MILWAUKEE — Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, anticipates the investigation into the Secret Service’s handling of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump will reveal multiple failures by law enforcement, not just one shortcoming.
“The investigation is underway. I think it’s going to reveal a lot,” Wolf told the Washington Examiner in Milwaukee Wednesday. “It’s not one thing that usually gets missed. It’s usually two or three things when something bad like this happens.”
Wolf stood by the Secret Service agents who rushed onto the stage after Trump was shot in the ear Saturday evening.
“They’re doing their job. Their job is not to do site surveys. That’s a different part of the Secret Service. They go out days before, look at a site, the countersniper, the counterassault teams — those are all different elements than his detail,” Wolf said. “His detail is very good. I know some of them. That’s not what broke down here. What broke down was the perimeter, the security perimeter of the site. So those are different teams, I’m sure. But whether there was a training issue at play here, the people that were doing the site surveys weren’t qualified or they were new to the job.”
The House and Senate have each launched investigations across committees, while the DHS Office of the Inspector General announced Wednesday afternoon a review of its countersniper team that was on site at the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday when a gunman opened fire.
The investigation will reveal where there was a breakdown, particularly if it occurred among federal Secret Service agents, local police who were responsible for securing the perimeter, or in exchanges between the two agencies, according to Wolf.
“At the end of the day, the accountability is with the Secret Service,” Wolf said. “They’re there to protect the president and when someone’s able to get a shot off and do what they did.”
Wolf doubted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle will “survive” the investigations given that Republicans have already called for her ouster and introduced legislation to defund her salary if she refuses to leave.
“It’s her agency’s job to protect the president. When you don’t do that, that’s a failure,” Wolf said.
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DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, already impeached by the House for the southern border crisis, hasn’t faced as much immediate blowback as Cheatle, though Wolf said he believes the secretary should have resigned a long time ago for immigration issues. However, “the buck stops with the Secret Service director. She is in charge of presidential protection. That’s your job.”
Wolf hoped that the investigations shed light on the Trump-aligned America First Legal’s claims that the campaign had asked for additional security but that the DHS and Secret Service denied that request.