A new whistleblower allegation suggests the U.S. Secret Service “encouraged” agents not to request additional security for Donald Trump’s July 13 rally.
According to the letter released by Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) office, “One whistleblower with knowledge of Secret Service planning for former President Trump’s trip to Butler, Pennsylvania alleges that officials at Secret Service headquarters encouraged agents in charge of the trip not to request any additional security assets in its formal manpower request— effectively denying these assets through informal means.”
“Yet you have repeatedly suggested that no security assets had been denied for the Butler event. You must explain this apparent contradiction immediately,” Hawley wrote.
Officials within the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations-Manpower “preemptively informed the Pittsburgh field office that the Butler rally was not going to receive additional security resources because Trump is a former president and not the incumbent President or Vice President.”
“The manpower request did not include extra security resources because agents on the ground were told not to ask for them in the first place,” the letter reads.
Hawley told Acting U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Director Ronald Rowe in a previous letter that a whistleblower alleged Rowe “personally directed significant cuts to the Secret Service Counter Surveillance Division (CSD).”
According to the whistleblower, Rowe reduced the CSD’s manpower by “twenty percent.”
“You did not mention this in your Senate testimony when asked directly to explain manpower reductions,” Hawley wrote.
“The whistleblower also alleges retaliation against those within the Secret Service who expressed concern about the security at President Trump’s events,” the senator continued.
