Radio talk show host and podcaster Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, predicted another Secret Service “incident,” claiming the agency is worse off today than it was before the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

When Congress began questioning then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle about the assassination, Cheatle resigned and Ronald L. Rowe Jr. stepped in as interim director.

Republican Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona asked Bongino, “Is the Secret Service in a better position today under Director Rowe?”

“No, it’s worse,” Bongino replied. He predicted that “something else” would happen, but added: “I pray to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that I am mistaken.”

“If you think this was the last incident, you are crazy,” he said.

The former secret agent said Rowe represented “several of the same people” who were in charge on July 13.

“Kim Cheatle, the principal, wasn’t even fired. She was allowed to quit,” Bongino noted. “She’s going to find a cushy job somewhere, and her assistant principal” was promoted.

Bongino said Secret Service whistleblowers told him Rowe was “concerned about the color of the ties worn by agents on the job because it gave the impression that they were supporting President Trump. That’s really where the Secret Service wastes its time.”

“If you can explain it, good luck, because that’s not the agency I worked for,” he joked.

Looking for answers

Bongino spoke at a forum about the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump and answered questions from five Republican members of Congress: Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas. Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL and founder of the private military contractor Blackwater, and Ben Shaffer, a Washington SWAT agent who helped with security on July 13, also answered lawmakers’ questions.

During their speech at the Heritage Foundation near the U.S. Capitol, the congressmen presented video clips from July 13 that showed members of the crowd at Butler’s speech trying to alert police to the presence of Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old man who opened fire on Trump an hour before the shooting.

Mills asked Shaffer a series of questions that made it clear how ill-prepared the Secret Service was to deal with a potential threat.

Shaffer confirmed that the Secret Service “did not utilize the communications platform provided by local security forces,” that the agency “did not utilize the surveillance drone offered by local security forces,” and that agents “did not show up for the morning briefing to ensure last-minute planning could be accommodated.” He also confirmed that the Secret Service “did not have access to the water tower, which provides the highest vantage point.”

Biggs noted that protesters first tried to alert police to Crooks at 5:10 p.m., a full hour before the 6:11 p.m. shooting. Shaffer said images of the shooter appeared in his text chat “at approximately 5:38 p.m.” He learned “within minutes” that Crooks had a rangefinder that would have “automatically upgraded Crooks from a ‘suspicious person’ to a person of interest,” just below a “threat.”

Crooks’ position was outside of Shaffer’s area of ​​responsibility and out of his line of sight, the SWAT officer said.

Comparison with Jill Biden

“President Trump definitely lacked the resources he needed that day,” Prince noted.

The Secret Service “had a third of the agents monitoring him as Jill Biden monitoring in the same region at an indoor event,” he said. “She was monitored by 12 post holders, which again is no legal or constitutional authority for the first lady. Donald Trump was assigned four Secret Service agents.”

“From close range”

Prince noted that “130 yards is a point blank range” for a sniper. “Thank God this 20-year-old was aiming for a headshot on President Trump, because if he had aimed for the midsection, President Trump would probably be dead.”

“A Hezbollah or ISIS team or any other terrorist organization that really knows what it’s doing would have succeeded that day,” the former SEAL added. “The Secret Service was almost defeated by a 20-year-old and all of us, including Donald Trump, dodged a bullet that day.”

“Politics at primary school level”

Gaetz asked Bongino why Trump, “one of the most threatened people on planet Earth,” appears to have only “limited protection.”

Bongino stressed that the Secret Service was “definitely not a political enterprise” during his tenure there.

Still, he suggested that political motives likely played a role in the reduction of Trump’s Secret Service protection force.

“I am absolutely convinced that Donald Trump and an increased security situation that he should have adhered to would have given him a presidential look and made his travel logistics easier,” Bongino said. “I think they were concerned about optics and wanted to make him look like a big shot or whatever you want to call it.”

“Some of these decisions were made solely on the basis of political considerations at primary school level,” he lamented.

“I don’t want to believe that,” Gaetz replied. “I didn’t want to believe that at the FBI either. … Many of these agencies, in my opinion, have been subject to political influence. We want to consider them above that.”

Republican Representative Laurel Lee of Florida announced on Monday that members of Congress had created a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

“On July 13, 2024, the American people witnessed a catastrophic security failure that nearly cost President Trump his life,” Lee said in a press release. “The United States Secret Service has an unfailing mission to protect America’s leaders, and unfortunately, on that day, it failed in its core mission.”

The goal of the task force, which consists of seven Republicans and six Democrats, is to find out what went wrong on July 13, hold those responsible accountable and prevent such failures by the agency from happening again.