Trump is assigned no more Secret Service agents than ex-presidents like Clinton and Obama are -- despite the fact that he is the leading candidate to become president again, and has more threats against him than anyone else in the world

Trump is assigned no more Secret Service agents than ex-presidents like Clinton and Obama are -- despite the fact that he is the leading candidate to become president again, and has more threats against him than anyone else in the world

This is not unusual for a former president to experience, but the threats against Trump, the only former president in modern political history to run again and one who has faced prosecutions and comparisons to Hitler from Democrats, are obviously greater than most ex-commanders in chief whose profiles have tended to decline after leaving public office.

Trump allies, including his former acting DHS Director Chad Wolf, are also questioning whether the Secret Service is using similar resources that it would use for past presidents Obama or Bill Clinton, instead of a more robust protective detail.

"At the end of the day, this is a complete security failure," Wolf told Fox News Sunday afternoon. "Is it because of a lack of resources? They are using what they normally would for a former president, but President Trump is not a normal former president."

Secret Service officials in charge of the event provided only two counter-sniper officers when such an exposed outside rally would normally call for the use of two to three two-man teams, the source continued.     

One of the Secret Service sources told RCP that a paper trail likely exists about how many counter snipers and special agents the agency advance team, which plots out detailed security plans for events ahead of time, requested. The lead advance agent usually submits a manpower request to headquarters, which includes the number of counter snipers, post-standers, and magnetometers needed for a particular event.

"We always make sure that our requests are in writing so we would have a paper trail in case of the present scenario we have in Butler," the source said. But the same source complained that there was always "a do-more-with-less mentality."

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Warning signs about the Secret Service emerged months before the attempted assassination attempt against Trump. Earlier this year, the agency came under scrutiny for its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies after a female agent's apparent mental breakdown and physical attack on her superiors at Joint Base Andrews in April.   

Susan Crabtree @susancrabtree

LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS SAY THEY DID NOT LEAVE THEIR POSTS BC IT WAS "HOT."

Local law enforcement sources dispute Sen. Hawley's charge that local police left their post at the building where shooter Thomas Crooks perched to fire off his shot. A Hawley-sourced report posted yesterday accused the local law enforcement officers of leaving their post at the AGR building because it was hot.

But local law enforcement officers say that's ridiculous -- that USSS never assigned them to the rooftop.

"The assignments received by the local Emergency Service Units (ESUs) were to be inside of the building at windows to begin with," said one officer. "The purpose of being in the building was to have a vantage point to scan for suspicious persons in the crowd. When a suspicious person was identified command was notified. That suspicious person ended up shooting Trump. No one was told they were supposed to be on the roof."

They also say their assignments are memorialized in writing so they have proof.   

Barely minutes elapsed between the breaking news that Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle had resigned in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and a leading lawmaker promising that her departure would have no impact on investigating the incident.

"There will be more accountability to come," House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, vowed in a statement. "While Director Cheatle's resignation is a step toward accountability, we need a full review of how these security failures happened so that we can prevent them going forward."

Politically, Cheatle was a uniter, not a divider -- at least in Congress, which has thrown itself behind investigating Trump's near-murder with unusual bipartisan fervor.

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Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Tuesday jointly announced the creation of a task force to investigate the "shocking" security failures, comprising seven Republicans and six Democrats.

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Johnson told reporters Cheatle's resignation was "overdue -- she should have done this at least a week ago." And, like Comer, he suggested she might not be the last Secret Service official to be held accountable.

"There may be others in the line of authority who were also culpable in what happened and the errors and mistakes there," Johnson said. "I think our task force's work just got even more important.