Dan Bongino under consideration to lead Secret Service: report
“Let me be perfectly clear: the [first] assassination attempt on President Trump was a catastrophic failure on behalf of the United States Secret Service.”
Former Fox News host Dan Bongino is rumored to be under consideration as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the United States Secret Service (USSS). Bongino is a former USSS agent and a severe critic of the service as it exists in the wake of two failed assassination attempts on Trump’s life. Discussion of the possible pick has largely been limited to social media, with YouTuber Benny Johnson reporting it along with several posts on X. Forbes has also noted that Trump is reportedly trying to decide between Bongino and Sean Curran.
Bongino has previously written, “Let me be perfectly clear: the [first] assassination attempt on President Trump was a catastrophic failure on behalf of the United States Secret Service.” Former USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after a Congressional grilling and bi-partisan demands that she either quit or be fired after the first attempted assassination attempt and the revelations of gross incompetence from her agency.
The US Senate report on that July 13 incident revealed shocking security failures by the USSS including the fact that agents knew that assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was on the building for 27 minutes as he prepared to shoot and kill Trump. Crooks’ bullets killed one man and injured others. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) cited the USSS for its “lack of cooperation” during the Senate investigation.
The USSS’ performance was not much better during the second assassination attempt on Sept. 15 when Trump was the target of would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old Democratic activist. Routh had been camping out on the perimeter of the West Palm Beach golf course for 12 hours ahead of time but went unnoticed by the USSS until they saw the barrel of a gun poking through the chain-link fence of the course’s perimeter.
Acting USSS Director Ronald Rowe went to West Palm Beach after Routh’s arrest, later admitting that the USSS had not bothered to search the perimeter of the golf course because a golf game was not on Trump’s “official schedule.”