Whistleblowers have claimed that federal agents reassigned to protective details of former President Donald Trump were “egregiously under-prepared,” receiving just two hours of line training.
In an X post on Tuesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said Homeland Security personnel had been “thrown onto Trump’s protective detail with nothing more than a 2hr online training” at Trump’s rally on the July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, were almost became the victim of an assassination.
Hawley told Fox News:
“Think about this: This former president of the US…is sent out on stage, most of the people there are not trained, they’re not qualified. They only got a webinar training, and even that didn’t work.”
Hawley sent a letter to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe highlighting the new claims about Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) agents that partner with the Secret Service.
He said the recent allegations “suggest that a significant number of personnel tasked with providing security for former President Trump at the July 13 rally were egregiously under-prepared by the Secret Service to carry out this mission.”
“When Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents partner with the Secret Service, they should be properly trained. New whistleblower allegations contend that this isn’t happening…,” Hawley wrote.
🚨🚨NEW – My letter to Secret Service Director Rowe detailing new whistleblower allegations that Homeland Security agents working the Butler Trump rally received only “webinar” training beforehand pic.twitter.com/KQZbgDf7Rs
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 4, 2024
Hawley added that a whistleblower told him “that the only training received by many HSI agents reassigned to work protective details is a two-hour webinar on Microsoft Teams featuring pre-recorded videos.”
“Imagine 1,000 people logging onto Microsoft Teams at the same time after being informed at the last minute that everyone needed to login individually,” a whistleblower said, according to Hawley.
“Once it got rolling, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio working on the prerecorded videos (which I’m told are the same videos as last year). All told, they restarted the videos approximately six times …. The content was not helpful.”
Watch
The agents assigned to President Trump in Butler PA were pulled off child exploitation cases and thrown onto Trump’s protective detail with nothing more than a 2hr online training. And we know this ONLY because of brave whistleblowers pic.twitter.com/m8CY5eqmUl
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 4, 2024
In his letter, Hawely said, “these latest whistleblower allegations contend HSI agents were pulled off child exploitation cases in order to serve on protective details for which they were unprepared.”
The whistleblower told Hawley that there have been no security training improvements since Trump was shot in the ear by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks at the July 13 rally,
“Nothing new, nothing improved since the assassination attempt on former President Trump,” the whistleblower said.
Hawley asked Rowe to provide details on how many HSI agents were present at the rally, and how many were only trained through the webina,.
While the media ignores the revelations, lawmakers are continuing to investigate the Secret Service’s handling of the Butler rally.
