Whistleblowers are blowing the lid off some shocking claims about the security—or lack thereof—surrounding former President Donald Trump. According to multiple sources, federal agents who were assigned to Trump’s protective detail were “egregiously under-prepared,” with some reportedly receiving a mere two hours of online training. That’s right—two hours on Zoom or Teams, and suddenly they’re tasked with protecting a former president. What could possibly go wrong?
On Tuesday, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to sound the alarm, stating that Homeland Security personnel were hastily thrown onto Trump’s security team for his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The situation became all the more alarming when that rally turned into an almost-assassination attempt. According to Hawley, the agents weren’t just under-trained—they were nearly set up to fail.
Speaking to Fox News, Hawley didn’t mince words: “Just think about it—a former president of the United States is sent on stage, and the people supposed to protect him are mostly untrained, unqualified. They got a two-hour webinar, and even that didn’t work right.” He followed up his public comments with a letter to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, highlighting the allegations and demanding answers about how Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents, who were paired with the Secret Service, were so under-prepared for their roles.
Hawley’s letter didn’t hold back, pointing out that the whistleblowers’ claims suggest a significant number of personnel tasked with protecting Trump were far from ready to handle such a critical responsibility. “When HSI agents partner with the Secret Service, they should receive proper training. These allegations indicate that this isn’t happening,” Hawley wrote. According to the whistleblower, the only training most of these agents got was a two-hour Microsoft Teams webinar featuring outdated, pre-recorded videos. Yeah, because nothing says “ready for action” like a boring webinar.
And, of course, the story gets even worse. Apparently, the online training itself was a disaster. “Imagine 1,000 people trying to log onto Microsoft Teams at the last minute, only to discover that the Secret Service instructor couldn’t even get the audio to work,” one whistleblower told Hawley. The videos were restarted six times, and in the end, they were about as useful as a chocolate teapot. “The content was not helpful,” the whistleblower noted—surprise, surprise.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Hawley also revealed that these HSI agents were pulled off important assignments, such as child exploitation cases, to join a protective detail for which they were woefully unprepared. Oh, and let’s not forget, this all comes after the July 13 rally, where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks made an assassination attempt on Trump by shooting him in the ear. According to the whistleblower, since that attack, “Nothing new, nothing improved.”
Hawley is now demanding answers from Rowe, specifically about how many HSI agents were on duty at the rally and how many of them were stuck with nothing but that botched webinar for training. Meanwhile, the mainstream media seems to be turning a blind eye to these revelations, but lawmakers like Hawley are keeping the pressure on, investigating the Secret Service’s handling of the entire debacle. If these claims are true, it’s not just embarrassing—it’s dangerous.
The agents assigned to President Trump in Butler PA were pulled off child exploitation cases and thrown onto Trump’s protective detail with nothing more than a 2hr online training. And we know this ONLY because of brave whistleblowers pic.twitter.com/m8CY5eqmUl
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 4, 2024
