A whistleblower is alleging that the U.S. Secret Service declined to use drones at the deadly Pennsylvania rally for former president Donald Trump on July 13, even though the technology was repeatedly offered by local law enforcement, Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said on Thursday.
The Secret Service has fallen under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent a gunman from opening fire and attempting to assassinate Trump at the July 13 rally.
Amid a series of reported operational failures, Hawley revealed in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday that a whistleblower had told him that the Secret Service repeatedly rejected offers from law enforcement in Pennsylvania to utilize drones for security purposes.
“The night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally,” Hawley wrote in his letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Thursday.
“This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. Secret Service said no.
“The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting took place, USSS changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.”
BREAKING.🚨
Whistleblower tells @HawleyMO that “local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally, but Secret Service declined.”
Drone use is reported by many to have been ROUTINE during Trump’s 2024 campaign rallies.
Butler County… pic.twitter.com/IqypCRtzTA
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 25, 2024
Hawley wrote in the letter that the whistleblower also told him that the drone technology that was allegedly offered to the Secret Service had the capability to “neutralize” potential threats as well as monitor them.
“It is hard to understand why USSS would decline to use drones when they were offered, particularly given the fact USSS permitted the shooter to overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before [the] event,” Hawley wrote in the letter. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, flew a drone over the rally site hours before the event began to scope out the area.
The Secret Service has been widely criticized for its failure to stop Crooks from nearly killing Trump. Crooks was able to climb onto the roof of a building just hundreds of feet away from the rally and shoot Trump without being stopped by law enforcement or the Secret Service, even though they were made aware of his presence roughly 50 minutes before the former president took the stage.
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday after being berated by Republican and Democratic lawmakers for her failure to ensure that the rally would be safe.
The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If Trump regains the White House, massive numbers of our so called secret security agencies will face political extinction. They deserve it! Let them try to get jobs in local police departments. I think they’ll have a hard time with that!
Prison for the “decision makers,” who made unjustifiable decisions to GET TRUMP KILLED! Can anyone look at the facts and still believe that security made error after error that ultimately made this shooting possible? No! This was a planned assassination! Planned from WITHIN our government!
Keep pursuing the truth, and we’ll learn just how high up in the Commie pretenders crime syndicate, where this “murder” was hatched!
It was a Banana Republic “HIT,” that came from the panicked usurper himself…or someone pulling his strings. Would Joe have resigned IF the plot had succeeded?
America cannot go on…unless we get to the bottom of this affront to every citizen who believes in America’s promise.
Whistleblowers are needed now! Come forward! Be honest with your countrymen.
Bring this disgusting infiltration to a close.