Until yesterday, I’ve said nothing about the Secret Service’s obvious failure to protect former President Trump, who is only alive today not due to the Secret Service, but a fortuitous turn of the head. He literally came within a millisecond of having his brains blown out. Even more disturbing, he literally came within a millisecond of being assassinated by an assassin who was allowed to prowl the grounds of Trump’s Saturday night rally for as long as one to three hours—hours—after he was identified as a suspicious character.
The reason I didn’t say anything about this jaw-dropping security failure is because after something like this happens, we become a news cycle full of nonsense. Well, now that we know what we know, it is obvious that the U.S. Secret Service is a clear and present danger to our democracy.
My colleague Kristina Wong’s Saturday timeline of events should take everyone’s breath away. SOMETIME AFTER 1:00 P.M: After the rally grounds were opened to the public at 1:00 p.m., the assassin lands on security’s radar after a magnetometer picked up his range finder, a device that looks like binoculars. Whether you are a golfer or an assassin, the only use for a range finder is to hit a target.
HOURS LATER—AROUND 5:00 P.M: Security spots the guy with the range finder hanging around the American Glass Research (AGR) building—the building he would soon climb up and get off eight shots at the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
5:45 P.M: Local police stationed inside the AGR building spot the assassin “scoping out a roof near the rally.
The Secret Service allowed Donald Trump to take the stage when they knew an obvious threat was prowling the grounds. The Secret Service director is lying about her reason for not protecting that roof. Listen, we all hate our politicians. I get that. But the thing is this… Politicians are special because they represent us. They represent our will. They represent how we wish to be represented. This is especially true for a sitting president like Biden and a presumptive nominee like Trump. Biden and Trump represent tens of millions of us, and if they are assassinated, that is a direct attack on tens of millions who chose those two men to represent them. That’s democracy. Democracy is found in the people we choose to represent us… So when the Secret Service allows something like this to happen, the Secret Service—which has one job—is a clear and present danger to democracy.