Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
CRABTREE (00:03):
Members of Congress have con,
especially in the Democratic side, like to throw
money at the problem and say, if only we hadinfinite resources to help the Secret Service do
its job, instead of a completely wholesalerevamp, overhaul with the top being locked off
of the secret serve of the leadership we need,it needs systematic change. And to throw out a
(00:30):
lot of the cultural problems, you need to removethe top leadership of the agency. And it seems
like that message is finally getting to membersof Congress On the Democratic side,
BLUMENTHAL (00:47):
I am reaching the point of total
outrage because the response from the Department
of Homeland Security has been totally lacking.In fact, I think it's tantamount to stonewalling
in many respects. If necessary, I'll certainlysupport a subpoena.
PROFT (01:06):
Welcome to another episode of
Counterculture, the show that stands at the
intersection of reason and faith in the battleagainst sentimentality. When Senator Dick stolen
Valor Blumenthal is squawking about a governmentagency's competency in protecting Donald Trump
and transparency in delineating its failure todo so. You know, political necessity demands it.
(01:28):
The problems for Paul's like Blumenthal is notthe absence of accountability from the
administrative state, but the absence of theappearance of accountability. The latter
provides the cover for the beltway creatures torun their various grifts and grabs without much
static. The lack of cover creates politicalexposure. This is the DC dynamic that JD Vance
(01:49):
has been speaking about as he did again thisweek with Tucker Carlson.
VANCE (01:53):
You hear all this talk about threats to
democracy, right? And the biggest threat to
democracy in this country is not like DonaldTrump using legal maneuvers to challenge the
2020 election. The biggest threat to democracyis that the bureaucracy in Washington DC is
fundamentally misaligned with at least half thecountry, right? Yes. So what I I, I worry less
about is like, do, are they gonna let Trump win?Well, it's not gonna be easy, but I actually do
(02:17):
sitting here right now, maybe I'm wrong, but Ido feel very confident that Trump's gonna be
elected president. That he will be president. Ithink the real fight is gonna be when he becomes
president and he tries to do things, they'regonna take 'em down and try to take 'em down in
a very big way. And that's where the real fightis gonna be.
PROFT (02:34):
Yes, the assassination attempts on Trump
put the Secret Service and the FBI in the
spotlight. But aren't these also stories thatspeak to the sort of culture? Lord Acton warned
about inside the federal government writ largeto explore these questions and to explore these
events, I should say. And associated questionswe're joined by on this episode of
Counterculture by RealClearPolitics dot com'spolitical correspondence. Susan Crabtree
(02:56):
Crabtree has also worked for media outlets,including the Washington Free Beacon, the
Washington Examiner and The Hill. And no one hasdone better expository reporting on the Trump
assassination attempts over the last two monthsthat Susan Crabtree. So we're very pleased to
have her. Susan, welcome. Thank you so much.Thanks
CRABTREE (03:13):
So much for having me and your
devotion and attention to this serious, serious
issue that we need to solve.
PROFT (03:20):
So help us explain the Richard Blumenthal
complaints. Public complaints about Department
of Homeland Security is very interesting for a,you know, a pretty partisan democrat like him in
the Senate to break ranks and, and multipletimes now this week openly criticize DHS for
non-compliance with their inquiry. How, how arewe to understand that?
CRABTREE (03:43):
Well, I think that it shows it's, it
was an explosive moment for me, a revelatory
moment for me because it shows that they'refinally getting it. That members of Congress
have, especially in the Democratic side, like tothrow money at the problem and say, if only we
had infinite resources to help the SecretService do its job, instead of a completely
(04:06):
wholesale revamp, overhaul with the top beinglopped off of the secret service of the
leadership we need, it needs systematic change.And to throw out a lot of the cultural problems,
you need to remove the top leadership of theagency. And it seems like that message is
(04:27):
finally getting to members of Congress on thedemocratic side. And there is it, it's already
resonating among Republicans, but it now it's,it's encouraging to see that they're shocked at
what they found because I've been reporting on,I've been reporting on the Secret Service for 12
years, and it's not shocking to me because ifyou know anything about the culture there,
(04:52):
people have been screaming from the mountaintopsabout this for y for years and years and years.
There's been Blue Ribbon commissions and 300word reports, and none of the, there's no follow
up, there's no follow up in Congress, andthere's no follow up for in accountability. No
one's been fired. There were two, a couplepeople fired during the Obama administration,
(05:17):
but nobody fired during the Biden administrationfor a lot of problems, as you know, and debacle.
And
PROFT (05:25):
Well, that's the interesting thing is so
you have the institutional knowledge because
you've been covering it for so long where, youknow, it's not like these are the, the last two
months, the first couple of black eyes on SecretService. The difference, of course, is they're
black eyes that involve near assassinations ofthe president of a former president of the
United States. So it's a little bit different,but we've seen disciplinary problems, you know,
(05:46):
agents behaving in an embarrassing way and anagent in, in, in a way that embarrassed the
agency. I mean, just a little bit of, ofbackground on, on the reporting you've done to
bring us up to speed, because it's part of ourproblem when it comes to politics is, you know,
until it reaches the, the tipping point, youknow, nobody sort of, people shrugging, oh,
(06:08):
that's too bad. And someone, you, you don'trealize this sort of fundamental problem that
may be a foot until you almost have a presidentassassinated. And that that's no good.
CRABTREE (06:18):
Exactly. So do you want me to go back
in 10 years or do you
PROFT (06:22):
Want Yeah, yeah. Okay. Just
CRABTREE (06:23):
Quickly,
PROFT (06:24):
Just the high Okay. The highlights or
lowlights of the last decade. Right.
CRABTREE (06:28):
That sounds good. Okay. So the, the
big tipping point was when these agents went
down to Columbia Cartena and Enga, you know,engaged in pro with prostitutes were VOing with
prostitutes, and it all expla exploded out intothe open. And that's sort of where I began
(06:48):
reporting. And the Department of HomelandSecurity Inspector General was whitewashing
reports on the problems within the SecretService for he, he had his own corruption
problems, had his wife on the payroll. Theproblems that I began, that's when I started. So
what we saw there was that those agents wereobviously gonna be disciplined, but they were
(07:13):
disciplined unevenly from previous, this hasbeen going on. This whole idea of, of Wheels up
rings off with the Secret Service that was asaying back then. And these, those agents felt
targeted that they, that this was a well-knownthing that would, would happen in the Sacred
Service, and they would have their fun as longas it was on an advance and not during a, a
(07:36):
regular presidential trip.
So that's when Congress started getting involvedwith Jason Chait. We had fence jumping incidents
after that, very embarrassing ones we, that thecaused the White House to increase the fence to
the height of the fence. And that took a coupleyears just to get that accomplished. Meanwhile,
(07:57):
there was fence jumpers that went into, wereable to get into the White House with a knife.
And then there was lying about it from then,president Obama's director, Julia Pearson, the
first female director of the Secret Service, andshe also lied to them about a story I broke
about President Obama being in the elevator witha security guard who had a gun and wasn't
(08:23):
screened by the Secret Service. That incident, Ibroke that incident. It caused Julia Pearson to
lose her job because she lied about, she didn'tinform then DH Secretary, DHS Secretary j
Johnson, about that incident, nor did theyinform President Obama.
They were lying to me about it. At first, thePress Secretary of the Secret Service was lying
(08:48):
to me about it. And I said, no, I'm gonna gowith my sources on this one. I have multiple
sources and I went forward with it. Anyway, theywere lying to other reporters too, trying to
kill the story. I mean, I'm talking flat outlying about it. And what they didn't, when they
were real, when they were lying to the presidentand the DH Exter secretary, that's when things,
(09:09):
you know, got ugly for them. And they got fired,both the, the first female director of the
Secret Service, Julia Pearson and the presssecretary, who was lying to me. So we have a
history of press secretaries for the SecretService lying to me. There were some that were
good. They were former journalists,interestingly enough, and some that just flat
out lie for the agency. And there's a, I hate tosay this, but it's true, there's a problem with
(09:33):
deception with the Secret Service. They, they,they lied to reporters all the time and they
lied to me after the first assassinationattempt. And so we'll bring it forward to, I'll,
I'll bring it forward from those in instancesto, well, we'll just,
PROFT (09:50):
Just, just, just hold just one second
there. I mean, first of all, just the Wheels Up
rings off the Inspector General with the wife onthe payroll. So you know, who inspects the
Inspector General. Like we always say, whoinvestigates the investigators? I mean, good
grief, but what this really speaks to is, youknow, it gives lie to the cover story that's
often told. It's the leadership level, it's the,the few bad apples. But what you're talking
(10:14):
about is a cultural problem within the agencythat we know now has persisted from, you know,
one leader, one, one leadership group to theother, that that's the key point. And you allow
this culture to metastasize like a cancer andyou almost have a president killed.
CRABTREE (10:32):
Yeah. And that's, that's it. And all,
a lot of this culture, you know, there's lots of
sexual escapades that go on in thera between theranks, you know, in the, in the military it is
eb boden to, you'll get court marshaled if youjust ask
PROFT (10:48):
To try us.
CRABTREE (10:50):
Yes, exactly. If you have, you know,
fraternization going on. But it regularly
happens in the Secret Service and you, it, it isan, I think, a systematic problem with the
Secret Service. They, and then, so then peoplehave basically something on you, your fellow,
your fellow people that you're supposed to beprotecting the president with there, there's all
(11:13):
this resentment going on within the ranks over,oh, she's seeping with that the boss or they,
she gets a better assignment. It is a seriousproblem. Okay. And I'm talking ongoing right
now. Okay. It's serious as we speak. Wow. Sothat's just, that's one part of the problem.
(11:34):
Otherwise, it's just a lot of, they're secret.They hide behind the name secret. Right. So they
get away with a lot just by that. And theCongress hasn't consistently paid attention.
Jason Chait was doing a very good job with theSecret Service, and they pushed back on him and
outed him that he had applied to the SecretService.
That's, and so that, why is he so worried aboutthe Secret Service? Well, I mean, there is a,
(12:00):
it, it's interesting the dynamic, but nobodypicked it, picked up the ball when he left to go
be a Fox Media commentator. So, so it's notconsistent oversight from Congress. That being
said, the biggest issue I think with the SecretService right now is that the president appoints
the head of the Secret Service as someone whohas been loyal to them, that they know when they
(12:24):
trust and maybe, you know, that trust, they hirethem because, oh, maybe they'll cover for their
themselves and their family in a pinch. Theywon't report certain things, you know, they
won't go by the book. And we saw that last yearwith Director Cheadle covering up the cocaine
incident in the White House, and nobody seemedto have any information during that time in my,
(12:46):
even my sources were scared to come forward,longtime sources on that issue.
But after the first assassination attempt, theywere willing to speak. And they told me that
Director Cheadle wanted to have that cocainedestroyed. And she went in and pressured
different head of the division of the forensicservices, it's called Forensic Services
(13:07):
Division. Glenn Dennis was his name. And hesaid, and, and the uniform division that found
the se found the cocaine in the White HouseComplex. And they said, no, we have a retention
policy of seven years. We keep these in anevidence fault. We keep the evidence that like
this, that they call it contraband in theevidence vault vault, and we're gonna abide by
(13:30):
that. And Cheeto was very, very angry and didnot promote a black agent who was in an acting
position for Head of the Uniform Division, didnot promote him to the full directorship. And,
and, you know, she is a very big proponent ofDEI.
So it stood out to people and it raised a lot ofeyebrows that he was being punished for
following the book, you know, following therules of the Secret Service. He was being
(13:54):
punished. This person had a, a very goodreputation, had gotten an award for a uniform
division agent of the, sorry, officer of theyear. And, you know, that's what we're, that's
it's just revealing to me, they, I do believethat they have destroyed the evidence of the
cocaine now, and that is, and they say, oh, theyabided by protocol. Well, I don't believe that.
(14:19):
And I think there's more to come out on thatstory. Then we saw, if you wanna fast forward to
this spring, we saw the,
PROFT (14:27):
Well, I, I mean, I just wanna get to, to
Butler because Yeah, the, the exclusive
reporting you did after that failedassassination attempt and you had essentially
whistleblowers inside the FBI, I mean, excuseme, inside the Secret Service saying all sorts
of things, including a communication that wentout internally that you got your hands on too.
(14:51):
And I just, I mean, speak to that communication.'cause it seems to me like that was a watershed
moment where there was at least enough people inSecret Service that are take their job seriously
to say, I mean, this is, this has gotta stop.This is, this is crazy. And that's essentially
what one member of the Secret Service set.
CRABTREE (15:10):
Yes. Right before the Senate was
testifying. I, I was sent a, an email that went
out the night before from a counters sniper whoI kept his, the person's name anonymous and who
was fed up, who had had it with the SecretService leadership. And he was reacting to this,
(15:32):
this announcement that they were gonna create aresearch and development division at the agency.
And in response to this idea that they didn'thave interoperability con communication on July
13th, that Butler, it's appalling that theycouldn't communicate with the local law
enforcement. That was a key part of the problem.And, and also this idea of use of, of drones
(15:56):
that the Secret Service leadership hasresistance since 2016, according to my
reporting. So they announced this division anda, and account sniper was just appalled. And he
said, day late and a dollar short, and he sentit out to every member of the Uniform division.
And someone asked him, do you mean, did you meanto send that out to everyone, the old division?
(16:21):
And he said, absolutely, I did. And then hedownloaded what his feelings were about the
current state of affairs, and he said, you know,it's a CYA culture that we're in, we're watching
right now that all the leadership scrambling tocover themselves their mistakes for years in the
Secret Service, including, oh, tapping us on thehead, everybody, you know, the, the rank and
(16:42):
file saying who wanted to push forward withadvancements in, at technology who wanted
drones, who, who wanted to have interoperabilitywith their communication system. But they, the
leadership said, oh, we don't need to worryabout that. We, we've got it under control,
thank you. Tap you on the head. And the personpredicted another assassination attempt in 30
(17:04):
days. Now we're at the 60 day point. So theywere a little bit, just 30 days off in their
estimation that that would be a problem. Yeah.It it, it was showing just how fed up these rank
and file people are with basically howunprepared the Secret service is this year to
protect Donald Trump and other protectees.
PROFT (17:25):
Well, and something else too. Now
bringing West Palm into it, that's curious to
me, you know, in terms of their, their Now, theywere quicker to respond after what happened in
West Palm than they were after what happened inButler. They learned that lesson, but it's still
sort of the same middle management lingo andappeals to resources and so forth. And, and a
(17:47):
lot of the discussion immediately was after thesheriff of West Palm County said, well, Trump is
not the president. So there's a different levelof protective detail for a non president than a
president, even though he's a former president.But if you go back two days after Butler July
15th, there's a New York Post story saying Trumpis now receiving presidential level detail. So,
(18:11):
so he was, he was or he wasn't. And, and if hewas, then, then it becomes again, a, just a
straight competency issue in terms of, you know,perimeter security at the golf course as opposed
to the resource issue that acting Director Roweis trying to make it. But, but you know, I
don't, you, it is like you don't know who'sreporting to believe or, or if Secret Service
(18:33):
even knows what's true at a particular point intime that this has now been conferred. Maybe it
was conferred, maybe it wasn't conferred. Andthen you're left to try to figure this out, I
guess you said 60 days later when there'sanother attempt on his life,
CRABTREE (18:47):
They play semantics with you all the
time. The, the press secretary for the Secret
Service in the com shop. So that's what washappening the day after Butler with me. I said
they were denying security assets for multipletimes. And in this particular case for the
Butler rally, and there, there was a history ofdenying of the leadership denying asset security
(19:11):
assets to Donald Trump. 'cause he is, because heis a former president. I used that exact term.
They denied it to me. They denied several thingsdirectly to me tweeting to me. And I just
laughed because I said, this is like deja vu allover again. I dealt with, you know, the person
got themselves fired by lying to me 10 yearsago. I didn't say that on Twitter because I
(19:31):
didn't wanna have such an aggressive position.But I should have said that on when he direct
tweeted me on x.com saying, oh, you're verywrong Susan.
And didn't answer my questions from the email Iemail the day before. Never contact me. He has
my cell phone number. Anthony gli me the head ofthe Secret Service. He had it from a episode
(19:55):
that happened when a it female agent had ameltdown at Joint Base Andrews that was attached
to Kamala Harris's detail. So it's not justabout Donald Trump. The, these failures are
happening to other protectees, including KamalaHarris. So, you know, it's not a partisan issue.
Right. But to get back to what you're talkingYeah, this is about mismanagement and if we're
(20:17):
talking about what happened down in West PalmBeach, it's, they're trying to use this excuse
that it was an off the record. Okay. So itwasn't a planned event. Right. Well, we all know
that Donald Trump goes golfing all the time atthat golf course that he owns. So why didn't you
sweep the perimeter?
You could use canines at the very least. Whywasn't there a drone up in the air that could
(20:42):
detect a man in the woods by Thermo? They candetect that. Why are you still having these
failures when, and you know, then, then Ron Royou know, falls back on. Well, we don't have
enough resources. It doesn't take a lot ofresources to sweep a perimeter before Donald
Trump steps foot on the golf course. You'reusing outdate motive protocols for Donald Trump,
(21:05):
the most threatened human being on this earth.Okay. I mean, he, at, at least in America. So
why are, why would you even use that as excuse?He actually said, Ron Rowe said the acting
director at that press conference the other dayin West Palm Beach. Well, he wasn't supposed to
(21:26):
be here in the first place. It's your job toprotect the president if you need to have a
conversation that you cannot, don't have theresources that particular day because there's a
UN general assembly going on in, in New YorkCity right now, and there are 650 special agents
short of that.
And they're relying on Homeland Security investand military officers to supplement them there.
(21:49):
If you're then you should not have allowed him.That conversation should have had taken place
with Donald Trump before he went golfing. Notafterwards. Ron Rowe had a conversation with
Donald Trump afterwards. We were the first toreport on it that he, that they were gonna meet
head to head and have a reckoning. I said theyneeded to have a reckoning that morning in my
(22:12):
story on whether they can protect him or not ona golf course. Do they have enough resources?
That particular moment. I'm not take talkingoverall. I'm talking that that particular day
they need to have, be able to tell Donald Trump,we don't think it's safe enough for you to go
out. We're not gonna, we don't have enoughagents to sweep. In fact, I don't think that's
the case. I think they chose to abide by anoutdated protocol just like they did with
(22:36):
Butler, pre Butler. And although they offeredone counters sniper, two counters, sniper teams,
it was the first time they allowed any counters,snipers. And the only reason that they did that
for Butler, which was an added, added securityasset that he didn't have before, was because of
the Iranian threat, the very acute Iranianthreat that they knew about that week because
(22:58):
they arrested an Iranian, a guy with Iranianties the day before the Butler rally, the FBI
did. It was
PROFT (23:06):
Trying to, in our remain
CRABTREE (23:08):
Almost against
PROFT (23:10):
Right in, in our remaining time, I just
now wanna to bring in the FBI because the FBI
has been on the investigation in Butler for twomonths, and I'm not overwhelmed by the amount of
information they've provided, and now they're onthis investigation in West Palm as well.
Thankfully Ron DeSantis is going to do his own.So that's a little bit of a check that they're
(23:34):
probably uncomfortable with, but nobody's goingto say that publicly. What, what is your
expectation, just knowing how, you know, what,what you know about Secret Service and FBI and
their interactions and these cultures. What,and, and, and the pressure coming a little bit
now from the Senate. We mentioned DickBlumenthal at the outset. What is your
expectation about what sort of, sort ofcomprehensive account of what happened in Butler
(23:58):
and what happened in West Palm will the Americanpublic get, and what, if any, accountability
will be brought to Secret Service?
CRABTREE (24:07):
Well, I, I certainly think that the
FBI has been, you know, not forthcoming with
members of the media. They've had two briefings,one the day of that didn't give us hardly any
information. Day of Butler. And then one abouttwo weeks ago where they provided a little bit
more information, but have said, we don't thinkthere's a, he, we think he's acting alone, that
(24:30):
Thomas Crooks, the shooter in Butler was actingalone. And we don't think he has any foreign
influence, but they didn't take a lot ofquestions from the media. They certainly didn't
take questions from me. They avoid, they avoidme like the plague, both the Secret Service and
FBI. They're taking questions from reportersthat don't have a lot of experience. They don't
are asking the right questions, covering theSecret Service, and they use semantics to get
(24:54):
back to you. So I have very little faith, I'mglad that Ron DeSantis is, is also
investigating, but I do think the whistleblowersare entirely confused about who is running the
investigations and which people they need totalk to in Congress.
And now we have DeSantis. So it's a veryscattershot approach to investigations. I'm glad
(25:15):
there's more people doing it, but thesewhistleblowers are trying to come forward with
information and they have no idea who's runningthe one that really matters, the investigation
that really matters. Certainly it's I'm the FBI,whatever they produce, they don't, you know,
they don't come forward if they, they, they hidebehind a lot of semantics and a lot of guises in
(25:36):
the FBI, I can't really go into it from mypromises with my sources, but I don't think
they've been forthcoming about Butler and, well,who was, what was on Thomas Cooks' phone? Why
don't we have the text messages that he wassending out right before that incident? Why
don't we know what was on these encrypted appsthat he had on his phone? We know not a lot more
(25:58):
about Ryan Ruth just because it's publicinformation, because he was on his social media,
but it wasn't, we don't know a lot more aboutRyan Ruth because of the FBI.
So I have very, very little faith Congress isdoing a better job, but it's scattershot going
forward. We need centralized committee that,that this is their job. It should be on the
(26:19):
Department of Homeland Security or oversightcommittees in Congress to hold the secret
services fee to the fire and do, I'm one personand I've been able to get more information
sometimes than these members of Congress andbecause it's too scattershot. So people are
coming to me and I have too much information toreport and it's, it, it, I need a team of, of 10
(26:43):
people. The New York Times has 10 people, butI'm doing the best I can and I appreciate, I'm
only as good as the whistleblowers who arecoming to me and they are the ones that are
outraged and wanna fix the agency. And it'scertainly not the leadership. So I'm not getting
any leadership leaks and not, that's fine withme. But yes, we need, I'll keep doing the job
(27:05):
I've been given and I know that these secrets,these, these sources are fed up and are ready to
divulge everything that's wrong in SecretService. So I'm, I'm hopeful for the Senate
investigation. I, I'm, I think there they havemore people to work with, but certainly Senator
Grassley and Senator Johnson have done the bestwork so far publicly that I've seen.
PROFT (27:29):
Well, and if Trump wins, they may be
aided by a commission that's shared by RFK Jr.
So we'll, but, you know, we'll see how thatgoes, how that, what that outcome is. Susan
Crabtree political correspondent for real clearpolitics.com. Susan, thank you for your time.
Great reporting, really informative and, andplease keep it up. So, so, you know, people who
(27:49):
are actually interested in the future of theRepublic have have some sort of lifeline to
information out there. Real clear politics.com.Susan Crabtree, thanks so much.
CRABTREE (27:58):
Thanks so much for having me, Dan, and
your attention to this issue.
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