Intelligence Specialist Reacts to Apparent Assassination Attempt on Trump

Joining us now to discuss the apparent assassination attempt is Casey Fleming. He's the CEO of Black Ops Partners Corporation and a former official in both Bush administrations. Casey, thank you so much for joining us. Great to see you again. Now, court documents show the suspect was camped out on the golf course for 12 hours pointing to his cell phone location that was there since 2 a.m. Well, that doesn't necessarily prove that the suspect was there for the whole time. What can we learn from this information? We've got gaps in our security, significant gaps in our security, even after the first attempt a little while back. So it's very, very concerning. We had the technology back in the day, thermal imaging that you could actually scan hedges and hedgerows and trees, and that should have been done continuously. This is Trump's own turf. This is his own backyard. And it's very concerning for many, many different levels. Reports note that the suspect was just 400 yards from Trump but didn't have a direct line of sight. Now, that's according to the acting chief of the Secret Service. From a security perspective, how was the shooter able to get that close to Trump? He should never have been able to get that close to Trump. The Secret Service puts together different concentric circles of coverage. It's a layered security effect. The Secret Service maintains the first level, sometimes the second level, sometimes the third level, but they intermix with local law enforcement. So a lot of these guys like, you know, the third level, fourth level, who knows? I was not in charge of security for that event. But the point is, is that there should be full-time, long-time officers in local law enforcement that are assigned to Trump in town, when Trump's in town. And this should have been a routine instance for law enforcement, including the Secret Service. And not only that, they should have been up 10 levels on alert after the first assassination attempt. So it's extremely concerning. It's more flaws in the Secret Service, and local law enforcement should never have been allowed. Expanding on that, many are questioning how the suspects seem to know where Trump would be. Now, in your view, how hard would that information be for one person to find out? Not very hard. The media actually publishes that information, our candidates and our congressmen and so on, for constituency. And also media likes to over-report these type of things. But, you know, we have to protect our elected officials. That's how our democracy works. We have to protect our candidates that are running. And then specifically, this is a former president, a former president also running for another presidential term. So he should have uber protection on top of, like I said, the last assassination attempt. So it's something that really causes a great amount of concern. It's how our democracy has to function, that we've got to keep these people protected that are wanting to serve our country and to serve our democracy. So for me, it's another failure that cannot be tolerated. It's anybody in office. This could go on the other side as well. It doesn't matter who you're voting for for president or who you want to be president. This is really much bigger than that. This is our democracy that has to be protected. And for somebody to have a line of sight, or he didn't have line of sight yet, they said that he was from 300 to 600 yards. That's well within the scope of an AK-47 or an AR-15. So like I said, these concentric circles of security, these perimeters have to be maintained and managed. The last thing I'd like to say is this rhetoric, as we stated before, has to be toned down. But the rhetoric is so far out of touch that people already program. And the other thing is, since this is a second attempt, Congress needs to do an investigation, an unbiased investigation as to two of these attempts to find out if there's something really behind these two attempts. One is shame on you. Two is shame on me. So it really begs that we have to get underneath this thing for the American people, all American people. Law enforcement has said that the reason the perimeter wasn't secured is that Trump is not a sitting president, but rather a former president. Now, do you think Trump is more at risk than other candidates in terms of security? Well, first of all, any former president gets Secret Service protection to whatever level they determine or whatever their lifestyle determines that they should have it. Remember, he's a former president. Whether he wins or not, it doesn't matter. It's a former president. So it's that thing that should dictate the security, period. That's the level we should be upheld to. On top of that, don't forget, I mentioned it before, this is the second attempt in a very short period of time. So you would think that Secret Service would be on high alert. Now, I understood that he's playing golf and he has a right to do so, but he also has a right to be protected from our country's perspective. Now, Senator Ron Johnson today suggested that Trump needs his own head of security to oversee his Secret Service detail. He said, quote, we should not have to rely on the sharp eyes of one Secret Service agent. Now, what do you think about Senator Johnson's comments here? I think it still should be a Secret Service function. Now, Trump can have his overlay to make himself a little bit more protected and so on, but it's still the Secret Service's responsibility. And one agent, there shouldn't have been just one agent. There should have been, like I said, concentric circles of federal law enforcement, which is the Secret Service, and local law enforcement, which is local PD, local sheriff, state patrol, any of those bureaus of investigation, meaning inside the state. So you've got levels of security that has to be there and really should have been there for any former president, let alone a presidential nominee. Now, to one of your earlier points, we still don't know the shooter's motive from the first attempted assassination attempt. What do you make of the investigation into that first attempt or lack thereof? It's very unnerving that they came up with basically zero. No history, no social media history, absolutely nothing. But somebody tweaked him. Somebody got him to form his brain around assassination. Something had to had to occur. And that's why I think there needs to be an independent investigation on the first shooter as well as the second shooter, and also the potential third shooter. Not saying that there is one, but you have to look, you have to do the research to really scan the databases, the people who have a beef with any candidate that's going to be running for president. On that last point, from a security perspective, what would need to happen in order to prevent another attempt on Trump or another candidate's life? Stop reporting where Trump's going to be. And if you're going to report where Trump's going to be, then make sure it's a very, very secure event that has been rehearsed many, many times. And you have to expect that there's going to be shooters now. There's been two. You have to expect there are going to be more. You know, there's copycat things going on all the time. People want the fame and the fortune associated with it. So you've got to look at this whole thing. But most importantly, as I said before, we've got to protect our democracy. Doesn't matter who the candidate is. They have to be protected. Whether you're left, right, center, it doesn't matter. That's how we move forward with our democracy and protect our people and our constitution. Casey Fleming, CEO of Black Ops Partners Corporation, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me.