Senior leadership within the Secret Service blocked multiple auditors from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General ( OIG ) from probing former President Donald Trump’s security detail, according to a new whistleblower report.
On Wednesday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. , sent a notice to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe outlining the new expenses of wrongdoing within the company.
“A Secret Service whistleblower has alleged to my office that Secret Service headquarters blocked several auditors from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General ( OIG ) from accessing recent Trump campaign events, ” Hawley wrote. “The journalist alleges that the Secret Service denied entry to DHS auditors because the former leader is not receiving the full amount of protecting assets for all of his events, and Secret Service management wants to vague or just conceal this fact. ”
According to the journalist, Hawley added, “Secret Service authority is permitting OIG accountants only at select occasions — such as a current rally in North Carolina— where President Trump receives the full amount of safe assets, to create the impression he is receiving this degree of protection at all times, when in reality he is not. ”
The latest whistleblower disclosure comes two days after Hawley sent another notice to Rowe charging the company with denying Trump “sufficient resources ” for a campaign rally in Wisconsin. The failure to provide the former president with entire safety forced Republicans to withdraw the Badger State function.
“Other reporters with expertise of Secret Service planning techniques allege that failure to provide safety for a big public event is very unusual and that a sitting president would never be denied solutions in this way, ” Hawley wrote in September.
The letter arrived just days after Trump survived a second assassination attempt when a man lined up a scoped “AK-47-style rifle ” within just 300 to 500 yards of where the former president was golfing. Despite narrowly surviving a bullet to the face in Pennsylvania this summer, Trump’s security detail was still short of what would be provided to a sitting president.
In August, Hawley sent a letter to the Secret Service demanding answers about a whistleblower who told the senator requests from Trump’s security detail for additional resources were denied.
“One whistleblower with knowledge of Secret Service planning for former President Trump’s trip to Butler, Pennsylvania, alleges 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, ” Hawley wrote. “According to the allegations, officials within this office, 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. ”
Trump triumphantly returned to Butler last weekend to hold a rally at the same fairgrounds where a 20-year-old would-be assassin blew off part of the former president ’s ear.
“For 16 harrowing seconds during the gunfire, time stopped as this vicious monster unleashed pure evil from his sniper’s perch, not so far away, ” Trump told the crowd. “ But by the hand of providence and the grace of God, that villain did not succeed in his goal. ”