Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle sat before the country to tell the Congress what she knows. While she didn’t share any information Americans don’t already have access to, her July 22nd testimony to the House Oversight Committee was still informative.
She was sworn in, and she perjured herself. Her statement stands in contradiction to her answers to questions. She promised to be transparent. She was not.
She could not answer the first question, whether or not there was a Secret Service agent on the roof where the suspected shooter was “bear crawling.” Nine days after the biggest security breach in the history of the Secret Service since RFK, she still will not, or was not allowed, to answer the simplest of questions.
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She would not tell us which other government agencies were present, and in what capacities, on July 13 in Butler, PA.
Words matter. Cheatle explained how a “suspicious” person does not directly, or always, constitute a “threat” to a Secret Service protectee. Two decades of DHS harping on “See Something, Say Something” was well-practiced by dozens of witnesses at the Butler County Fairgrounds on July 13th, but apparently the advice only applies to the proles. Who can blame Members of Congress – who with obscene bipartisan enthusiasm expanded the power of the DHS for the past twenty plus years – for assuming that this guidance also applied to highly paid and trained government professionals.
The lack of intercommunication between all of the security components in the planning and execution of the rally on July 13th is concerning. From Cheatle’s written statement:
The Secret Service constructed a security plan which consisted of three concentric rings of protection – the inner, middle, and outer perimeter – which are protected by Secret Service personnel in conjunction with our law enforcement partners.
Security plans are multi-layered, providing 360 degrees of protection. These layers include personnel, technical, and tactical assets which are a force multiplier for our protective posture.
I’ll assume “technical” means “communication” but I could be wrong. In any case, this is the outline for the yet to be formed “Special Committee on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump on July 13, 2024.” Calls are out to Lee Hamilton and Jamie Gorelick as we speak. The rest of the Q and A went pretty much as it started. Cheatle admitted that the suspicious individual did have a range finder, but that is not a prohibited item. Good to know.
She also believed that Secret Service covered Trump well after he was shot. They selflessly threw themselves on the President, she said. What I saw was Trump dropped to the ground upon realizing there had been a shot, and/or that it had nicked him, then they covered him, but were unable to prevent him from rising up and being re-exposed to “the threat.” Several of his detail on stage were significantly shorter than Mr. Trump. This obvious shortfall, seen and reseen by billions of people, was addressed a few days later as Trump’s Secret Service detail were all fresh from the Big and Tall Men’s section.
I think we can learn a few things from Cheatle’s testimony, and the behavior of Congresspersons on this Oversight Committee.
She did not immediately offer her resignation letter to Mayorkas, and had no intention of doing so – oops! Instead, she is “committed to finding the answers.” She gets that she will be the fall guy in this little exercise, and probably hopes Biden has some blank pardons already signed. At the same time, she, as a secondary or tertiary fall guy, is advised to continue appear 100% loyal to her masters, or else be very careful taking drives to parks or walks home after a night out.
Those who questioned Cheatle on both sides used their opportunity to push policy and lay blame. The Dems claimed “guns kill people and should be eliminated” (commendations to Cheatle for not being drawn into that obvious tack). The Republicans were predictable on the law and order end, and how to most directly blame Biden and his administration. Many Congresspersons used their time to present their “obvious” assumptions, which may be perfectly correct, or not, nonetheless contributing to the US government-approved and ultimately “acceptable story of July 13th.
If the Congresspeople are playing their roles, and Cheatle is continuing to play hers, we might be interested in who is doing the script-writing.
DHS is investigating itself, and Mayorkas refuses to accept Cheatle’s resignation … so far. We have Chris Wray, FBI Director running the FBI table investigation. Wray promises to leave no stone unturned. AG Merrick Garland is working hard on this too.
Mr. Ten Percent just texted his breakup with the DNC on Sunday, and then ghosted the country. Even if they find Joe Biden’s body, his credibility is completely compromised for the duration of his presidency, whether that is several days or several months.
Because the Congress and the Vice President didn’t have the stones to impeach or Article 25 Biden a few years ago, Harris is as unseasoned as she was a decade ago. But now she actively resents the 70% of the country that doesn’t like her, along with Biden, Democratic donors, and average Democrats. Her angry focus as presidential candidate in the next few months will detract from her current de facto role as President – unless the Constitution really doesn’t apply here, and whoever has been running the country will continue to do so, without Biden’s or Harris’s assistance.
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It looks like Mayorkas, Wray, Garland, and their backers and influencers are running the country, and have been. MAGA gets this instinctively, thus are labeled “enemy.” Unelected bureaucrats leading DHS, FBI, and DoJ have had an outsize influence on how Americans interact with their government. These agencies, not the DoD or even the CIA, are key to dealing with any coming secession of a state or states, in the enforcement of slave labor, and confiscation of property that is part of all late stage collapsing empires. These agencies have actively pursued and invested in the growth of the domestic surveillance state. These agencies demonstrated how lawfare as policy works, and all three agencies protect and support a two-tiered justice system that favors those connected, or politically useful, to the prevailing government.
The House Oversight Committee didn’t bring up the reported mass shorting of Truth Social and Rumble on the 12th of July by Austin Private Wealth, hoping for big Monday morning profits for its clients. This would not be a concern for the Secret Service, because everyone knows they don’t do financial crime.
Cheatle enraged both sides of the Congressional aisle with non-answers, evasions, and direct lies. It revealed both betrayal of trust and violation of law, including but not limited to the use of non-FOIA and non-accountable government communications via phone apps like Signal.
I’ll give a shoutout to some of the women on the Oversight Committee. Nancy Mace – a graduate of the Citadel – hit the SS Director hard, and ended up calling her answers literal BS, because they were. We got to see a really good question from AOC – how come the protection perimeter doesn’t match up with the range of the most common semiautomatic weapon in the country? MTG was just as good. Lisa McClain laid into her for her poor memory, and refusal to answer any questions. Anna Paulina Luna also gave some attitude to Cheatle. These representatives expect everyone to be willing and able to answer the easy questions. They are not intimidated. They were not impressed.
Cheatle’s testimony gave us very little about who planned the Trump assassination attempt, and how it unfolded on July 13th. The excruciating hearing will, however, help more people understand our arrogant and unaccountable government. We also got a peek at the growing, and exceptionally dangerous, disarray within the deep state.