How Have These Not Been Banned From Trump Rallies Already?

Among the more unsatisfying moments of the four-hour-long questioning of the Secret Service and FBI about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump were the duh questions they either wouldn't or couldn't answer for the public. The question about rangefinders, however, might tell you all you need to know about the sense of urgency felt by the Secret Service following their catastrophic failures that ended in Donald Trump getting shot, one man being murdered, and two others critically wounded. Get ready.

We found out in Tuesday's testimony that the Secret Service turned down a local law enforcement offer to provide a drone for overwatch. Why would that be? The shoulder-shrug answer was as vague and unsatisfactory as the "answer" for why local law enforcement and the Secret Service couldn't talk to each other. Or, try this one on for size: Secret Service teams were too busy texting information back and forth—taking their eyes off of the crowd—instead of just picking up the phone or radio and calling the comms guys to relay intelligence.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said, "It was great there was a text chain, but that communication needs to go over the net. It needs to go over a radio channel so that everyone has situational awareness." He added, "I want people using the radio." But, of course, there were no comms between the locals and the feds. Another dumb and catastrophic mistake.

We still don't have a definitive answer about why none of the teams of local law enforcement tasked with being on the roof of the AGR building had been called off. During Tuesday's testimony, Rowe said the personnel were off looking around for the suspicious character who had been spotted carrying a rangefinder. That suspicious character turned out to be the murderous 20-year-old Thomas Crooks. We found out through a more thorough timeline that there were at least 30 seconds between law enforcement seeing Crooks with his rifle and when he started firing. He got off eight shots before the Secret Service sharpshooter took him out. Eight shots. The FBI is still studying where all the shots went.

Rowe said they were watching multiple suspicious characters that day.

Suspicious characters, however, don't rise to the level of immediate threats—even when they're spotted with golf rangefinders. Why would someone need a laser rangefinder at a Trump event? Was Crooks testing the tolerance of the Secret Service?

Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee was gobsmacked.

Secret Service let Trump take the stage 17 minutes after receiving multiple reports of a “suspicious person” with a rangefinder.

They didn’t remove him from the stage after local law enforcement realized Crooks had a gun—perhaps because they didn’t have an open channel of…
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) July 30, 2024

Crooks was allowed to take it through the magnetometers and then leave the perimeter to station himself on the unwatched roof that had been abandoned by teams ordered to leave their posts to search for him, we're told.

Rowe testified that these catastrophic mistakes were a "failure of imagination" and a "failure to challenge our assumptions."

And we know where that starts. How's this for failure of imagination and assumptions: the Secret Service has yet to ban rangefinders from events. No, really.

We discovered that tidbit during questioning by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.

Cotton: Mr. Rowe we found out that the shooter had on him a golf range finder. Was that not on the list of prohibited items?
Rowe: Currently it is not on the list of prohibited items but we're going to make that change, Senator.

Here's lil' ol' me asking, why have you not done this already? Secret Service Acting Director 'It's a Process, Senator' Rowe could, with a pen and a phone, make that change.

Cotton continued:

Cotton: John Kennedy can't get into the LSU football game with a flask. It just seems common sense that you don't need a rangefinder at an event like this. And it seems that it was just a lack of common sense being exercised. Are officers not empowered on the front line to use common sense to say if a guy has a laser rangefinder, he should be detained to at least stop and asked why he's carrying it around?
If you have a building like this that's not secured 150 meters away, someone, even the front-line lowest-level most junior officer should be able to kind of like send up the red flag immediately and say we need to halt everything right now until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

Rowe assured Cotton that they have common sense and are empowered to use it.