rowe, can you explain why the shooter's drone worked?
	Because there was no counter-UAS present, sir.
	Yes, there wasn't.
	Well, you had a drone system, but you had bandwidth problems.
	The bandwidth apparently was adequate for the shooter's drone, but not for the Secret Service.
	Can you explain that?
	I have no explanation for it, sir.
	Then resign or figure it out.
	We also know that in the military context, electronic warfare or jamming capabilities are commonly used on the battlefield.
	Does the Secret Service have jamming capabilities or drones?
	We have drones, sir.
	And when it comes to I have to be very careful about how I answer this one in an open forum.
	What I can tell you is that we have technical security measures, sir, to address, I think, what you're asking me.
	Well, you didn't employ them!
	Well, the question is, can you take down a suspicious drone Because this can be used not only for surveillance by the shooter, which obviously it was here, but also drones can be weaponized and be used as a threat to the president or, in this case, President Trump.
	Do you have the capacity to stop a weaponized drone?
	What I will tell you, sir, is that we have technical security measures that we utilize at permanently protective sites.
	We also have the ability in a limited fashion at temporary sites.
	What I can tell you is that on this day, the counter-UAS system had technical difficulties and did not go operational until after 5 o'clock.
	And they still walked him out on stage.
	So in this case, the shooter had a rifle, but somebody who wanted to kill...
	A president for a former president or candidate for president would not need a rifle.
	They could use a drone, correct?
	It is a potential threat vector.
	So this individual was identified as a suspicious person.
	Can you explain to us when a suspicious person becomes identified as a threat?
	Yes.
	Well, I think it's also when a weapon or some other dangerous item is then presented.
	A rangefinder would not render someone a threat as opposed to somebody who was under suspicion.
	I think the rangefinder is what initially brought him to the attention of local law enforcement.
	Oh, my God.
	And why would the president be allowed to take to the stage while a suspicious person had been identified and before the Secret Service or local law enforcement were able to investigate the circumstances?
	So at that time, Senator, suspicion had not risen to the level of threat or imminent harm.
	Then find a new job!
	You made the wrong decision!
	Ultimately, that suspicious person did become a threat.
	Guys, am I messing with you?
	We didn't think he was suspicious enough to be a threat, but then he shot our guy in the head.
	But we're good.
	We're going to get it right next time.
	Is that his take?
	Wouldn't that have been the appropriate way to deal with it?
	Senator, it certainly is one way to do it.
	This is a challenge for law enforcement in general, is that being able to...
	You identify somebody that comes to your attention.
	It's not a challenge, Ron.
	It's your job to determine when this guy is going to try to kill the president.
	This is a challenge for law enforcement.
	The individual actually came to the attention for suspicion.
	He's on the outer perimeter adjacent to the secured site.
	Law enforcement is circulating for him.
	But again, without additional information at that point, we're not rising to the level yet where perhaps we should pull him off or delay him.
	And I'm just suggesting that maybe, just maybe, President Trump's appearance should have been delayed while that suspicion could be investigated.
	I've always thought of the Secret Service as the best of the best when it comes to their willingness to put themselves in harm's way to protect the life of their person they are detailed to.
	And I think you described the very rigorous process by which people are screened.
	And I think you mentioned the 2% standard of people who are interested in serving.
	Only a very small fraction of those individuals are actually accepted in the Secret Service because of the high standards that your agency has.
	But explain to me why the Secret Service, being an elite law enforcement agency, would delegate to local law enforcement or others who did not meet that same 2% standard.
	In other words, isn't that something that Secret Service should have covered as opposed to delegating it to local law enforcement?
	So, Senator, again, this is where...
	I went back to earlier when I said it was a failure to challenge our assumptions.
	We assume that the state and locals had it.
	Don't assume they shouldn't have had it at all.
	You should have had it.
	And I'm sure you agree.
	State and local law enforcement do their jobs every day and protect the communities that you represent.
	No doubt about it.
	So I think what we made an assumption that there was going to be Uniform presence out there that there would be sufficient eyes to cover that, that there was going to be countersniper teams in the AGR building.
	And I can assure you that we're not going to make that mistake again.
	Moving forward, I've directed our Office of Protective Operations that when our countersnipers are up, You got it, guys.
	We'll serve it.
	And they're on the roof as well.
	We do this all the time with our colleagues in the New York City Police Department when we cover the United Nations General Assembly.
	And so that is our TTP moving forward.
	Director Rowe, I would just submit to you that those assumptions can be lethal.
	Yeah, and in this case, they were.
	All right, folks, I'm going to take a quick break.
	We'll get back to this.
	And I've got a lot of show.
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	Folks, back to the show.
	I warned you about this guy, and now you're seeing it in the hearing.
	Blaming the same big themes.
	Blaming the locals.
	Never answering the question why the Secret Service doesn't have enough people there.
	His correctives are things he's trying to hide himself from, that he's been involved in.
	Misallocation of assets.
	He's blaming everyone but himself.
	He is the guy.
	He was the deputy director responsible for this.
	Let's go back, see if he's got any more answers to this.
	Who's questioning now?
	15 days.
	I mean, we are sitting 17 days into this, and I'm getting asked questions that I can't believe are true, but the public believes it's true.
	So what you all are doing is you ruin your reputation, impact the integrity of the federal government.
	It makes no sense to me.
	So are you going to commit to, are you going to do it once a month?
	I mean, and the FBI, the same thing, not just you.
	What did the directorate say?
	Did he say you couldn't do it?
	Senator, if I may jump in here.
	First, thank you all for your guidance in this regard.
	And in fact, we haven't done something every day, no doubt about that.
	But, you know, we're focused from the FBI side on the investigation in part as we laid out here today.
	We actually, based on your guidance, we did a media engagement, not a stand-up type press conference just yesterday.
	And laid out in full everything that I've shared here.
	Oh yeah, folks, they've been very open.
	Even beyond that, just in the interest of time.
	Justin, we must have missed that press conference yesterday during the show.
	Because of the intense interest in this.
	Nobody trusts these guys?
	You think they'd be open doing pressers every day?
	This is the best they can do?
	We've literally provided everything through media and through journalists and here, all of the information that we provide Have derived from the investigation.
	Thus, sir, we remain committed to do that in full, answering any and all questions and sharing any and all information we obtain.
	Except you're not doing it.
	You guys realize the value of going in front of the press.
	Right, right.
	Except for any piece of information you might actually need.
	I mean, you realize if you don't do it that way, everything gets filtered.
	You get to put out all the information.
	And you should be...
	You should be providing – I mean you should be every day saying this is what we know now.
	Yes.
	Like Senator Johnson put together a timeline.
	You should have put together a timeline.
	You should immediately put out this is what we know right now and this is what we don't know.
	Like we – like you've said, you don't know how the gun got up there.
	Right?
	You've said it.
	But that should have been out all along.
	We're looking at it.
	It doesn't make any sense.
	We've done this.
	I just don't get it.
	I've said this about the FBI. The people that work at the FBI, people who work at Secret Service, they're great people.
	You're a black hole.
	You lose the support of the American public because people don't believe you're being direct with them.
	No faith in these institutions.
	I completely disagree with your approach.
	I just want to finish.
	I've got, like everybody else, I did a letter July 18th.
	I haven't gotten any answers yet.
	I want to put it into the record.
	And I'd love to get the answers to this because this is what the public is asking for.
	They want more information.
	They want to know what happened, who's going to be held accountable, and how we're going to make sure this never happens again.
	Thank you.
	Without objection, it will be entered in the record.
	Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
	Thank you for being here to both of you, and more important, thank you for your professional dedication, your personal bravery, and your devotion to the ideals of law enforcement.
	I know for both of you this moment is a painful one, and Acting Director, I've heard you Speak in a private setting, very emotionally.
	Yeah, I'm sure he was emotional.
	Great.
	A guy's dead.
	Their family's emotional, too.
	It's emotional because he's covering his ass.
	You share a commitment, along with Director Abe, to full public disclosure to the maximum extent possible.
	We can make speeches at you, and I've made...
	One myself in that private setting about the need for broader, fuller disclosure to the public, not just in press conferences, but in the course of your investigation about what you know and feel you can disclose without compromising your investigation.
	Let me ask you, last week, Senator Peters and Paul, along with Senator Johnson and myself, sent requests to both of your agencies to produce documents We've only received a handful so far.
	Can you commit to when we can expect those documents?
	No, they won't.
	They're going to hide as long as possible.
	We will get them to you as quickly as we can, Senator.
	But they haven't.
	Can we expect them this week?
	We will work to meet that deadline, sir.
	And when can we expect...
	All the communications, the text messages that agents have sent to each other, eventually all of it is going to come out.
	Actually, not a bad question.
	When can we expect all those?
	Maybe the January 6th text, too.
	Can you get those?
	We will gather them up and get them to you, Senator.
	You haven't yet?
	You understand, folks.
	It's been two weeks.
	We still don't have the text, communications, and emails from that day?
	And you trust him to give you, honestly, to give him over?
	The local law enforcement responsible for the shooter on the roof, the snipers that were in place, that it was their job to take him out.
	But ultimately, doesn't the buck stop with the Secret Service?
	It stops with us, sir, but let me just clarify.
	The perspective that they had on that roof...
	Oh, God.
	Here we go.
	When I show you the perspective from what our sniper saw, he's on the downside of that ridge roof.
	So why wasn't he on the roof?
	The sniper was on...
	Looking out.
	This is bullshit.
	Their area of responsibility.
	Looking left.
	They should have been able to see.
	You can see in that photo in Exhibit A, which we will make part of the record.
	So you put your counter-sniper guy in an unadvantageous position and then asked the local guy to take the better position and never followed up if they didn't take the position.
	I'm not saying that they should have neutralized him.
	Just to be clear, and you left open the line to sight.
	If they had just held their post.
	Maybe.
	There's a lot of maybes there, Senator.
	Somebody needs to be held accountable.
	And I think Senator Graham hit the nail on the head.
	We need to know who specifically was responsible for doing what.
	Who was responsible for saying to former President Trump, Sir, it's not safe to go out there yet.
	Who was responsible for making sure that those local law enforcement were doing their job?
	Who is responsible for tracking down that suspicious person who will fit the profile?
	10 to 25 years old, young male.
	The FBI has warned us about it year after year after year ago.
	Director Wray has come before us and said the threat is from domestic extremism.
	The lone gunman.
	We're all aware of it in law enforcement.
	So I think we need individual accountability here and people need to be held responsible.
	In fact, lose their jobs if necessary to send a message.
	That this massive intelligence and surveillance failure, as well as the enforcement failure, cries out for accountability.
	Let me just ask, in the short time I have left, what is the nature of the Iran threat?
	It's like a four-year-old threat.
	I'm sorry, Senator, can you repeat the question?
	What is the nature of the Iran threat, The threat to former President Trump that has been mentioned.
	But we know, let me be clear here, the terrorist regime of Iran have been Targeting people to our country for many, many years now.
	We've talked about that here before.
	I want to be clear about that.
	From the FBI stamp, we have.
	Folks, they've known about this Iran threat for a very long time.
	It's a real threat.
	It's not a joke.
	This threat's been going on forever.
	They're pretending this is new to pretend they just learned about it.
	This is why they're bumping up Trump's security.
	They've known about this for years.
	A specific or imminent threat on July 13th.
	We have no information that there are any co-conspirators or foreign or domestic, including Iran, related to this.
	But we're not...
	I want to be clear, we have no evidence of that.
	We're not ruling anything out.
	We're looking into all possibilities and leaving our minds open to that.
	Was that on the minds of the Secret Service on July 13th, that there might be some threat from Iran?
	Sir, we...
	Deputy Director Abate just said, we're aware of the public, the public sentiment and statements of the government of Iran to do harm to Donald J. Trump, and we use a threat-based model.
	Well, clearly it's not working.
	Senator Alsolfi, I recognize for your questions.
	Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for your testimony today and for your service.
	Mr. Rowe, I want to begin discussing Secret Service staffing.
	And the extent to which HSI or other personnel are augmenting or backfilling inadequate Secret Service capacity generally and on the day of the assassination attempt.
	Secret Service can't say we don't have enough people and then say we're putting a president and former president out there and we don't have enough people.
	Then get more people or pull your people from investigative work and put them on protection.
	None of this is complicated.
	Folks, he doesn't want to answer either this basic question.
	Having done this line of work, it is the detail leader's job that day to be reaching out to the site agent who should be checking in with the locals to say, are we clear?
	You get this thing called the SITREP, a situation report.
	The situation report should always end with all clear, come on in.
	What's the problem here?
	It was not all clear.
	They were working a threat they keep saying was suspicious but not a threat when it was a threat acknowledging they made a faulty threat assessment because the guy killed someone and shot President Trump in the head.
	If you can't make threat assessments then let's get someone in there who can.
	And all of this bullshit about, well, we weren't being communicated with.
	Let me tell you a quick story.
	I was at Martha's Vineyard once with Obama.
	He was golfing with Bloomberg.
	I'm the lead advance.
	It's my site.
	The entire trip is mine.
	The boss's name at the time, let's just call him Vinny.
	That's not his name, but whatever.
	The boss, the special agent in charge of Barack Obama's detail when he was president.
	Let's call him Vinny, is reaching out to me about an air threat.
	He asked me a thousand times, hey, where is it?
	Is it coming in?
	Is it low and slow?
	You want an air threat to be coming in high and fast, it'll blow right over you.
	You don't want it low and slow.
	Where is it?
	Where is it?
	What are we doing?
	Are we launching the combat air patrol?
	We wound up doing it.
	We mitigated the threat.
	He was asking questions.
	You notice that none of this happened?
	There was no back and forth in communications whatsoever.
	Was the detail involved?
	Was the site agent involved?
	If they weren't, their job is to assess a threat.
	A threat they clearly failed at assessing from moving it to suspicion to an actual threat, which it was.
	They failed.
	Folks, I want you to watch this.
	Can you run that video, the long one?
	Just VO it for a few minutes.
	I want you to watch.
	Just keep the sound going.
	Yeah, this one.
	I want you to listen to this.
	This is like two minutes.
	Just play it on VO. Do you understand?
	Even if they blew everything for 90 minutes and failed to assess this guy as a threat, which he was.
	There are people in the audience and cops looking for this guy.
	As Donald Trump is on stage, he still hasn't been shot.
	Listen, there is no reason for him to have not been pulled off the stage.
	Zero.
	You failed.
	At this point, this has clearly gone beyond suspicion to a threat.
	Listen, got a guy on a horse here coming by with a Trump flag.
	Or a woman, whatever.
	Trump's still talking.
	You can see the cops looking for this guy.
	This is Dave Stewart of Butler PA's video.
	His cell phone was confiscated and recently returned.
	This is new video.
	You hear Trump still talking?
	I want you to listen to this.
	No question at this point, you got a threat.
	Still going.
	Look at the cops now.
	You see them running, they know they got a problem.
	Look at this.
	Listen.
	Make yourself small, bro.
	I don't know what's going on.
	Make yourself small.
	Everybody knows there's a threat here.
	Make yourself small.
	Because he doesn't want to get shot.
	There's Dave Smith.
	Folks, I just played this video for two minutes before gunshots rang out.
	You're still telling me this person was still just suspicious and not a threat when everybody, including the police and the crowd at the site, the crowd is saying, make yourself small, the guy to his daughter or his friend or whatever, because they realize something bad's going to happen and Donald Trump's still sitting out there.
	Isn't it the job?
	Of the detail and the site agent on the ground to be asking questions about what's going on with the threat?
	Well, the cops got somebody on the roof.
	Holy shit, we better get President Trump off the stage?
	Folks, this video is the most damning piece of information we have left.
	I'm going to cover more of this on the radio show later.
	Folks, I hope you appreciated me taking this live, given the severity of the situation.
	I feel like us and a few other reporters out there are the only ones really demanding answers.
	I'm going to cover this more on the radio show in a little bit.
	Please go back and listen to all that for live commentary.
	Download the Rumble app.
	Please follow us, rumble.com slash Bongino.
	Give us a follow on Apple and Spotify, too.
	Dark times, man.
	You come here for truth.
	We've been way ahead of the news cycle every single time, and I think you saw it today.
	See you on the radio show here on Rumble in a little bit and back here tomorrow at 11 a.m.
	Thanks for tuning in.

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