Ron Johnson Lambasts The Secret Service Over The Attempted Assassination Of Donald Trump

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At a Senate Republican press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) spoke about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Marshall, those are some pretty good ideas, and thank you all for attending

00:04this.

00:06We are 17 days past an assassination attempt of President Trump.

00:10It took the life of an American hero and grievously wounded two others.

00:15And there's basic information that we still don't know, information that we quite honestly

00:21should have known within hours, certainly within days, and yet we're 17 days out.

00:28I largely chalk that up to just what has happened inside federal government agencies where the

00:33agencies do not believe they're accountable to the American public.

00:37They certainly don't believe they're accountable to Congress.

00:39I mean, we are learning more from local law enforcement.

00:42Quite honestly, what we know about what happened on July 13th primarily comes from local law

00:48enforcement.

00:49My staff immediately reached out to local, state, and federal officials.

00:53Federal officials just gave us the big middle finger.

00:56Local law enforcement will start talking to us.

00:58They provide us information.

01:00I published my initial findings in a couple days hoping to prompt other agencies to start

01:06providing information they had, hopefully also to attract whistleblowers, and we need

01:11more whistleblowers.

01:12We need people inside the agencies who are willing to talk to us, tell the American people

01:16what's really happening.

01:18But the initial findings pretty well laid out what the problems were here.

01:21First of all, the Secret Service did not attend a 9 o'clock briefing on the morning

01:27of the event.

01:28Now, in testimony today, Acting Director Rowe didn't answer my question forthrightly.

01:34He did talk about something about Secret Service talking to the snipers, but again, I asked

01:39him because his testimony said they did attend that briefing.

01:44I don't believe they did, but we didn't get that answer.

01:47But that's a big problem.

01:48So Secret Service in charge of the actual security of the event, if they're not attending

01:53the briefing at the morning where people are giving their final marching orders, their

01:57assigned tasks, that's a huge problem.

02:00The second thing we found out is all the communication was silent, and that was a big theme at today's

02:05hearing.

02:06The interoperability of communications, which honestly is a challenge.

02:09I don't want to underplay that fact, but the fact of the matter is when you had at 545,

02:15we just found this out last Friday when committee staff went to Butler and talked to local law

02:19enforcement again, we found out at 545, a Secret Service sniper did receive a text with

02:29a picture of Crooks, of the assassin, and his location.

02:33So there was literally 26 minutes before the shot was fired that a Secret Service sniper

02:39did know.

02:40So even though there wasn't interoperability of communication in terms of radios, as soon

02:44as they saw something with a rifle that the Secret Service was aware of that, 26 minutes

02:49beforehand, Secret Service sniper knew there was a person of suspicion, they had a picture

02:56of him, and they had 26 minutes to be scanning continuously the AGR building, and of course

03:02we don't know whether they did or didn't.

03:05Why didn't they notice the shooter that did have concealment on that roof?

03:10But again, there's so many unanswered questions, and they shouldn't be unanswered.

03:14So again, I agree, we need an independent investigation.

03:17What I'm primarily pushing for, and we do have a bipartisan investigation with Senator

03:21Peters, Blumenthal, Senator Paul, and myself, Homeland Security.

03:26We may have to compel testimony, but the first things we have to do is we have to have transcribed

03:31interviews of all the Secret Service personnel at the site, people involved in the planning.

03:37This is just table stakes, and we need those interviews fast.

03:40We need them now because memories fade.

03:42Memories can be influenced.

03:44So again, that was the big push.

03:45I did appreciate both Senators Blumenthal and Peters made that point at the hearing

03:49today.

03:50In fact, Senator Peters closed out the hearing asking Acting Director Rowe, when will he

03:55make those 13 individuals that we requested interviews with available?

03:59And he said, days, not weeks.

04:00So we need to hold him to that.

04:01So again, Senator Marshall, you have some good ideas here, and thank you all for attending.

Ron Johnson Lambasts The Secret Service Over The Attempted Assassination Of Donald Trump

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