Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) stated in an interview this week that a female Secret Service agent, who was responsible for former President Donald Trump’s protection during his July trip to Butler, Pennsylvania, where a would-be assassin attempted to kill him, had failed key training exams upon joining the agency.
Hawley also alleged that the Biden-Harris DHS was pressuring the Secret Service not to cooperate with the investigation, which he called “outrageous.” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also confirmed this week that DHS was not complying.
“The whole thing, she was in charge of the whole works, from the time the president landed to the time he went to Butler, it’s just totally inexplicable,” Hawley said. “One other thing, I’m told by people who are close to and have knowledge of the Secret Service’s own internal investigation that the Department of Homeland Security is leaning on the Secret Service not to comply with document requests to Congress.”
Hawley made these remarks during a Fox News interview on Thursday evening as Congress continues to investigate the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security’s failure to protect the president on that day.
NEW @SecretService BOMBSHELL: Sen Josh Hawley says the Lead Secret Service advance agent was a woman from Pittsburgh's field office. She FAILED a key exam, but disgraced former director Kim Cheatle promoted her anyway. Now Homeland Security is telling the Secret Service to cover… pic.twitter.com/iYG6Elw4Y7
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) September 13, 2024
“What I’m learning now is that the lead advance agent that day in Pennsylvania — this is the agent that was in charge of Trump’s entire trip in Pennsylvania — that this agent actually failed one or more of her training exams when she first joined the Secret Service,” Hawley said. “The pattern that is emerging here from whistleblowers who come forward to me now over and over again is that the Trump rally was undermanned, it was understaffed, they did not have people who had experience on it.”
Hawley criticized the advance agent for failing “one or more of her training exams” and being known as a subpar agent. He questioned why she was assigned to manage the entire trip, given her reputation for incompetence.