During a joint hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) questioned officials about the Trump assassination attempt.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. O, Mr. O'Bate, thank you for joining us today.
00:04I have the privilege of representing Delaware,
00:08the first state to ratify the Constitution.
00:10We did that over 200 years ago,
00:12and the Constitution sort of outlines
00:15how we elect our leaders,
00:17and it changes with respect to technology over the years.
00:20But there's, for as long as we've been a country,
00:24threats to our leaders when they pursue elective office.
00:27We're gonna be gathering,
00:28we'll be gathering in Chicago in just a few weeks.
00:32There's gonna be gathering in other parts of the country
00:34to help make sure that what was adopted
00:37in that original Constitution
00:38is actually carried out faithfully.
00:40And it's just incredibly important
00:42that those who aspire to elective office,
00:43and those who take on those challenges are protected,
00:46and their families are protected,
00:47as well as those who surround them.
00:50I share with my colleagues my prayers
00:54for those who've been killed or injured
00:57on July 13th.
00:58We're grateful that one of our presidential candidates
01:02was, is okay.
01:04But I have a question about what,
01:08I still can't, I can't get over how a 20-year-old loner,
01:1220-year-old loner could somehow outfox, outsmart
01:16two of the smartest federal agencies
01:19and state agencies in law enforcement
01:22with an odds of like 1,000 to one,
01:24and be able to almost pull this off.
01:26It just blows my mind.
01:27Hopefully we'll get to the truth in all of that.
01:32I'm a Navy guy, spent 20 many years of my life in the Navy.
01:35I learned as a midshipman that when the ship
01:38runs aground at sea, the commanding officer
01:41is held responsible.
01:42Whether the commanding officer is awake or asleep
01:43at the helm, but the commanding officer
01:45is held responsible.
01:47And I think we have to make, at the end of the day,
01:48I'm not interested in a playing game,
01:50but I'm sure interested in finding out
01:51who was responsible and making sure
01:53that they account for their responsibility.
01:57My question is, what policies are currently in place
02:00to facilitate real-time information sharing
02:04between the Secret Service and local law enforcement
02:06during an event, and what changes
02:09to information sharing practices
02:11will the Secret Service make in light
02:13of the apparent breakdown in communications on July 13th?
02:19Thank you for that question, Senator.
02:21So we're looking at our procedures.
02:25We rely on a counterpart system.
02:27And the radio interoperability, it's a complex challenge.
02:32It's not just about being able to find
02:36whatever frequency our local counterparts are on
02:38and then just piping it in.
02:40There's some technical challenges that have to be there.
02:44So to alleviate that, we've always relied
02:47on a security room where we have representatives
02:52from the local agencies.
02:54Those individuals are there to, one, bring their own radio
02:58and then relay relevant information
03:01that would impact our security plan.
03:04I think what I'm looking at, and again,
03:08what I'm looking at this situation is,
03:12there was a unified command post
03:14and we had our security room.
03:16And we had communications that day
03:20at the Butler Farm site were challenging.
03:23Not just challenging for the Secret Service,
03:24but for challenging for locals.
03:26There were some cellular issues.
03:27There were radio issues.
03:32And so, and you saw that with the testimony
03:37from the colonel from Pennsylvania State Police
03:39last week in the House.
03:41So I think as I'm thinking about this,
03:43I think we need to consider what is our model moving forward
03:51and I think we need to be where the greatest amount
03:54of partners are when that information is being discussed.
03:58The other thing that I'm looking at is we need
04:01to also make sure that we have redundancies
04:03as far as cellular on the ground or additional repeaters.
04:08And so I've directed our chief information officer
04:10to do that and we are rolling assets out now
04:14supporting campaign sites.
04:16Thank you for that.
04:17Mr. Bae, quick question.
04:18Based on the initial information you've gathered
04:21from the investigation, do you believe
04:23there were any actions taken by the shooter
04:25in the weeks, days, or hours leading up to the shooting
04:28that should have caused alarm
04:30and grabbed the attention of law enforcement?
04:33He did not have any interactions with law enforcement
04:35leading up to this, Senator.
04:38We haven't found anything yet that would have alerted
04:40law enforcement or FBI or Secret Service
04:43to his intention activities in advance of this event.
04:46I will note, however, to your prior question
04:49that we do have a very strong relationship,
04:51an integrated relationship between FBI and Secret Service
04:55and every other federal, state, local agency
04:58you can imagine.
04:59We have constructs like the Joint Terrorism Task Forces
05:02and Violent Crime Task Forces
05:03where we're cross-embedded with each other.
05:06And when it comes to this event and others like it,
05:09we're always talking in advance.
05:10In fact, with respect to this event,
05:12we did have a meeting between U.S. Secret Service and FBI
05:16in the days leading up to the event to determine,
05:19assess whether there was any information or intelligence
05:23pertaining to a threat against the rally
05:26or to former President Trump or anyone else there.
05:30There was an absence of that in the lead-up specifically.
05:33And again, none of us had any information,
05:36our holdings with regard to the ultimate shooter.
05:39All right, thank you for that.
05:40Thanks very much, both of you.
05:43Next on the Senate Judiciary Committee is Senator Gray.