Sen. Rand Paul: Secret Service Engaged in a 'Cultural Cover-Up' After Trump Assassination Attempt

We will likely never know what specifically motivated Donald Trump's would-be assassin in Butler, Pennsylvania, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on the one-year anniversary of that terrible day, but "what we do know is that...Corey Comperatore could have possibly been saved by having better security that day."

In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Sen. Paul said that there were a "cascade of errors" committed by the Secret Service on July 13, 2024, and in the preparations for Trump's rally in Butler.

It was just one error after another. When we talked to the people in charge of security, everybody pointed a finger at someone else. We said, 'Who was responsible for that roof, the roof where the assassin lay with a direct sight line?' Nobody wanted responsibility. Everybody said it was somebody else. There was plenty of time to take him off the stage. The suspicious person with the range finder who became the shooter, many times he was spotted by police with suspicion. That should have been enough to take the president off the stage. Even with him on the roof, there was about a three-minute period when he could have been taken from the stage. And yet, no one was fired.

He then made the point that even though everything turned out well for President Trump that day, still, someone was killed, and the agents who screwed up could eventually be in charge of the protective detail for another presidential candidate.

Where Were You?

Sen. Paul believes that if he had not followed up with the Secret Service recently to find out what actions had been taken to discipline the agents, that no action would have been taken. He'd been asking the agency for a year for information about what disciplinary actions had been taken and against which agents and had been stonewalled. So, in his position as Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, he sent the Secret Service a subpoena requesting details about any disciplinary action taken against those who'd failed to do their job in Butler, and voilá! Agents were disciplined.

I think it was a cultural cover-up for the agency. They did not want to assess blame.
. . .
[T]hey weren't going to discipline anybody until I subpoenaed and asked them what they had done. But, in the end, no one was fired. The supervisor who heard about the person on the roof, who did not tell the detail immediately to take the president off the stage -- there was a several-minute delay there -- he stayed in his job. He did retire recently, but stayed in his job. So, no, I think even the investigation by the Secret Service was inadequate. But that's why we need to have congressional oversight.

An investigation into organizational failures should never be conducted by the organization itself. This is a basic principle that too many in government dismiss.

So many of us want to know what motivated the would-be assassin to take that terrible action, and Sen. Paul believes that investigators don't have "a secret answer that they're not revealing to us":

And look, I have my doubts about government on many levels, but I think on this level, they've tried their best and I don't think there's a secret answer that they're not revealing to us. I think they just don't know. What we do know is the failures in security, and that the -- Corey Comperatore could have possibly been saved by having better security that day. And this boy was seen four hours before the shooting. He was seen again 45 minutes before. Three minutes before the shooting the crowd is chanting, man on a roof, man on a roof. 45 seconds to go as he's assembling his gun. 45 seconds is a long time. Nobody told them to take the president off the stage. Inexcusable, terrible security, but whoever is in charge should have been fired, and really should never be in charge of this type of, or have this type of responsibility again.

Watch Sen. Paul's full remarks below.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Every single day, here at RedState, we will stand up and FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT against the radical left and deliver the conservative reporting our readers deserve.

Help us continue to tell the truth about the Trump administration and its successes. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.