More whistleblowers have come forward to Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) office, claiming that the Secret Service turned down an offer from local law enforcement to use drones during Donald Trump’s July 13 rally.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Hawley wrote that FBI Director Christopher Wray “confirmed that the shooter was operating the drone approximately two hours before President Trump took the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
“This raises an obvious question: why was the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) not using its own drones?” the senator asked.
He wrote that one whistleblower said that the Secret Service “repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally.”
“This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site,” Hawley noted. “Secret Service said no. The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting took place, USSS changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.”
The drones offered to USSS were not only able to “identify active shooters,” he wrote, “but also to help neutralize them.”
Hawley then called Mayorkas to testify next week about the “staggering” security failures.
A whistleblower recently informed Hawley’s office that the Secret Service abandoned the site where the shooter was later located due to “hot weather.”
Heat concerns “prompted law enforcement to forego patrolling Building 6 and instead to station security personnel inside the building,” the whistleblower alleged.
