Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) released another whistleblower statement that alleges several people on Donald Trump’s security team during the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania took a 2-hour webinar before the event.
“Whistleblower allegations to my office report that the only training received by many [Homeland Security Investigations] HSI agents reassigned to work protective details is a single two-hour webinar on Microsoft Teams featuring pre-recorded videos,” Hawley wrote. “The whistleblower alleges these videos were not substantive and their playback was frequently riddled with technical mishaps, leaving the HSI agents ill-prepared for the protective mission to which they were newly assigned.”
The whistleblower told Hawley’s office: “Imagine 1,000 people logging onto Microsoft Teams at the same time after being informed at the last minute that everyone needed to login individually. Once it got rolling, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio working on the prerecorded videos (which I’m told are the same videos as last year). All told, they restarted the videos approximately six times….The content was not helpful.”
Hawley noted that other whistleblower allegations suggest HSI agents were “pulled off child exploitation cases in order to serve on protective details for which they wre unprepared.”
Hawley explained the gravity of the allegations to Fox News’ Jesse Watters, saying, “So think about this: the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, is sent out on stage, most of the people there aren’t trained, they’re not qualified, they only got a webinar training, and even that didn’t work.”
“It is absolutely outrageous.”
