(OPINION) Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said Thursday that a senior Homeland Security Department official approached him as a whistleblower shortly before the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life and alleged U.S. officials are aware that five different “assassination teams” are pursuing the former president.
Gaetz told Just the News Editor in Chief John Solomon during an interview on the Human Events Daily television show on Real America’s Voice network that he believes three of the teams are foreign inspired and two are domestic based.
Trump was the subject of a second assassination attempt over the weekend while golfing at his Palm Beach course. Secret Service engaged with an armed suspect after one agent noticed the barrel of an AK-47 protruding from the bushes where he was hiding.
The suspect fled and was later apprehended. Authorities have arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, and charged him with firearms violations in connection with the incident.
“I had a senior official from the Department of Homeland Security in my office before the second assassination attempt, saying that what he has assessed is that there are five known assassination teams in the United States, three inspired by other governments, two that are here, that are known domestic assassination teams,” Gaetz said on “Human Events Daily.”
“And with that, this individual was coming to me, concerned that the force protection around President Trump, even prior to that second assassination attempt, was not sufficient for what it needed to be, and the coordination at that level, at the dignitary protection level is like the bare minimum that we have to do to keep our presidents, our presidential candidates, safe while they’re on the trail,” he went on.
“Five teams that we know are targeting Trump,” he clarified. “And so that raises real questions about why certain teams were being pulled off of the Trump deal detail and put on, for example, the Jill Biden detail.”
“Now we don’t want anything bad to happen to Jill Biden, but at the same time, the threat envelope for her was substantially different than the threat envelope around President Trump, and it would not have necessitated pulling assets away from the Trump detail for the Joe Biden detail or the John Bolton detail or any other details that were beefed up at the same time, the requests from the Trump detail and from the Trump campaign for more security, were going unanswered, frankly,” he concluded.
U.S. authorities have charged a Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, with working with Iran to attempt to hire a gunman to kill Trump before Merchant was arrested on July 12, one day before the first assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pa. They have not disclosed any other plots publicly involving the former president.
Several Senate and House members who have been briefed on the two assassination attempts against Trump told Just the News on Thursday afternoon they have not been told during their briefings about five teams or plots but they are aware there are multiple Iran-inspired plots targeting multiple U.S. officials.
