Richard Staropoli: What's Wrong With the Secret Service?

An ex-Secret Service agent explains what he thinks left Donald Trump vulnerable to two close-call assassination attempts within two months.

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Richard Staropoli: What's Wrong With the Secret Service?

HD Video Download

How well-protected is Donald Trump?

On July 13, Trump became the first U.S. president to be shot in more than 40 years, and the first to be shot during a campaign since 1912. Then, incredibly, the Secret Service stopped a second would-be assassin who was stationed with a rifle on the perimeter of Trump's golf course as the former president was one hole away: two unnervingly close calls in about two months. What's going on? 

Some Republican lawmakers say Trump is under-protected and accuse the Biden administration of politicizing the Secret Service to intentionally put the president in danger. Media reports say that Trump has made the Secret Service's job too difficult by insisting on golfing on short notice at unsecured locations. The Secret Service says it's understaffed.

Today's guest will give us an insider's view of how the Secret Service works and what might have gone wrong. Richard Staropoli served as a special agent in the Secret Service for 25 years, served briefly as the chief information officer for the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration, and is now the senior managing director for Rivada, a telecommunications and satellite internet company.

Sources referenced in the conversation:

• U.S. District Court Report on Pre-Trial Detention of Ryan Routh
• Sen. Ted Cruz suggests political agenda in Secret Service failures
• The Washington Post: Why Trump's golf course outings were of high concern for Secret Service
• Ryan Routh's criminal record
• AP News: 'Ticking time bomb': Those who raised suspicions about Trump suspect question if enough was done
• Edward Snowden: "Congress should get answers," regarding Routh
• July 30, 2024 Hearing on the PA assassination attempt
• Palm Beach County Sheriff Holds Press Conference
• DeSantis opens state-level investigation

Chapters:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:51 A veteran of the Secret Service reacts to the first assassination attempt
• 06:38 The lack of direct answers
• 12:35 How politicized is the DHS?
• 20:33 Why are these lapses happening right now?
• 25:57 The unique challenges of protecting Trump
• 29:51 Who decides how to allocate Secret Service resources?
• 39:17 The Secret Service is a bloated government agency
• 43:48 Incompetence, malice, or both?
• 54:07 The second attempt on Trump's life
• 01:03:07 DeSantis's state-level investigation
• 01:07:41 Alleged shooter Ryan Routh's background and connections
• 01:12:08 What are the needed reforms?
• 01:14:48 Final Question

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Stupid Government Tricks]

I wonder how much notice the SS had when Obama went golfing in Hawaii on such short notice that the venue had to evict a wedding party that had been scheduled and paid for long in advance.

Media reports say that Trump has made the Secret Service's job too difficult by insisting on golfing on short notice at unsecured locations.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

As always, that's (D)ifferent.

[Will Nonya]

All that proves is there are entitled pricks in both parties.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Can you imagine the media coverage of Trump did that? They would be screaming like Sarc does.

[Chumby]

Government employees.

[Don't look at me!]

Too many chicks on staff.

[Chumby]

Chunky Brewster hardest hit…actually, that was the innocent bystander that was murdered by the Act Blue donor who later took the sloped roof temperature challenge.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Yep, DEI.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

And that probably goes beyond whether or not applicants have front holes. DEI goals demand hiring all kinds of people with "diverse" abilities.

When will we see the first proud blind and deaf SS agent on the Trump detail?

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Democrats, being retarded idiots, are confused about ‘diverse abilities’. Instead of the X-Men, they end up with incompetent weaklings and cripples.

Professor X may have been in a wheelchair, but he could control people and read their minds.

[Chupacabra]

I expect they were trying to "protect our Democracy" by letting the gunman get a shot off first. Unfortunately for them and their bosses, he missed.

[Sometimes a Great Notion]

Lack of Columbian hookers?

Thanks, Obama

[Rick James]

What's Wrong With the Secret Service?

Two failed attempts is what's wrong with the Secret Service. You may read that how you will...

[mad.casual]

You may read that how you will…

Bob Alexander: I'm going to kill him.
Alan Reed: You can't kill a President.
Bob Alexander: He's not a President. He's an ordinary person. I can kill an ordinary person.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

And in ’Dave’ That was literally true. Although in Trump’s case, if there’s a third attempt, and it’s successful, that’s the line. If they kill Trump, then it’s time to overthrow them. Any illusion of democrat legitimacy will be gone.

Then the democrats, all of them, will just be ‘ordinary people’.

[Mother's Lament]

"What's Wrong With the Secret Service?"

Nothing. They did exactly as instructed. It's not their fault that Trump turned his head at the last millisecond.

[Social Justice is neither]

They do swim in the same waters as the FBI so this checks out.

[mad.casual]

Some Republican lawmakers say Trump is under-protected and accuse the Biden administration of politicizing the Secret Service to intentionally put the president in danger.

SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!!! LOL!

So, uh, Zach, in your world, the *p*resident isn’t a part of the Biden Administration?

Also, you owe me a coffee and a keyboard.

[Uncle Jay]

The Secret Service is fucked up as polio.
It's time to defund and disband it, and let the politicians hire private security teams...and they all can afford it too.

[Longtobefree]

"What's Wrong With the Secret Service?"

It is run by democrats.

Next question?

[Wally]

You misspelled Communists.

[Sevo, 5-30-24, embarrassment]

Manuscript missing.

[Liberty_Belle]

They haven't learned to stop using crisis actors and hire a professional.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""“What’s Wrong With the Secret Service?”""

Redacted.

[Vesicant]

Libbertarians concerned about an agency of the gubbermint not working? No calls to turn it over to Blackwater? And don't even try to tell me you're concerned about Trump's personal safety. Or is it that the Secret Service hasn't properly positioned him in the assassins' lines of sight?

[Bruce Hayden]

Actually, the first assassination attempt does look like a staffing issue. Most of those there that day tasked with protecting Trump apparently were not Secret Service, but DHS, with 2 hour video call training under their belts. The question then is why? Where were the usual Secret Service agents that day? Had they been pulled off Trump to protect Jill Biden, who had apparently made a last minute trip to the vicinity of where Trump was speaking?

[car-keynes]

Think, man! If Jill Biden moves, the Bidens's own secret service assignments move with her. They do not come out of a pool of agents already assigned to former president Trump.

Why would one guard pool lose its members for the sake of another pool? No, it's not going to happen for a cut & dried event such as a speech by a hopeful former president. More become added over time as more and more people find out who gives a speech locally. Isn't that right, special agent Secret?

[squarooticus]

Regardless of the merits of each side, by about the fifth time Cruz interrupted me I would have told him to go eat a dick. Seriously, what an asshole. If you're not going to let the guy finish, then clearly you already know what he's going to say, so just say it yourself and save him the trouble of trying to respond over your blather. Asshole.

[car-keynes]

Conspiracy theory: the second assassin was a patsy. He had committed some sort of offense that was perhaps prosecutable in theory that may had landed him in a foreign prison. But instead, he gets a visit from a self-destructing message that says if he participates in an act that looks like he only planned to shoot the former president but did not in fact pull the trigger, he'd be allowed to live (meaning police won't kill him), he'd get a fair American trial, and he'd end up in an American prison, instead.

The world is not full of klutz assassins. Media scarcely tells stories about almost-killers who became famous for not killing nor wounding anyone.. Those real murders occur at their given frequency, year after year, however statistics go.

Or maybe he was the sort of fellow who planted the bombs on January 6th? He did have a sort of federal orientation all too clear by now, didn't he? Possibly every single act we see him participate in, if genuine photos, was the result of bargaining for crimes that could had possibly been punished but were instead deferred so he could be a rabbit in someone's hat?

What sort of crimes could be so ambiguous or iffy that they could be deferred in favor of a deal to receive a lesser punishment?

American voters and Americans in general loathe the assassination machine. It's not popular, and its use in the past does not seem to be popular. In fact, it goes against the rule of law, whether you point to the Constitution or to any state law. Amendments five and fourteen demonstrate the fact, that no person subject to rule of law may be deprived of life nor of liberty without due process of law. The second assassin did not pull the trigger around the former president, so there he lives. The perfect foil to assassination? Self-control!

The miracle that anyone has been looking for may be self-control, not that it would work against a Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers of film infamy. But versus law enforcement? Self-control really can mean a fair trial of due process.