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TRUMP, BIDEN, SECRET SERVICE, AND THE ASSASSIN

“It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

Those are the ill-timed words Joe Biden used in a political call to action days before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which our team covered in real time.

There is no direct association between those words and the attempt on Trump’s life other than they characterize Biden’s caustic campaign rhetoric asserting that Trump is a grave existential threat to “democracy.”

Biden, whose administrative record is littered with a plethora of domestic and foreign policy failures, has centered his whole campaign on the diversionary theme of saving our nation from the Trump threat, and his low-information voters are sucking it up.

As I have noted, the proliferation of Biden’s faux “democracy” rhetoric is very deliberate in its obfuscation about the founding tenets of American Liberty.

When he autocratically demands that you “support democracy,” he means the statist authoritarian rule of democratic socialism, now the foundational platform of his Democrat Party.

That reveals Biden and his leftist Demo cadres are the real threats to our Republic and Liberty.

Given that Biden’s notion of “democracy” is the antithesis of our nation’s founding tenets, in that context, in fact, Trump is an enormous threat to Biden’s statist authoritarian “democracy.”

 

What follows is a mix of observations and analysis regarding the attack on Trump by Biden, his leftists, and a radicalized assassin.

Trump’s response to the attack in a post on Truth Social from a Pennsylvania hospital:

“I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

 

Early Sunday morning, the former president posted again:

“Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness. Our love goes out to the other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded, and hold in our hearts the memory of the citizen who was so horribly killed. In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win. I truly love our Country, and love you all, and look forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin.”

 

Biden responded to the attack in three different appearances over the weekend, desperately trying to pull the Leftmedia attention back to his campaign in an effort to distance his campaign rhetoric from the attack on Trump.

Shortly after the attack on Trump Saturday, Biden declared, in a mumbling condemnation:  “There is no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It is one of the reasons we have to unite this country.…

But the idea — the idea that there’s political violence or violence in America like this is just unheard of. It was just not appropriate. And we — everybody — everybody must condemn it. Everybody.”

 

Really? “Not appropriate”?

This from the man who has spent the last eight years propagating fallacious and highly inflammatory assertions that Trump and his supporters are a perilous “threat to democracy”?

Democrats have waged a vile eight-year-long campaign to Hitlerize and otherwise dehumanize Trump and his supporters.

This from the man who is also directly responsible for the historic surge in political violence across our nation ahead of the 2020 election in the Demos’ choreographed “Summer of Rage” riots, while they simultaneously demoted and defunded law enforcement capabilities, exacerbating the lawlessness.

That unmitigated and mostly un-prosecuted urban violence by Demo constituents, their Marxist Black Lives Matter and antifa movement radicals, spilled over into record violence in the subsequent years of Biden’s term.

One indisputable consequence of Biden’s hateful rhetoric is the rise of deranged sociopaths, one of whom attempted to assassinate his political opponent.

 

President Unity” was back Sunday afternoon with more diversionary duck-and-cover chatter to divert from his inflammatory campaign rhetoric.

Biden again insisted, “There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence for that matter.” He added: “Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is [more] important than that right now — unity. … We must unite as one nation. We must unite as one nation to demonstrate who we are.”

Biden claimed, “I’ve directed an independent review of the national security at yesterday’s rally to assess exactly what happened. And we’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people as well.” We will see.

 

Then again Sunday night, Biden addressed the nation with more of the same:

“We cannot — we must not go down this road in America.… There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.

You know, the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. And we all have a responsibility to do that.…

Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy.… But politics must never be a literal battlefield and, God forbid, a killing field.…

I’ll continue to speak out strongly for our democracy [and] call for action at the ballot box, no violence on our streets.… In America, we resolve our differences at the battle [sic] box.…

Here in America, while unity is the most elusive of goals right now, nothing is more — more important for us now than standing together.”

 

Biden closed with more “democracy” chatter: “We must be an American democracy where arguments are made in good faith, an American democracy where the rule of law is respected, an American democracy where decency, dignity, fair play aren’t just quaint notions but living, breathing realities.”

He violates those tenets with every breath.

 

Notably, within hours of the Trump attack, Biden pulled all his campaign advertising because it flies in the face of his call for “unity.”

That included an ad released two days before the attack calling the former president “a dictator” and “a threat to freedom in the United States.”

Former Trump Attorney General William Barr was clear in his assessment of the impact of such erroneous claims: “The Democrats have to stop their grossly irresponsible talk about Trump being an existential threat to democracy. He is not.”

 

Of course, Biden and his Demos thrive on division. A Biden campaign official noted: “This changes everything. We’re still assessing. Making the case against Trump, drawing that split screen, will get much harder.”

In other words, their campaign of division, making Trump the “enemy of democracy,” just hit a wall.

I note that Trump’s campaign rhetoric is equally strong, but it is based on Biden’s failed record, not calling Biden a traitor to “democracy” and an enemy of the people.

(By the way, expect Biden to pivot and spin this attack as a “gun problem” to advance his leftist gun control agenda.)

 

About the Trump would-be assassin…

The assailant was a 20-year-old who was identified by his photo and DNA analysis.

Though I have seen evidence of his political alliances, which undoubtedly contributed to this attack, there is not enough verifiable information to determine anything other than he was a pathetic loner with radical beliefs.

A fellow student and friend of the shooter said, “This was, like, a really, really smart kid, like he excelled, and nothing crazy ever came up in any conversation.”

Another student described him as being like a lot of smart kids: “He was just an outcast.”

From videos and photos of his assault demeanor and position, the assailant seemed both steady and resolved.

 

“The weapon is believed to be an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle,” according to The Washington Post, which, as was also the case with the New York Times description, did not mislabel the weapon an “assault rifle” as Leftmedia talking heads and scribes almost universally and ubiquitously do.

Within hours of the attack, law enforcement officials confirmed that explosive materials were found in the assailant’s vehicle and his home.

The FBI will build a behavioral profile but may be pressured to suppress that report if it is determined that his actions were motivated by leftist affiliations.

 

About Secret Service negligence and failures…

Having been part of perimeter security police details in public venues for two presidents, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, early in my career, I have some line perspective on presidential protective details then and now.

 

First, let me be very clear about this — some are going to launch conspiracy theories suggesting this was a government-contrived assassination attempt, some collaborative effort to kill Trump. These assertions are as absurd as they are patently false.

However, there are serious questions and irrefutable conclusions about this incident, particularly in terms of Secret Service perimeter security and overwatch. Image

But it is important to consider that the timeline of this attack is very compressed, and hindsight being what it is, that should not unduly influence conclusions about negligence and failures.

 

The biggest challenge for security details is the difficulty of identifying and detecting a “lone wolf” assailant who is a loner with a very limited digital footprint.

Thus, it is critical that security details ensure that no weapons enter a venue and that there are no line-of-sight locations to carry out an assassination attempt against their protectee.

The line-of-site security perimeter is generally 1,000 meters.

 

Among the details we know about the Secret Service coverage is that there were two rooftop sniper positions providing overwatch for the Trump rally venue.

That is typical for an open venue like this, and they are responsible for eliminating emerging high-ground threats.

We know that the assailant climbed a ladder onto the roof of a nearby manufacturing plant only 140 meters from Trump at his Butler Farm Show grounds rally podium — a position that gave him an unobstructed target vector about level with Trump’s platform and a position visible to the overwatch sniper teams.

We know that police near that rooftop were alerted about a man with a rifle minutes before he fired at Trump, and an officer confronted the assailant.

 

What we don’t know about the Secret Service coverage is who knew what and when.

If one or both of the Secret Service rooftop sniper teams were aware of an individual with a rifle prone on a rooftop 140 meters from Trump’s podium, how was the assailant able to get multiple shots off without being engaged before taking those shots?

We should learn more about the timeline of who actually knew what and when broken down in second-by-second detail as the FBI investigation progresses, but this is clear: Anybody on a rooftop within shooting range of that venue constitutes a violation of Secret Service security perimeter protocol, though some within the agency will try to spin this as having been outside their security perimeter.

 

The Secret Service is responsible for coordinating all law enforcement security in the area, not just within the venue.

If they had this assailant threat in their sights and failed to engage the threat immediately before the shots were fired, that is indicative of negligence.

However, we don’t know that, and armchair analysis about negligence is speculation.

 

But this is NOT speculation: An assailant was able to shoot at a former president and current leading presidential campaign contender, firing several rounds from a distance that clearly was within a kill range for any assailant with modest ability.

At least one of those bullets slightly wounded Trump, but the trajectory was just a few millimeters from being a fatal shot.

That is a Secret Service security protocol failure.

The facts may eventually confirm degrees of negligence, but what is indisputably clear is that someone almost killed Donald Trump within a controlled venue, and that constitutes a colossal failure by his security detail and other agencies involved.

 

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) is leading the inquiry of DHS officials to determine the degree of negligence, as outlined in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

(By the way, all those Democrats who, in April, recently wanted to exclude Trump from Secret Service protection apparently have gone back down their ratholes.)

 

Finally, the man killed by the assailant was Corey Comperatore, a former local fire chief who dove onto his family to protect them. According to his daughter: “The media will not tell you that he died a real-life super hero. They are not going to tell you how quickly he threw my mom and me to the ground. They are not going to tell you that he shielded my body from the bullet that came at us. He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a bullet for us.”

For his family and the families of others critically wounded in this attack, we offer our prayers.


 

Mark Alexander is the publisher and managing editor of The Patriot Post, a grassroots news analysis and opinion digest. He launched the online journal in 1996 to advocate for individual rights, constitutional limits, free enterprise and traditional American values.