I could go into an analysis of what was so stunningly dangerous and incompetent about the Secret Service FUBAR that almost got Donald Trump murdered, at this point just about the only way the Democrats would be able to keep the White House. I’m happy to wait for the results of Congressional hearings and the investigation, but as I heard many experts say on multiple networks, you don’t have to be an expert to figure from the time-line and what we do know that the Secret Service was spectacularly incompetent, and that Cheatle’s pathetic explanations (I particularly like “the sloped roof was too dangerous for our agents so we let a gunman use it to shoot Trump”) haven’t passed the giggle test. Her ridiculous statements and the fact that the agents knew an unknown person with a gun was within killing distance of Donald Trump and waited for him to take a shot before doing anything (like, say, keeping Trump off the stage: don’t those little earpieces work?) are res ipsa loquitur, so damning that conspiracy theories are unavoidable.
Did the Secret Service want to let Trump to get killed, and then plan on saying, “Oopsie! Sorry! Well, anyone can make a mistake!”? I don’t want to believe that, and I don’t, but wowie zowie, this level of ineptitude is hard to explain. Moreover, we know how desperate and panicked the Democrats are now. They couldn’t be that diabolical, could they? Hanlon’s Razor surely applies here—doesn’t it? Please?
Over at The Federalist, Sean Davis makes the case that the security breach was deliberate. Obviously it’s a conspiracy theory, one that is only slightly less unlikely than the “Bush Bombed the Twin Towers” Truther theories. But when there is an assassination (it is just moral luck that this was just an “attempt”) that multiple levels of screwing up allowed it to happen, and, as frosting on the metaphorical cake, the assassin (okay, “would be” this time) is killed before he can be interrogated, suspicions aren’t just inevitable, they are reasonable.
This post’s topic is still narrower than any of that. It is quite simple, covered by two questions: 1) Why the hell hasn’t Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned?, and 2) Why the hell hasn’t Joe Biden fired her since she hasn’t?
The first answer is that Cheatle cares about keeping her job more than she cares about professional accountability. She’s the head of the Secret Service, and its catastrophic failure four days ago is 100% on her. This is basic management ethics. When the organization leader fails that badly—and it is hard to imagine a worse failure—the leader takes full responsibility and leaves, because the organization cannot retain public trust as long as that leader is in place. There is no other honorable or ethical course.
In her infuriating interview with ABC News, Cheatle said that the “buck stops” with her, but then said she would not resign after calling the fact that her agents let a 20-year-old kid set up for a kill shot in full view of spectators and her agents—resulting in the presumptive nominee of the GOP to oppose her addled boss being saved from instant death by a lucky turn of his head— “unacceptable.” Gee, ya think? Now explain why it’s acceptable to allow the individual officially responsible for that unacceptable result to remain in charge.
Why hasn’t Cheatle resigned? She hasn’t resigned because she’s unaccountable, unprofessional, and unfit for her post, that’s why.
As for the second question, that’s even easier. President Biden hasn’t fired her because this administration doesn’t believe in accountability, doesn’t care about competence, and doesn’t regard merit and ability as important factors in assessing performance.
Cheatle is also, like so many of the incompetents who have been allowed to stay in their jobs in Biden’s administration while they harm the public and the nation, “historic.” She’s the first female head of the Secret Service, so she’s immune from accountability. Now handling the investigation of this nearly deadly fiasco is a cabinet department headed by another “historic” incompetent, Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas. And his boss is yet another historic incompetent who does not acknowledge the core ethical value of accountability: President Biden, the oldest Chief Executive and the first U.S. President in history to continue in office despite being demonstrably senile.
______
ADDED: Over at PJ Media, Stephen Green writes, “If Cheatle possessed the strength of character demanded by the position she holds, she’d have fallen on her virtual sword before the final gunshot had stopped ringing in people’s ears.”
Bingo.
Ethics Alarms 
I agree with everything you wrote. However, and it’s a perfectly understandable typo, starting with the fifth paragraph until the last one, you have the Director’s last name spelled “Cheadle”. Yeah, I wish Don Cheadle’s character from the Marvel movies was in charge, too.
You have to make a lot of hand wringing arguments to state:
(1) They didn’t put snipers on the roof that THEY identified as a threat.
(2) They didn’t secure the building despite the threat of the roof.
(3) They didn’t notice the guy on the roof despite the fact that the crowd had been taking pictures of him for 25+ minutes.
(4) They let a 20 year old kid drive up, unload a ladder, climb onto the roof spread out his blanket, assemble the rifle and take 7 or 8 shots accidentally. That is the most generous assessment. If THEY left the ladder to the roof there for access, it is worse.
(5) They were watching a credible threat to the president for 2+ minutes, discussing it with higher-ups for permission to shoot, and no one in the entire chain of command thought to pull Trump off stage. No one thought to pull Trump off the stage. This is the one that is virtually impossible.
(6) A local cop confronted the shooter beforehand and fled when the shooter pointed a gun at him. The cop didn’t radio anyone to get Trump off the stage, shoot the guy, etc.
(7) Many of the Secret Service agents did a good 3 Stooges impression.
(8) The Head of the Secret Service said she takes full responsibility, but also states that she will not resign.
(9) The Head of the Secret Service tells obvious lies and tries to throw the local cops under the bus.
(10) They thought the proper spot for sniper teams was inside a building, but these sniper teams didn’t notice the kid with the rifle climbing onto the roof of that very building.
(11) The 20 year old kid was killed 20+ feet from his rifle and blanket, meaning that the snipers didn’t stop him, he stopped, put the rifle down, and was killed as he tried to leave and while unarmed.
and claim it is all due to incompetence. This is the Secret Service that trains and trains and trains for these very situations. It is not reasonable to believe that this is incompetence.
A much simpler argument is that this was intentional. They intended for Trump to die. Now, maybe they didn’t put the kid up to it, but when the opportunity presented itself, a lot of people in the chain of command decided to let Trump die. It makes perfect sense for the head of the Secret Service to not resign in light of this. She did everything right. The only think wrong was that the kid missed.
The incompetence argument makes no sense. The only likely explanation is that they left Trump on that stage to die. It doesn’t matter how much you don’t like it. This is the most likely explanation. Making an incompetence argument with a 0.000001% likelihood that includes the requirement that every single Secret Service agent from the ground to the head doesn’t know the first thing about their job is not reasonable. To cling to an incredibly unlikely incompetence argument in light of a much more likely explanation is only required if you don’t want to acknowledge something you are unwilling to accept.
Exactly. I am willing to be labelled a conspiracy theorist for it, but right now, until I see compelling evidence that proves your points invalid, that is what I believe…100%.
If these facts are true it’s even more damning; from the daily mail so I’m not sure that is a reliable source:
The parents of Donald Trump’s would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks called the cops to say he was missing before the shooting, a bombshell new report claims.
It follows another stunning development that the 20-year-old gunman was at the former president’s rally three hours before opening fire and sparked the suspicions of the Secret Service because he was carrying a rangefinder used by hunters to take long shots.
I’ll put up this as a Comment of the Day, MR, but here’s the thing: This reminds me of the “The LA cops framed OJ” theories.It juts requires too much improvisation and at the same time, too much planning. If the SS is going to get Trump killed, they wouldn’t lay it all on a 20-year old with dubious shooting skills. They would have better cover-stories ready than “It was the local police’s fault” and “the roof was sloped.” How could they know when the told everyone assigned to the event, “OK, now, if we have the chance, we’re going to let Trump get shot,” that someone wouldn’t say, “What? No! I won’t be a part of that and I’m going to Fox News!” Would they just kill that guy, like the special forces in on the plot in “Die Hard 2”? This would have to be a Hanlon’s Razor corollary requiring BOTH malice and stupidity. A conspiracy that sloppy won’t stay hidden.
What is the down side to the event in which a a covert group of government insiders plan to recruit a whacko to initiate a plan and use the existing protective assets to accomplish a goal of assassinating a political rival and then eliminating the initiator of the plan (the actual assassin)? If the assassin is successful then you kill the assassin and the plan is successful. If the assassin fails but you kill the assassin, no harm no foul and you get accolades for your heroic work.
To assume that dark forces in government rely solely on improvisation and planning fails to consider Game Theory. Game Theory relies on expected behaviors of others and the reactions of other players in the game. To think that the CIA or other clandestine players don’t play chess in their gamesmanship is ridiculous. In such games, plausible deniability is insufficient and the game played must never be able to be traced back directly to a related operative.
I am reminded of the FBI’s role in the abduction of Gretchen Whitmer prior to the last election. Inside FBI’s probe and entrapment of a Michigan militia crew (nypost.com). This indicates that it is not beyond the pale for government operatives to entice some of our less competent citizens to engage in unlawful behaviors for political reasons under the guise of targeting right wing extremists. If your Attorney General and DHS secretary and the President all believe that Trump is encouraging violent extremism then would it not make sense the eliminate him using the same logic as Obama and Biden did Anwar al-Awlakil? The only difference is that you want to make sure some malleable and disposable idiot does your bidding.
This type of action has been detailed in a handful of Robert Ludlum novels, more than one episode of “The Blacklist”, and at least one piece of fan-fiction written by yours truly. Get a gunner to make a kill, then have a third party eliminate the gunner, then have the third party die getting hit by a truck. “Eliminating loose ends” is CYA 101.
“ ‘Eliminating loose ends’ is CYA 101.”
Three people can keep a secret…if two of ’em are dead…
PWS
Joel, in my scenario the internal political bad guys use a wacko to set an event in motion and the let the friendlies do what they are trained to do. It only takes one who is charged with planning and execution to open a window of opportunity for the wacko.
First, the downside to an assassination attempt, especially on a figure in Trump’s position, is that if the attempt fails, then the figure increases in public esteem, as we’re seeing right now, and if it succeeds, he becomes a martyr. Trump being dead won’t make his followers go away. Instead the Right would be even more energized.
Next, as our host pointed out, even if they planned to just let things play out, why the heck didn’t they come up with better cover stories? Even if nobody involved in this debacle gets fired, their reputations are shot.
Lastly, the Secret Service has had issues at least since the Obama administration. Remember the White House party crashers? I think the most likely explanation is that they are just getting sloppy. Not liking Trump may be part of the reason they are getting sloppy, but purposefully standing down, with no good excuses as to why, has too many drawbacks to be a conscious decision.
I can accept your first paragraph. However, the SS may not have been part of the plan. That would be the reason for the stories. If the SS has demonstrated its incompetence then that would be the agency those planning the “wet work” would use as dupes.
Keep in mind if the goal is to fundamentally transform America into something else, creating an violent internal schism is a means to do so if you cannot do it in the legislature or courts. Any retributive violence had he been killed probably would be met with draconian measures restricting individual rights.
Oh, I’m not proposing anything so grand. I have not doubt there is some incompetence going on here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave Trump a ‘less than stellar’ Secret Service detail. It is obvious they missed a lot of things here. I’m not even proposing that the agents by the stage were aware of the threat.
What I am saying is, when the time came and someone said “We need to get Trump off the stage!”, someone in the chain of command said “What if we don’t?” or someone said “No”, or the person who was supposed to do that decided not to. This only takes 1 person to decide to let Trump die. I mean, what is anyone going to do about it?
A friend of mine has been to a number of Trump’s rallies. He told me last night that he had gotten used to the Secret Service personnel such that he recognized most of them by sight. He went on to say that when watching last Saturday’s event, he recognized only one of the Secret Service agents he saw on TV.
I guess I should add that it is not at all plausible that pulling Trump off the stage wasn’t brought up. I would be priority #1. However, it didn’t happen. So what is the explanation for that? The most likely is that they decided not to. The fact that no rationale for leaving him on the stage while a definite known threat existed for that long supports that idea. If they had a reason for leaving him up, they would have released that by now (we didn’t want the spook the shooter to early before the sniper teams were ready, for example).
All federal agencies seemed to have been purged of prominent conservative people during Biden’s term and I assume the SS is one of them. You have seen the number of Trump deranged people our there. Why is it implausible that when ‘literal Hitler’ is facing assassination, when the ‘existential threat to democracy’ is about to be shot, someone decides to let him die?
“If they had a reason for leaving him up, they would have released that by now”
Especially if the reason could be blamed on Trump himself, such as, “We told him to delay his appearance until we handled this situation, but he refused.” If that had been the case, we would have already been beaten over the head with it for days.
It could have been blamed on Trump–if he died.
He didn’t, so that can’t say that now if it is not true, because he would be all over that.
-Jut
It was unsafe to put snipers on the low pitch roof the kid was on, but it was okay to put snipers on the more highly pitched roof from which position they shot the kid on the dangerous roof. Alrighty.
I simply can’t believe this woman wasn’t told to resign on Saturday evening, and if she didn’t, she wasn’t fired immediately. She’ll probably be given a presidential medal of honor in a week or two.
“It was unsafe to put snipers on the low pitch roof the kid was on, but it was okay to put snipers on the more highly pitched roof from which position they shot the kid on the dangerous roof. Alrighty.”
Yeah, I cannot believe that dumbass was able to say that with a straight face especially considering all the visual evidence showing how shallow the pitch was. Maybe she has a phobia for high places and that roof appeared intimidating to her.
First it was the Afghanistan debacle resulting in multiple unnecessary deaths and the feeling of betrayal within our armed forces and now this. The O’Biden administration is completely untrustworthy and out of control with a base so thoroughly brainwashed and captured that nothing seems able to break the spell. We live in interesting times…🤠
Where are the riots?
There is a Facebook meme showing what they call a Secret Service cow (literal bovine) actually walking on top of a sloped metal barn roof. The memes are growing because that excuse is so bad that even those in Dumb and Dumber know BS when they hear it
The Democrats forfeited the benefit of Hanlon’s Razor back in 2016. Based on what I have seen, they have no interest or concern if people think they are evil maniacs bent on keeping power by any means necessary, including permitting an assassination of their leading opponent.
Peculiarities I have read about:
Government service has become nothing more than a perk for those who know somebody or support the administration. Competence is irrelevant — it’s about who you know or how many points you represent politically.
Makes me wonder if this can ever be recovered. I think we need a detailed review of every single government employee and a weeding out of these sorts of “affirmative action” hires where competence is optional.
There were three articles posted on the Red State website yesterday that stated that: Cheatle’s appointment was DR. Jill’s idea, SS was diverted from Trump’s rally to DR. Jill’s nearby fundraiser, and it was known a half hour before the shooting that he was there. Also, her boss is apparently preventing her from giving her scheduled testimony.
I’ll add to the conspiracy. They aided and abetted Cook in his mission to kill Trump. Than unknown to Cook, they’d kill him to ensure his silence. Events transpired rapidly. When the first shots were fired by Cook and Trump went quickly down, the SS snipers might have thought Cook was successful, and it was their turn.
Very similar to the theories about why the feds shot Booth in Garrett’s barn. And, as you know, Oswald said, “I’m just a patsy.”
On the government killing JFK, I eventually default to it’s not being the case because no one’s ever spilled the beans. How could you possible keep something like that from not coming out?
inevitably, as well as eventually
Trump didn’t exactly go down quickly. If you rewatch the video you can see that he put his hand to his ear at the first shot, not seeming to comprehend what just happened, and then ducks with his protection detail. It should’ve been obvious to anyone watching that he wasn’t fatally hit.
I’m struggling not to become a conspiracy theorist in this instance. It seems that assuming stupidity and incompetence still doesn’t get me out of the conspiracy theory. I feel it’s stretching Hanlon’s Razor too far. That’s just too much stupidity and incompetence in a profession that ought to be prizing competence and intelligence.
I hope I’m wrong, but I still think this was the culmination of a plot that only failed because Trump moved his head at the exact right (or wrong for the plotters) moment. The only thing that keeps me in slight denial is that I can’t imagine trying for a head shot rather than a body shot. It would be much easier to hit Trump in the chest than the head, so why aim for his head? When I want an animal dead, I aim for the main mass, not their heads.
Sarah, from what I’ve read, the kid was kicked off his riflery team because he was a bad shot. It was a shot from one hundred and sixty-five yards, easy for a sniper, but fairly long for an amateur with effectively a sport gun. His other shots were sprayed all over the place, certainly not a close grouping. He wasn’t using a sniper rifle. Did he even have a scope? I don’t know. Finally, who knows he wasn’t aiming at Trump’s chest? Do we know it was an attempted head shot?
I for one and simply ecstatic the kid missed. Again, I can’t imagine the country seeing Trump’s skull exploding in HD, over and over and over again like they showed the planes going into the towers on 9/11.
He might have known that Trump wears a ballistic vest and thought that it would stop his .223 round, which is only true if the former president was wearing Type III or better body armor. I’m not sure what level he wears, but that might have motivated the shooter to try a head shot.
But it’s true that he could’ve missed his point of aim badly and accidentally whizzed a shot past the President’s head. But given the user-friendliness of an AR platform rifle and the fact he had experience with it, I suspect he intended the head shot.
That’s something I simply don’t know: the accuracy of an “AR-15” in the hands of an amateur at a hundred and fifty yards. Is placing a round within an eight-inch diameter at that distance relatively easy?
Yes. It takes a degree of training in the fundamentals of marksmanship, but nothing particularly noteworthy. Literally millions of Americans are trained to this level, whether through the military or privately.
Should be relatively easy, if the shooter has practiced some, but there are lots of variables. The AR platform is easy to use, but isn’t necessarily one caliber, one barrel type/length, etc. A decent scope, sighted in, is obviously important, too. Upgrades to internals & stock are also available.
Some info on body armor: https://bulletproofzone.com/blogs/bullet-proof-blog/what-kind-of-ammunition-can-or-can-t-penetrate-body-armor#:~:text=Common%20rifle%20rounds%2C%20like%20the,lower%20levels%20of%20body%20armor.
In the case of an amateur with shooting experience (a la a shooting club)? Yes, indeed. The AR-15 platform is inherently very accurate, and with properly zeroed sights, an 8″ group at 150 yards is eminently doable even for a below-average marksman. I have seen amateur shooters with significant experience with the platform shoot out the X-ring at similar distances.
A “decapitation strike” – a strike at the head – makes a much stronger statement than a body shot. As a broader example, going straight after a head of state in a war means something very different than killing/capturing a general or two…or even nuking an entire city.
This was the ultimate decision President Ryan reached – and then ordered – in Clancy’s “Executive Orders”.
There’s also an equal chance that the complacency demonstrated by a leadership that cared little about protecting Donald Trump inadvertently gave a kid unrelated to that leadership’s lack of care the blindest of all lucky opportunities to pull off an attempted assassination.
Y’all need to settle down or take up arms if you really believe this. If you really believe this and aren’t taking up arms, then what kind of men are you even?
I’ll accept that the counter-sniper team agonized over the need to pull the trigger on the shooter. We are indeed a society that gives the benefit of the doubt to people who may just flat out be stupid but good natured. Thank Providence the crafters of our nation made us that way.
As long as there was remotely the possibility of just some dumb kid with binoculars thinking he’d get a better view of a public event combined with the notion the conter-sniper team had that *other* *good* protocols were in place to interdict a malicious actor then yes, the counter-sniper team had no business engaging the shooter until shots were fired.
The failure was entirely on complacent and underprepared agents not making sure interdiction was happening. And that complacency is more or less explicable from a top down lack of concern – not a collective hate of Donald Trump.
(Not sure how many times wordpress is going to eat this comment)
MW
You make a great point about “settling down”. However, we do not need to take up arms in reaction to the possibility that the events were not just “that leadership’s lack of care the blindest of all lucky opportunities to pull off an attempted assassination.”
We are a nation of laws that require us all to stand down and let whatever processes are needed take place. Not taking up arms is the responsible thing to do as is asking very pointed questions about why this lack of care manifested itself in what is supposed to be a premier law enforcement agency.
If indeed this is the worst case scenario and people in high places engaged in a coordinated attempt to permit the assassination of their chief rival *and* those same people are the ones who would be in charge of the “processes” to get to the bottom of this-
Then you should see a contradiction in your hope.
My comment is supposed to be a stand alone, not a response, but this is the only way it’s showing up.
My fault: I was away from the office from about 5 on. Batman and you had spammed comments—they’re up now. Again, I’m sorry.
It’s not your fault. I’m surprised they were in moderation- I can usually still see my comments in moderation they are just labeled “in moderation”.
This time, each attempt at posting just flat out was invisible.
Animals don’t wear bulletproof vests. Presidents and candidates sometimes do. A shot to the center of the body with a vest on would achieve nothing, and you probably only get one shot before the other side starts shooting back. Unless you hit a vulnerable spot, the likelihood of instant death is not as high as you might think, and this kid doesn’t seem to be the type who’d be guaranteed to hit a vulnerable spot. The head is probably the largest instant-kill zone on the body, the heart and the arteries being significantly smaller targets. However, I defer to the actual LEOs here.
Not an LEO, but the late Chris Kyle wrote in his book that during his time as a military sniper, he always aimed for center mass. Even if you don’t always hit the perfect insta-kill spot, you’re much more likely to hit SOMETHING, whereas a trained sniper can still miss if aiming for the head.
There’s also an equal chance that the complacency demonstrated by a leadership that cared little about protecting Donald Trump inadvertently gave a kid unrelated to that leadership’s lack of care the blindest of all lucky opportunities to pull off an attempted assassination.
Y’all need to settle down or take up arms if you really believe this. If you really believe this and aren’t taking up arms, then what kind of men are you even?
I’ll accept that the counter-sniper team agonized over the need to pull the trigger on the shooter. We are indeed a society that gives the benefit of the doubt to people who may just flat out be stupid but good natured. Thank Providence the crafters of our nation made us that way.
As long as there was remotely the possibility of just some dumb kid with binoculars thinking he’d get a better view of a public event combined with the notion the conter-sniper team had that *other* *good* protocols were in place to interdict a malicious actor then yes, the counter-sniper team had no business engaging the shooter until shots were fired.
The failure was entirely on complacent and underprepared agents not making sure interdiction was happening. And that complacency is more or less explicable from a top down lack of concern – not a collective hate of Donald Trump.
(Not sure how many times wordpress is going to eat this comment)
Had President Biden been speaking on that stage in Butler, PA on Saturday afternoon, I wonder if the roof occupied by the shooter would have been considered within the security zone and therefore occupied by Secret Service personnel.
If the answer to that question is “yes”, then the Secret Service wasn’t complacent. It was negligent.
Had President Biden been speaking on that stage in Butler, PA on Saturday afternoon, I wonder if the Secret Service presence would have been adequate to the task at hand (enough personnel to do the job, proper communication, threat protocols and responses known in advance, etc.).
If the answer to that question is “yes”, then the Secret Service wasn’t complacent. It was negligent.
No question that Biden probably has the Top Notch team at his disposal. I’m not sure that gives me much comfort, though.
With regard to the “open window of opportunity” concept mentioned in several comments above: That approach is possible, and how would we know if it had not been there for many past Trump campaign events. If so, when the shot didn’t happen for whatever reason, there was nothing to cover up or explain, so they just folded the tent and moved on to the next one, maybe planning to find a better motivated shooter.
If the story of the officer accosting the shooter on the roof is true, then why did he back off and merely “radio in” his information? When the rifle was pointed at him (again, if true) this ceased to be a candidate protection detail and became an officer survival one; my experience with those things has had officers taking immediate defensive action to include shots fired…