Senator Josh Hawley said he had received information from informants that most of the agents deployed to protect Donald Trump during the attempted assassination of him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July were Homeland Security personnel with minimal security training.
Hawley (R-Mo.) said in an interview on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Tuesday evening that instead of dozens of Secret Service agents for the July 13 rally, Trump was protected mostly by Homeland Security agents who received only online webinar training ahead of the event.
“A two-hour online webinar. And I was told that half the time the webinar voices didn't work,” Hawley claimed.
AP
“So think about this: The former president of the United States … is sent up on stage, most of the people there are not trained, they're not qualified. All they got was webinar training and that didn't work,” he scoffed.
“This is absolutely disgraceful.”
Hawley said Homeland Security agents were reportedly diverted from child abuse cases and other investigations so they could work to protect Trump — which they normally would not do.
Hawley also accused the Secret Service and the FBI of not sharing more information about the rally, where Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks.
“We only have this information because of informants,” he told Waters.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) recently revealed that the Butler SWAT team had actually fired the first shot, damaging Crooks' rifle and stopping the gunfire before the Secret Service sprung into action.
Waters said that when acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. testified before Congress about the incident on July 31, he did not mention the actions of the local SWAT team.
