Staggering incompetence

Radio NZ reports:

The US Secret Service did not receive 102 local radio transmissions about the gunman who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump at a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a government watchdog report released on Thursday.

The agency was unaware of the transmissions on 13 July 2024, because it had failed to establish a joint communications room with local law enforcement, which was receiving reports about the search for a suspicious person later identified as Thomas Crooks, according to the report by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general.

“Instead, we found that the Secret Service received only five phone calls and three text messages about Crooks,” the report notes.

“As a result, Secret Service members did not alert President Trump’s protective detail about concerns of a suspicious person.”

This level of incompetence is hard to believe. The gunman was reported in 102 times by law enforcement staff, but none of this got through to the protective detail. It’s almost a miracle Trump wasn’t killed, and if he had been, Secret Service incompetence would have been why.