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Okay, I'd really like TheMotte to talk me down from crazy-town and conspiracy-ville.
Exhibit A: Secret Service was warned of an Iranian (or Iran-backed) assassination threat against Trump (Source)
Which means that the Saturday shooting represents a high-water mark in Trump's security detail.
Exhibit B: Secret Service snipers spotted Thomas Crooks in position on the roof 20 minutes before the assassination attempt. (Source) Per the article's timeline:
Which means the Secret Service knew there was an active threat, 10 minutes before they allowed Trump to take the stage. This is separate from the 2-minute 'crowd pointing at guy with gun on roof' warning where the Secret Service failed to move Trump off the stage.
Exhibit C: Secret Service has stated that 'local police' were supposed to be responsible for covering the American Glass Research (AGR) building. However, both the county (Source) and city police (Source) have denied that they were so assigned.
Apparently, there were local police -- including snipers -- inside an adjacent or conjoined building in the complex (Source), but no one's been identified as responsible for the building itself or the roof itself. I've heard unsourced rumors that a SWAT team was supposed to be assigned to the specific roof the shooter used, but instead congregated within the building due to the heat (Source) but there's been no confirmation.
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I know my Hanlon's Razor:
However, at this point I'm gaining an appreciation for Grey's Law:
If the wildest conspiracy theories and worst nightmares were true, if US Secret Service did deliberately set out to create a hole in Trump's security to allow him to be assassinated... what would they have done differently? How much more could the USSS have f***ed up their protection before we'd be comfortable drawing a line between 'smoke' and 'fire'?
And if Hanlon's Razor does bears out and it was in fact merely incompetence... then we apparently live in a world where this is the best the US Secret Service can do while on high alert, actively preparing to defend their protectee against an Iranian-backed assassination attempt. Which leads me to wonder, how vulnerable are the rest of US leadership to enemy agents?
If there are this many layers of "they dropped you on your head as a baby, didn't they?" when the Secret Service has direct warning of a major threat, what the hell kind of protection does the President have, or the Vice-President, or any of the other notable names with a USSS detail?
If the US Secret Service was 'security theater' in the same vein as the TSA, what happens when the curtain is pulled back and everyone sees that the Wizard of Oz is just a sad little man in a booth? Should we expect to see more -- and more successful -- assassination attempts with actual muscle behind them in the near future?
And why in the name of all that is holy does Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle still have a job?!
Trump does way more outdoors events, and events in general, than the average President-tier politician. Having to protect Trump, who both constantly does outdoor rallies and has fewer resources assigned to him than an actual President would, yet is also is one of the most hated US politicians of all time, is probably just really tough for the Secret Service. I can't think of any Presidential candidate or President other than Trump in recent memory who keeps traveling around the country constantly giving outdoor speeches. I think it's plausible that the Secret Service is just out of their depth, they are set up to guard an Obama or Biden type who mostly stays in DC or gives speeches at indoors venues, but they are not set up to effectively guard a Trump.
They have unlimited funding and a license to do whatever they want like close down all the roads, jam cell phones, etc.
Tough tiddies Trump is difficult to guard. Figure it out.
Their funding is, ah, not unlimited.
They get around $3B a year, which is about the same as the military if New Zealand.
JUST for presidential/former president protection their budget is about a billion and a half dollars.
Yes that’s not literally unlimited, but it is functionally unlimited, and is also more than they even asked for, which would seem to suggest that it may be literally unlimited as well.
That should be more than adequate to keep a kid from crawling up on top of a roof 130 yards from Trump and shooting at him.
https://rollcall.com/2024/07/14/amid-tense-election-secret-service-working-with-already-boosted-budget/
They also handle anti-counterfeiting operations (in fact that was their original purpose) but I'm not sure how much of the budget goes to that.
Edit: Just checked and the "Protective Operations" budget is about $1 billion
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/U.S.%20Secret%20Service_Remediated.pdf
So for all practical intents and purposes, given the small number of people the USSS has to protect (all current and former presidents, the VP, parts of their families, current candidates polling over x%, did I miss any?) there's no excuse for them to be spread so thin. Incompetence and administrative bloat are the only reasonable sounding explanations (other than more conspiratorial angles) I can think of at the moment.
Edit 2: So the Secret Service's budget for protective services is roughly the same as the entire military budget of Latvia, a NATO member with a population of about 2 million doing a massive military build up in response to Russia invading Ukraine.
I don't think the problem is (mostly) money, it's that the job is ass/boring and morale is bad. Which I think is party uncontrollable, but still points to a major leadership failure I think. It looks like (ironically) House Republicans gave them more money in 2021 than they asked for, they made a plan to hire more people, and then... just didn't. At least from what I just now read.
This survey report is pretty damning. USSS ranked 413 out of 459 sub-agencies in satisfaction. To be fair, they've been near the bad end for a long time -- 2016 they were rated the absolute worst of any, bottoming out at a 33.8% "engagement and satisfaction" score, though despite their poor ranking that improved to 57.7% as of last year despite their poor relative placement. They were last in the top half of subagencies in 2005 (first year of data), 2007, and 2011 only. So I don't think the USSS problems are recent, but they clearly are severe. Pay also was bottom quartile at 57.7% satisfaction, so one does indeed wonder where the money went after all.
Worth also noting that this most recent score broke down supervisors (80.1%, still ranked 361 only) vs senior leadership (satisfaction only 49.6%, ranked 406). Literally everything in the bottom 25%, then, but the leadership score still stands out.
I think this data supports the idea that leadership is horrible and should be replaced at the very least.
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Man, it’s good to be on top.
Or more accurately—to the be the one doing the protecting, rather than the one being protected.
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