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https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1817378804744200419

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Susan Crabtree

@susancrabtree

Jul 29

🚨 WHY did the Secret Service COMMAND CENTER not tell its agents to prevent Trump from going on stage?
After reviewing the local Butler-area law enforcement's After-Action Report, (critical timeline attached to this post), it's still unclear to me if they were communicating with the Secret Service command center or a local command center at 5:45 p.m. when they were sending photos of Crooks to a Beaver County ESU group chat, then recommends they alert "command."

If local law enforcement sent the photos to the Secret Service Command Center, there's no way they should have let Trump out on that stage.

‼️One possible reason for letting Trump go on stage, I'm told from a source within the Secret Service community, is that the USSS Command Center is constantly getting flags of suspicious people --even though pics of Crooks were sent to the Secret Service Command Center at around 5:45 p.m., no one had seen a weapon yet -- so Crooks was flagged as a problem but not a "threat."

From a source within the Secret Service community: “A ‘suspicious person’ on the far outer perimeter where 8 cops are looking for him does NOT make me or 99% of agents keep a former or current President off the stage.

If the suspicious person was already on the roof?
“Yes, we hold [Trump].”

Has a gun? “Yes, we hold.”

Is running from police? -
“Maybe a hold.”

Read 4 tweets

Susan Crabtree

@susancrabtree

Jul 25

1/5🚨🚨 SEN. RON JOHNSON OFFERS INITIAL PRAISE FOR ACTING SECRET SERVICE DIR. ROWE, PROVIDES DETAILS ABOUT WHAT WAS DISCUSSED
.@SenRonJohnson calls his Rowe's morning briefing with senators "forthright," "confidence-building."

Just just got off the phone with Sen. Johnson, who said he was generally "impressed and encouraged" by acting Secret Service Dir. Rowe's briefing his morning.

"He was very forthright, definitely concerned about the morale of the men and women in the service, which I think we all need to be," Johnson told me. "They've got a big task ahead of them, but both he and the FBI Director were really, again, forthright is the best word I can say."

"As I said, this was a confidence-building briefing," Johnson said.

Johnson said he urged Rowe and a top FBI official present to provide more public information so "we don't allow conspiracy theories to spread."

"And I made the point [that] he way to do that is to be open and transparent, hold multiple briefings certainly start out by saying, this is incomplete, it's, preliminary.

"The public cuts you slack, but we need to know things as you know [them], and I think [he] definitely acknowledged that that's a good path to take."

"I think, if his higher ups will allow, I think that's exactly the direction he'd like to take."

2/2 🚨ACTNG SECRET SERVICE DIR. ROWE TELLS SENATORS COUNTER-SNIPER TOOK THE SHOT AS SOON AS HE COULD SEE CROOKS' HEAD, DID NOT WAIT FOR "COMMAND CENTER" PERMISSION.

Instead, a lip of the building was obscuring the shot, and Crooks took two first shots, then ducked beneath the lip, and then popped up for more shots, and that's when the Secret Service counter-sniper shot and killed him.

In my interview with Sen. Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican said he directly asked Secret Service Dir. Rowe if there was ANY delay in when the counter sniper had a shot on Crooks and when he took it because he had to radio back to a USSS command center to get permission.

Johnson told me: "According to him, that's false. ...They had him in sight once he stuck his head up to take the second round of shots.

...They should have told us a long time ago, but from my standpoint, that's the most important thing I learned from the briefing -- it was in response to my question.

More specifics in response to my follow-up question to break down exactly why the CS could not see Crooks:
So there is on [these metal roofs,] at the peak, there's a piece of metal up there. He didn't describe exactly, you know, how high. But when they had somebody [up there crawling then] crouch down, you could only just see the very crown of their head, so you couldn't see the rest of the body.

So, I mean, if you're a sniper, you're scanning things, you might see a dark spot, but not even recognize his head, I suppose... So he was not all that visible, but apparently, he came up above that metal partition, fired off two shots, sinked down below it, then came back up in the exact same location to fire the second round of shots when they took their shot.

So he wasn't in their sights for, you know, minutes, or, you know, even seconds. I mean, [as] soon as they got him in the sights, they basically took the shot. So again, I think that's news.

3/5 🚨🚨WHY DID THE SECRET SERVICE AGENTS NEAR THE STAGE NOT WHISK TRUMP AWAY WHEN LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS ALERTED THE COMMAND CENTER AND WERE LOOKING FOR CROOKS AND RALLYGOERS WERE POINTING TO HIM ON A ROOF?

Apparently, acting Secret Service Dir. Rowe has no good answer to that question from senators.

According to Sen. Johnson, Rowe told senators that Secret Service agents responsible for not ordering the president off the stage would be subject to "disciplinary action."

Johnson in an interview with me: The acting director, basically, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, [said] that basically he can't, he can't defend what happened.

I think they'll investigate, and [it's] entirely possible that people will be subjected to disciplinary measures. There's a pretty broad range of what that may be...you could tell he was emotionally concerned about it because he had just been to [Butler.]

I could not defend it.

He was highly concerned about the ongoing morale of the Secret Service after this. He's got, they've got enormous challenges ahead, and he needs the agents to have high morale, because they've got a lot of long hours ahead of them.

Again, I view that as a very good leadership quality. He's coming in as acting director. He recognizes that immediately as a concern of his agency. He needs to boost the morale of Secret Service agents. I would like to see that happen as well."

Photo of new Acting Secret Service Dir. Ron Rowe, below.

Read 5 tweets

Susan Crabtree

@susancrabtree

Jul 17

MUST-READ content of this online petition calling on Kimberly Cheatle to resign. ‼️ "Executive leadership bonuses" ‼️ cited as a reason the Secret Service is having manpower shortages and inadequate training, among a litany of reasons.

Also, THIS 👉 "instances of fraud, waste, and abuse regarding the Secret Service's selective promotion practices under Director Cheatle's leadership are also being swept under the rug."

"The current promotion practice is arguably not in keeping with the Merit Promotion Process (MPP), in which millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent perpetuating the Agency's false narrative that promotions are based on a 'merit based system,' when in reality the promotions have been based on alleged "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)". This has been most recently demonstrated earlier this year by the fast track promotion of a female agent (with only 7 years of employment - too junior to qualify as a WHIP or Lead) who hadn't completed the standard phase 2 protection time required for promotion. This agent also benefited from the 30x30 pledge and is now a supervisor over more senior agents at the New York Field Office."

Take a look at this: "At a time when the Secret Service is dealing with manpower shortages due to attrition, there have also been a number of recent Secret Service incidents indicative of inadequate training, no doubt correlated to the fact that the Agency is struggling with an insufficient training budget to incorporate much needed for mock up sets for realistic simulated exercises (i.e. White House, Fence Line, etc). Agency sources attribute the issue to budgeted training funds allegedly being reallocated for recruitment, promotional testing, and executive leadership bonuses.

change.org/p/demand-an-in…

Any anonymous online petition calling for Secret Servcie Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign (which now has more than 10,000 signatures) says a female agent with a history of performance issues made "harassment" allegations against her superior in response to a poor performance evaluation. The source then says "agency executive leaders [i.e. Cheatle and other top brass] turned a blind eye to the "blatant misconduct" -- the female agent was illegally secretly audio-taping supervisors, and the source said the same agent was suspected of secretly audio-taping Presidents Obama and Trump while on the job protecting them.

"Executive Leadership resisted taking appropriate investigative or disciplinary action, until one of her supervisors filed a whistle blower complaint which eventually resulted in disciplinary action being taken against her," the anonymous petition states.

Read 5 tweets

Susan Crabtree

@susancrabtree

Jul 14

My latest compilation of reporting: GOP Was Investigating Secret Service Before Assassination Attempt | RealClearPolitics realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/…

🚨New info from a source in the Secret Service community — Trump’s usual protective Secret Service detail was worked so hard (working 7 days a week with no days off) that many of agents assigned Saturday were temporary replacements from different field offices.

This is not the usual protocol for sitting presidents and vice presidents but “typical” for former presidents, (although no former presidents have run again in modern history.)

“Trump has a permanent detail, however it’s much smaller in the amount of bodies,” the source said. “His detail has been worked so hard with all the travel that they’re working 7 days a week with shift changes. so HQ sends in temp agents to supplement - not a good scenario. Mission Failure, IMHO.”

🚨 (cont.) I’m told the only permanent agent from trump’s detail during the rally was SAIC (Special Agent In Charge) Kern, two sources within the Secret Service community told me. All others were temps. Pittsburgh USSS Field Office had a Jill Biden visit and designated a lot of resources to her, the source said. Also - the advance work only occurred one-day beforehand bc of a lack of resources.

Where were the resources?

The Pittsburgh USSS Field Office had a Jill Biden visit and designated a lot of resources to her.

“That is f—-ing unbelievable to me,” the source remarked.

Read 6 tweets

Susan Crabtree

@susancrabtree

Jul 14

Dan Bongino is a former special agent in the Secret Service and is very close to Trump world. The Secret Service spokesman is disputing this assertion, but my reporting on the agency over a decade has shown me that there’s often more to the story than even agency spokesmen know or are allowed to know right away.

A @GOPoversight is already underway re: the agency’s readiness and DEI policies. Cheatle and other top officials no doubt will be grilled on this topic and also the agency’s reactive rules of engagement in this situation that requires counter snipers to fire only AFTER a shooter fires first.

https://twitter.com/susancrabtree/status/1812452227505926325

https://twitter.com/susancrabtree/status/1812452227505926325

https://twitter.com/susancrabtree/status/1812360080941334679

https://twitter.com/susancrabtree/status/1812360080941334679

Read 5 tweets

Susan Crabtree

@susancrabtree

May 9

I can confirm that there is a petition circulating in the Secret Service community calling for an @GOPoversight committee investigation and the removal of Kimberly Cheatle as Secret Service director. The petition raises issues about DEI hiring superseding training and creating security issues first reported on in this @RCPolitics story from two weeks ago:
realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/…

https://x.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1787557894537277849

Just three days ago, the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation into DEI hiring and recruiting practices at the FBI. Now anonymous whistleblowers are calling for the same sort of Congressional investigation at the Secret Service.

https://x.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/1787557894537277849

Here's the link to the Secret Service's DEI information page, including details about its Diversity and Inclusion Engagement Council.
From the webpage:
"The IEC’s collective duty is to help the Secret Service build, foster, create, and inspire a workforce where diversity and inclusion is not just 'talked about' -- but demonstrated by all employees through 'Every Action, Every Day.'"secretservice.gov/employee-suppo…

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