Whistleblower: Inexperienced DHS Agents Trained With 2-Hour Webinar Before Trump Shooting

Written by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Tuesday revealed whistleblower allegations about the lack of training of DHS Homeland Security Investigations agents assigned to surveil Donald Trump at the deadly July 13 demonstration in Butler, Pennsylvania.

According to Hawley, A whistleblower told him that the only training many HSI agents received was a single two-hour webinar on Microsoft Teams, with pre-recorded videos.

“The whistleblower alleged that these videos were lacking in substance and their delivery was often riddled with technical missteps, leaving HSI agents ill-prepared for the protective mission to which they had recently been assigned,” Hawley said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday.

🚨🚨 NEW whistleblower tells me most of the agents at the Trump rally the day of the assassination attempt were Homeland Security, NOT Secret Service — and the only training they got was a 2-hour online “webinar”! Outrageous photo.twitter.com/iwNwjN2lfZ

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) September 4, 2024

“To quote the whistleblower directly: ‘Imagine 1,000 people logging into Microsoft Teams simultaneously, after being told at the last minute that everyone had to log in individually. Once it got going, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio from the pre-recorded videos to work (which I believe are the same videos as last year). All in all they restarted the videos about six times… The content was not helpful,’ said Hawley.

What’s worse, the senator added, is the fact that DHS failed to change its training methods after the July 13 assassination attempt.

Finally, Hawley noted that some HSI agents were pulled from child sexual exploitation cases to serve as security for Trump.

Hawley asked Mayorkas a number of questions about the matter, including the number of HSI agents present at Trump’s July 13 rally, the number of agents who received webinar training, and the number of agents who were reassigned due to child exploitation cases.

It was Hawley’s office that revealed on July 19 that most of Trump’s security detail were reportedly not actual Secret Service agents, but the HSI agents discussed above.

“This is particularly concerning because HSI agents were not familiar with the standard protocols typically used at these types of events, the allegations say.Hawley noted in July.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.