Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik July 15, 2024

The US Secret Service has come under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent the attempted killing of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Former President and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump was injured at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13. The suspected gunman has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old Bethel Park resident

“I don’t believe that he [Crooks] was a professional sniper, because for a professional sniper, 100 or 110 meters [the distance from the roof where the shot was taken to Trump] is not a [large] distance,” Sergei Goncharov, president of the Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terror Unit and member of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) advisory council, told Sputnik.

“He hit Trump’s ear and is now confirmed to have killed two people. That is, at least, it seems to me that this criminal was not a professional, and he acted precisely from his own considerations, which will probably now be sorted out and discussed all over the world,” the veteran suggested.

Trump was about 135 meters from the rooftop where the culprit was found dead, NBC News found, based on an analysis of Google Earth images.

The shooter reportedly used an AR-15 rifle which is mostly used in competitions and for hunting.

According to open sources, the effective range of a standard AR-15 is up to 600 yards (548 m) whereas novices could demonstrate good performances and hit targets at a distance of 200 yards (182 m). A professional sniper armed with a high-precision long-range rifle typically operates at ranges between 600 and 1,200 meters.

The Secret Service’s conduct has been questioned by US law enforcement and intelligence experts amid reports that an eyewitness frantically drew the attention of the police to a person crawling onto a rooftop with a rifle during the rally.

Speaking to the BBC, the witness described what appeared to be indifference and a lax attitude to a potential threat both from the police and Secret Service as he and his friends were “pointing” at the alleged shooter for “two or three minutes.”

People Responsible for Trump’s Safety Dropped the Ball

It appears that the people responsible for Trump’s safety dropped the ball, Alexey Filatov, retired lieutenant colonel of the Russian Federal Security Service and veteran counterterrorism specialist, told Sputnik, explaining that the former president’s security was provided by three groups: his bodyguards, local police and the Secret Service.

According to the expert, it seems that there was no proper communication between the groups, Filatov pointed out, adding that law enforcement and security personnel for some reason also failed to secure all nearby rooftops in the vicinity.

“It would be safe to say that the security performed extremely poorly,” the counterterrorism specialist said. “You could say that this terrorist act or, shall we say, assassination attempt, was successful. Donald Trump’s life was saved by a miracle rather than by his security.”

He also expressed skepticism over the idea of some sort of conspiracy behind the Secret Service’s lapses, explaining that even elite US security agencies are staffed with “ordinary people”:

“There are some rather primitive people at certain positions there, who could have been negligent about their duties, not reacting after receiving a signal or not even reporting it,” Filatov remarked, adding that he used to communicate with US security services.

Responsibility Could Lie With Democratic Leadership

The overarching responsibility for the attempted assassination lies with the Democratic Party leadership and the Biden administration, according to Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the Center for European and International Studies at Russia’s Higher School of Economics and deputy director of research at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.

“The Democratic establishment… has been convincing American society over the last year and a half, at least, that Donald Trump’s return to power would mean an end to American democracy and transformation of the United States into a fascist dictatorship, and that Donald Trump constitutes the major threat to the United States at large,” Suslov told Sputnik.

“Many Trump opponents have become radicalized, more radicalized. And the [possible] result is violence and the attempted assassination,” the pundit continued. “This is dangerous because it will have long-term consequences for the United States. So this radicalization, in general, will not fade away. It might result in violence after elections in the United States, no matter how they turn out.”

Suslov believes that the Secret Service’s failure to protect the Republican frontrunner stems from the US establishment’s hostility towards Trump, whose election odds are continuing to rise. He doesn’t rule out that the special services’ negligence to the emerging threat was deliberate.

“The deep state, the intelligence community, and the special services in the United States are, of course, not interested in Trump’s presidential victory,” he said. “They consider a second Trump administration… as a threat to themselves. And since Biden is definitely losing, and since the Democratic Party is disorganized, and there is an internal struggle and chaos within the Democratic camp… Trump’s electoral chances are very, very high and continue to grow.”

After the assassination attempt, Trump’s electoral chances are likely to skyrocket whereas Biden’s chances will decrease even more because more Americans will think that the former president is the victim of Team Biden’s political persecution, Suslov concluded.

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