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John:
Good afternoon from Capitol Hill.
Steve Bannon is fond of saying “There are decades when nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen.” In the last three weeks, we’ve witnessed the true state of President Biden’s cognitive state at the presidential debate, an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, Senator JD Vance being named Trump’s running mate, and Trump accepting the Republican nomination for president.
Just before 2pm Sunday, we added another political earthquake to the mix: President Biden announced, via a post on X/Twitter, that he would not be seeking re-election but would be serving out the remainder of his term. In a separate statement posted roughly 20 minutes later, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. She will still have to secure that nomination at the Democratic convention next month.
As Christopher Caldwell put it recently, Biden left a “farewell tweet on the voting public’s refrigerator door.” There was no public appearance or statement from President Biden to accompany this announcement. At the time of this writing, he has not been seen in public for several days – though this morning, the White House announced that the president would address the nation on Wednesday evening. While the president does have COVID, his doctor issued a statement on Monday giving him a nearly clean bill of health.
Notably, the president’s statement did not address why he’s stepping down – just that he believed it was in “the best interest of my party and the country” for him to stand down. We are left to draw our own obvious conclusions, which is that Biden is no longer cognitively or physically up to the task. This has led conservatives to ask the next obvious question: if he’s unable to manage re-election, how can he manage the demands of governing the country through next January?
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle Appears Before Congress
Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle appeared on Monday before the House Oversight Committee, where she raised bipartisan ire for her lack of candor and refusal to answer direct questions about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Director Cheatle acknowledged that the event represented the agency’s “most significant operational failure in decades” but made clear yesterday that she had no plans to resign her post, nor has anyone on her staff been fired or disciplined. This morning, however, she announced her resignation.
The lack of accountability is all the more appalling as video evidence continues to come out showing rally attendees pointing out Thomas Matthew Crooks to police as he crawled across the roof armed with a rifle, and as we learn that Secret Service spotted the gunman a full 20 minutes before he fired the first shot. According to Cheatle, any and all accountability will rest on the agency’s final report investigating the incident. That report will be presented in – wait for it – 60 days.
According to the New York Times, these are some of the questions Cheatle declined to answer, citing the agency’s ongoing investigation:
- Why did the Secret Service not station an agent on the warehouse roof that the gunman used as a sniper’s perch?
- How many Secret Service agents were assigned to protect President Trump in Butler, Pa.?
- Who decided that the warehouse roof should be outside the Secret Service’s security perimeter for Mr. Trump’s rally?
- Why did the Secret Service allow former President Trump to take the stage, despite people in the crowd pointing out a gunman on the warehouse roof?
- How did Mr. Crooks get his rifle up onto the warehouse roof?
Cheatle’s stonewalling bordered on the absurd. When asked a question by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene regarding the timeline of the shooting, Cheatle stated she – as head of the Secret Service! – couldn’t answer the question because she had only “a timeline that does not have specifics.” The answer prompted audible laughter from committee members and staff.
There remains much more to this story. Over the weekend, news broke that despite its earlier denials, the Secret Service had, in fact, rebuffed requests for additional resources for Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to the assassination attempt.
Sen. Josh Hawley has announced that Secret Service whistleblowers have told him that most of the staff working the Trump rally last weekend weren’t even Secret Service, and that law enforcement personnel stationed to the roof where the gunman fired abandoned their posts due to the heat.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he will establish a bipartisan task force with subpoena authority to further investigate last week’s assassination attempt.
The Latest From Around The Conservative Movement
One More Thing…
Become a CPI fellow! Applications for our Magnus, Intrepidus, and Veritas fellowships open on August 1.
Sincerely,
Rachel Bovard
Vice President of Programs
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