Facts, Assumptions And Arguments

What we know of the attempted Trump assignation is nothing compared to what we don’t know. Only a through and open investigation will change that.

As I type this late evening on Saturday, July 13, 2024, I’m watching the coverage of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. Hate to say it, but I’ve seen this movie before.

By that I mean the coverage is going from one possible scenario to another. What we know is President Trump was shot in the ear by at least one gunman. There are conflicting reports that we had one or two shooters, one or two rally attendees were killed. Another report is two attendees injured. So what do we know for certain?

That there was an assignation attempt on former President Trump, it involved at least one shooter, and others in the crowd may have been injured or killed.

Fast forward to the morning of Sunday, July 14, 2024. The FBI has identified the shooter (I will not name him), and the planning assumption is there was only one person involved in this, i.e., no vast left-wing conspiracy.

Last night two people were reported as critically injured, but their status has been upgraded to stable. And one fatality, a man just in the wrong place. That is what is known.

Sunday evening, what is being speculated on? First, the Secret Service is getting criticized for failures in securing the site. Well, the agents near President Trump reacted immediately, surrounded him, and got him to the relative safety of the limousine. Did the shooter get a good spot to take his shot? Unquestionably. Did the Secret Service fail in the effort? We don’t know. It could have been an agent or other law enforcement official was supposed to be on the roof or monitoring it. A post in Facebook asks, “How did the shooter know the roof would be empty?” Again, we don’t know. But that is a question to be answered.

Was the shooter a liberal or Republican. Yes, that’s being argued on Facebook and X (and likely other social media). One Tweeter said, “He gave a liberal group money and registered as a Republican.” But the facts are we don’t know his politics. Safe assumption, we don’t know the facts. Wrong? I don’t think so. The shooter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was gay, right? Actually, no.

The shooter did visit the clue multiple times proceeding the attack, in an apparent reconnaissance of the target. But there are no other signs he was a homosexual. He was married to a woman, had a child, and none of his social media indicated he was gay or in the closet.

Did Donald Trump stage this? Yes, that’s on X. Some fool is actually saying Trump arranged a 20-year-old to fire a round to just hit him in the ear. I really doubt Chris Kyle could have made that shot.

And as I’m finishing this post, President Joe Biden addressed the nation, saying we “must lower the temperature in our politics.” Joe Biden is saying “tone it down.” The man who said in September 2022 that MAGA Republicans, not “normal” GOP members (read sell out RINOs) are a menace that “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

The point of all this? Everyone, CALM DOWN! Let the process work. We don’t know if the shooter was planning this for years, or just decided to try this when he heard Trump would be in town. Was the shooter just a crazed kid depressed with life looking to go out in fame. We don’t know how he got the rifle, and or if there were others involved.

Did the Secret Service plan for the building the shooter used to be covered and something fell through, or was that building not even factored in? We don’t know.

It took time to find out that John Hinkley tried to murder President Reagan in a warped attempt to impress Jodie Foster. Or Mark Chapman’s murder of John Lennon was motivated by his belief Lennon was a hypocrite.

This will take time, and it’s a safe assumption the investigation will not be completed by the time Trump accepts the nomination on Thursday. And the calls for “cooling the rhetoric” won’t last much past the convention. But investigations take time, and a lack of transparency will make things worse. So we can best hope for a through, accurate, and open investigation from the Biden FBI.

Why don’t I have much faith in that.

PS: Monday morning quarterbacking, July 15, 2024. Should have seen this coming. A Facebook post is criticizing a female Secret Service agent for having trouble putting her pistol in her holster. It’s not like she is assisting in getting a former POTUS into a SUV right after being shot, with a shooting changing a gathering to an almost riot. I really wonder how these men would handle themselves when put under similar circumstances. I speak as someone who has run towards an active shooter in my career. So guys, cut her some slack.

One thing I will say for the Secret Service on Saturday. They may not have planned security well, but the agents on scene acted immediately and got President Trump to safety relatively quickly.

Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.

Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.

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