Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has demanded Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas provide the American people with answers concerning troubling allegations raised by whistleblowers about the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday.
Hawley released a statement on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday, claiming that whistleblowers had exposed the Department of Homeland Security for failing to protect the former president. He tweeted, “Whistleblowers tell me that MOST of Trump’s security detail working the event last Saturday were not even Secret Service. DHS assigned unprepared and inexperienced personnel.”
Alongside his statement on social media, Hawley shared a copy of a letter he sent on Friday to Mayorkas requesting additional information regarding the security failures that allowed a would-be assassin to shoot Trump. The Missouri senator described the incident as a “stunning failure” by the Department of Homeland Security and explained that whistleblowers with “direct knowledge” of the assassination attempt had come forward with additional information.
“According to the allegations, the July 13 rally was considered to be a ‘loose’ security event. For example, detection canines were not used to monitor entry and detect threats in the usual manner. Individuals without proper designations were able to gain access to backstage areas,” Hawley wrote. “Department personnel did not appropriately police the security buffer around the podium and were also not stationed at regular intervals around the event’s security perimeter.”
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In his letter, Hawley pointed to the allegations suggesting the “majority of DHS officials were not in fact USSS agents” but were instead Homeland Security Investigations agents, warning that it was “especially concerning given that HSI agents were unfamiliar with standard protocols typically used at these types of events, according to the allegations.”
The Missouri senator said that as a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, he would continue investigating the department’s “role in the staggering security failures” at Saturday’s rally.
“Unfortunately, your department has not been appropriately forthcoming with Members of Congress-abruptly ending the only call with USSS before most senators could even ask a question,” Hawley added. “This is completely unacceptable and contrary to the public’s interest in transparency.”
Hawley told Mayorkas that senators learned more information about Saturday’s attack from whistleblowers than they learned from officials with the Department of Homeland Security and urged the secretary to answer questions regarding whether there were gaps in the security perimeter, what percentage of the security agents were not from the Secret Service, whether agents were properly stationed at the event, and whether proper protocols were followed.
