Joyce Vance:
From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Stay Tuned In Brief. I’m Joyce Vance in for Preet Bharara. The assassination attempt on former President Trump has raised many questions about the shooter’s motive and the serious lapses in security. And as we learn more from investigators, there are growing calls for President Biden to fire Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. There are now several concurrent investigations that are underway or have been announced, including one by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and at least five congressional committees. President Biden has also announced his intention to start an independent national security investigation.
Joining me today is Jeh Johnson. He served as Secretary of Homeland Security during the Obama administration, and is currently a partner at the law firm of Paul Weiss. We’re recording on Friday morning, July 19. This is a fast-moving investigation. We’re learning new facts as we go. Mr. Secretary, thanks for being here.
Jeh Johnson:
Joyce, thanks for having me. I’ve been on Preet’s podcast I think twice before, and I’ve noticed the reach of this podcast is very impressive. All kinds of people after each of my interviews told me, “Hey, I heard you on Preet Bharara’s podcast.” It was terrific, so glad to be back here.
Joyce Vance:
Well, it’s good to have you back and it’s the perfect day for it because everyone is looking at this investigation into the shooting at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday. And that sort of thing, that investigation following an incident with the Secret Service protectee is something that you’ve got special insight into. Head of the Secret Service reports directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security, the position that you held during the Obama administration. It’s now been about a week since a young man that we’ve learned was a registered Republican accessed a rooftop that was close enough to get off some shots while the former president was speaking. And so you and I have discussed that fog of war is a real thing. And right after this incident, lots of unintentional misinformation circulated as people tried to assess what happened, but we are now almost a week out. Overall, what do you make of what we’ve learned so far and how do you assess what happened?
Jeh Johnson:
Joyce, a little bit of big picture historical perspective, if I may, the Secret Service is an agency that’s part of the Department of Homeland Security. It is part protection and part law enforcement. As you well know, it was created ironically by Abraham Lincoln in 1865 before he was assassinated, as a financial crimes agency, counterfeit currency. In fact, when I was an assistant US attorney in 1989, the very first case I ever worked with the Secret Service was a counterfeit currency case. And it wasn’t until 1901 after the assassination of William McKinley that the Secret Service which is part of Treasury, then took on the mission of protection of the President. And that has grown and grown to the protection of others, including candidates for president and former presidents. So the Secret Service is part protection, but they have field offices all over the country where they do their law enforcement mission, which is largely financial crimes. Which enables them to surge agents to protection in say, an election year or during the UN General Assembly.
The thing about protection is the Secret Service has to go out and pitch a no-hitter every game. If a runner gets on first base, the result is catastrophic. It is no accident or dumb luck in my judgment that it’s been 43 years since anyone took a shot at a Secret Service protectee, former president, a candidate for president, because of the hard work and diligence interdicting detecting threats to protectees at their earliest stages. As you pointed out, I was the cabinet-level oversight for the Secret Service for three years. When I was secretary, I was also a protectee of the Secret Service, so I know the organization well and I’m a fan and supporter. Having said all that, basically a week out it’s very clear that there are obvious hard questions that require answers to what happened in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The timeline that has been constructed already just days after the attack tells us that it was a full hour before the shots were fired, that people including even law enforcement detected the shooter on the roof of the building 148 yards away.
Yet candidate Trump was allowed to leave his armored suburban, go up on the stage and begin the event. And we have to know how that happened. The other point I’ll make here is, the Secret Service is of course responsible for the security of the perimeter of the immediate event. If invitees are to go through magnetometers through a fence, a perimeter of some sort, that’s the obligation of the Secret Service first and foremost. But in addition, beyond the perimeter of the immediate event, it’s the responsibility of the Secret Service to secure any rooftop or open window or terrace that has a direct line of fire to the protectee at an open air event within the range of any rifle, long range sniper. And of course, the obvious example of that is the Kennedy assassination, November 22nd, 1960. There were people who noticed Lee Harvey Oswald in the open window of the Texas Book Depository with a rifle seconds or moments before Kennedy was assassinated.
And they just assumed, well, he must be part of the security. But it’s the obligation of the Secret Service to secure any such site within a line of fire of the protectee. And if they don’t do it themselves, they have to ensure that somebody else does it and does it the right way. That obviously did not occur in this case. It was a campaign event. Sometimes campaign events are put together, organized hastily in a matter of days or a couple of weeks. So just as you pointed out, fog of war, you don’t have all the answers immediately about a week out from the event. We know a lot now, but over the course of the next weeks or months when there’s an independent investigation of this, I suspect we will know a lot more. And once that happens, the Secret Service has some real hard lessons to learn about this.
Joyce Vance:
Yeah, I think that makes sense. And like you, I have that appreciation of the dual purpose that Secret Service agents have to accomplish as part of their mission. I’ll just tell you a fast story. I was actually trained to be a prosecutor by a fabulous Secret Service agent, Roy Wilson in Birmingham. He really taught me all the most important things about how to do my job without really ever giving the appearance to a young prosecutor that that was what he was doing. And I remember like every prosecutor, it gets annoying during an election year when your Secret Service agents become unavailable because they’re off doing protection work, and you can’t get a case that you thought you were ready to indict across the finish line. And what it really meant for them to be away got driven home to me one day when I was actually the AUSA who was assigned to a protection detail, Barbara Bush came bounding off the steps of a plane in Birmingham on her way to a literacy event in the community. And standing next to me was Roy Wilson, the Secret Service agent who had trained me.
And the minute she got off the steps, she threw an arm around his neck and said, “Roy, how good to see you.” And then she asked by name about his wife and his children, and it really drove home to me how important and close these relationships are. And that these guys really they do live, I think, with the constant stress of protecting folks who we all know live with some level of threat. Having said that, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that, and you tagged this correctly I think, we’re talking about security basics. Do you think the Secret Service was at fault for excluding this rooftop that the shooter used from its core area of the perimeter that it takes responsibility for? Should a location like that so close, so high, so well positioned, should that have been within their perimeter?
Jeh Johnson:
Yes. The perimeter of areas that have to be secured, watched one way or another wouldn’t necessarily try to screen every single person, say 500, 600 feet away beyond the immediate event who’s sitting in their apartment or on their terrace. But you have to know who they are and you have to know what their capabilities are, at least. If for example, the president’s throwing out a first pitch, and I’ll just pick Nat Stadium here in Washington D.C., there are apartment buildings beyond the ballpark, out beyond left field and center field. You can’t put every single tenant through a magnetometer who has a terrace. But you do have to in some way take precautions about who lives there, what they might be capable of, are there any threats, any vacant apartments. Secret Service has to know all of that if your protectee is going to be in the line of fire in an open-air event like that.
Joyce Vance:
So are you surprised that we don’t know more about the shooter at this point? I’m used to getting pretty rapid information following other mass shootings. Here we don’t seem to have it. What do you make of that and do you think we’ll learn more over time?
Jeh Johnson:
Yes, you’re right. I think at this stage days out, we still don’t know a lot about this shooter. Doesn’t sound like he was very active on social media, very vocal on social media, sounds… And this is preliminary, it sounds like he was something of an introvert. He was also only 20 years old and so he doesn’t have a long track record. The impression I have, and I’ll invite you to disagree with me Joyce, but the impression I have preliminarily is that he was sort of a John Hinckley type. And Hinckley, if my recollection is correct, before he shot Ronald, Reagan had actually tracked Jimmy Carter and stalked Jimmy Carter from event to event during the 1980 campaign. And so Hinckley was not a political ideologue, he was someone who was deranged and wanted attention to try to impress Jodie Foster the actress. And so he shot the president, whoever the president might be.
That may be what was going on in the mind of this individual because from what we know in social media at this stage, he was not overtly political or ideological or engaging in overheated political rhetoric or anything of that nature. So more to learn. The immediate family is always reluctant to talk about their deceased son. They’re in denial, I’m sure. But over time, I’m sure with investigators and hundreds of journalists crawling all over this, we’re going to learn a lot more in the next days and weeks.
Joyce Vance:
Yeah, it’s interesting to hear John Hinckley point, there was a lot of misinformation that was put out. The FBI originally said that they’d found an account in his name Steam as a gaming platform. Then they took it back and said, no, that’s not him. There was a video that was put out purporting to be him very early on. It wasn’t him. The one piece of information that I haven’t seen contradicted that caught my interest was this note that he had not been permitted to participate in his high school shooting club because he wasn’t a good enough shot. And that’s interesting to me as well as the fact that there have been reports, and again, we haven’t seen many details and I’d love to know what you make of this, that there were explosives. That perhaps he had explosives in the vehicle, that perhaps he had a device on his person that he could have used to trigger them. And that doesn’t sound like an unsophisticated 20-year-old high school kid with no criminal history to me.
I don’t mean to dig into conspiracy theories because that’s not where I am on this. I do think it’s interesting that we have not learned more though, especially with the potential explosives angle.
Jeh Johnson:
I suspect we will learn more at some point. I don’t know what to make of that. I’ve seen the same reports, but I don’t have a view on or a conclusion about what he was intending to do with it. Obviously something not good, but I don’t know how the explosives in the vehicle… And I think I also heard that he had a remote detonator with him on the rooftop, so it’s unclear to me exactly how that was supposed to fit into his plan.
Joyce Vance:
Well, obviously there are people looking into it. There are a lot of different investigations. FBI, DHS, Congressional, President Biden has said he’ll have an independent panel, why so many different ones and what do they each look at?
Jeh Johnson:
Well, they’re not all coordinated obviously. I believe that there needs to be an independent investigation. You may recall 10 years ago, Joyce, when I was secretary the Secret Service had engaged in a series of missteps, not anywhere near the gravity and the consequence of this one. And we appointed an independent commission to look at the Secret Service, reassess the Secret Service individuals who were completely independent of the Department of Homeland Security and the US government, who were former government officials and people who understand the system but are independent of it. I think that needs to be done. I don’t know why or how the IG decided to launch an investigation after the president announced that there should be an independent investigation. And of course, Congress is going to do their thing. And even within Congress, there seemed to be multiple committees that want to get into the act. I don’t know how helpful that’s going to be. I think we should all take a deep breath and wait for the independent investigation to occur.
In the meantime, that is not to suggest that the Secret Service doesn’t need to change anything now because there’s a need for protection now in the midst of this election season. So there have to be immediate changes in their so-called TTPs, tactics, techniques and procedures. There have to be immediate changes now that should have happened days ago after the attack.
Joyce Vance:
Yeah, I think that that makes sense, and I suspect that that’s underway. And one facet of that that really interests me is knowing that the Secret Service relies heavily on its partnerships with state and local law enforcement to have the manpower to fulfill its mission.
Jeh Johnson:
And other federal agencies like HSI, for example.
Joyce Vance:
But I want to focus for a second on the state and local folks because immediately after the shooting, the director made a statement that blamed local law enforcement. She tried to walk it back afterwards, but I’m wondering if you think the damage is done and whether that’s sort of a statement where she had initially said, “Well, this was an area under the supervision of the locals.” Is that going to damage those essential relationships?
Jeh Johnson:
It may well damage those relationships. The finger pointing is not helpful. And when it comes to a protectee of the Secret Service like a president or a former president who’s running for president again, the Secret Service has the ultimate responsibility. It can’t do it all by itself. The prime example of that, Joyce, is the UN General Assembly every year. You’ve got 120, 150 world leaders that show up on the island of Manhattan. And the Secret Service is ultimately responsible for the safety and security of all of them, but it can’t do the job by itself. And the primary local law enforcement agency that they rely on, of course, is the New York City Police Department. And they have a wonderful, very close working relationship every time a PROTECTEE comes to New York City. But it’s the ultimate responsibility of the Secret Service to protect who they protect. Secret Service, can’t blame the NYPD or any other local law enforcement agency for a lapse in the protection of one of their own protectee’s. It’s not helpful.
Joyce Vance:
Yeah, it feels like crazy sauce to me. And I worry less about big cities like New York where those relationships are well established and strong, than I do about small communities and rural areas where you’ve got a sheriff lending his tactical team to the Secret Service. Those relationships are so critical, and I hope we’ll see the Secret Service take immediate steps to repair them.
Jeh Johnson:
But it’s always in coordination with local law enforcement. So if a president came to Birmingham, Alabama, of course the Secret Service would work with the Birmingham police. But politely let them know we have the ultimate responsibility and so you have to act in coordination with us in response to our direction and guidance.
Joyce Vance:
We are all grateful that Mr. Trump wasn’t seriously harmed. It was sort of a takes your breath away kind of moment to watch. But I have struggled watching the video of the shooting over and over and seeing him pop his head up and then delay the move, asking if he can get his shoes. And look, we all know the realities of politics, candidates understand that in these situations they want to appear a certain way, and sometimes that can be at odds with the goals of their security teams. So how are agents taught to handle those situations where they’re trying to deal with a legit in the moment threat and they’ve got a candidate who knows that he or she needs to continue to conduct their campaign? What do the agents do?
Jeh Johnson:
That’s a good question. I’ve heard and seen criticism of the Secret Service in that instant because they didn’t pull their protectee away fast enough, or because they should have kept him where he was behind the barricade longer. So I’ve heard it both ways, and I will not second guess what they did and when they did it. The first, in the heat of the moment when there may still be an active shooter where there may have been a second active shooter, the one thing that they did do which I don’t think has been acknowledged enough, is you saw his immediate detail surround him and literally shield him from any incoming fire. In other words, they were going to take a bullet for him if they had to. And Donald Trump’s not a small man, he’s not 150 pounds. They had to physically remove him.
The first instinct of a Secret Service agent on protection is to get the protectee to safety into the armored suburban so that the armored suburban can rush off out of the immediate area. That’s the first instinct. But you have to make sure that the situation is secure one way or another, either by surrounding him and getting him to the vehicle or staying behind the barricade till you think it’s safe. And so it was not just in the moment, but in the second judgment to try to remove him as quickly as they could. And I will not second guess that. I think for any of us who are not Secret Service agents trained to put their own bodies in front of their protectee in an active shooter moment, I will not. None of us are in a position to second guess how they did it when they did it, in my view.
Joyce Vance:
It has to be very delicate trying to tell a candidate and certainly this particular candidate, that safety has to come first and that they can’t do things like this.
Jeh Johnson:
Right. Yes. And this will go back to my own days as a protectee. The Secret Service’s inclination is to basically not let you go outside, pull up to the back door of the event space, walk through the pantry, don’t make a grand entrance, be very low-key. That’s their inclination, so that you’re not exposed, you’re exposed to the least number of people. And then every once in a while, you have to kind of push back and say, “No, I really would like to go through the front door. Can we at least work that out.” In my personal experience, if you give the Secret Service enough time to plan for a Plan B as opposed to a Plan A, they can make it work.
Joyce Vance:
Did you ever try to go through a drive-through window at a fast food place when you were driving a long distance with your detail?
Jeh Johnson:
No, I did not. But I did one day in New York City say to them, you know what? I’m a New Yorker and I want to ride on the subway. Let’s take a ride on the subway to get from A to B. And they said, “Give us an hour. And they made it work.”
Joyce Vance:
Well, thank you so much for answering my questions. I think we’re all struggling for answers here, and I appreciate your candor and your willingness to join us this morning. Thank you, sir.
Jeh Johnson:
Thanks, Joyce. Appreciate it.
Preet Bharara:
For more analysis of legal and political issues, making the headlines become a member of the CAFE Insider. Members get access to exclusive content including the weekly podcast I host with former U.S. Attorney, Joyce Vance. Head to cafe.com/insider to sign up for a trial. That’s cafe.com/insider. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me at Preet Bharara with the hashtag #AskPreet. You can also now reach me on Threads, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338, that’s 669-24-PREET. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The Deputy editor is Celine Rohr. The editorial producer is Noa Azulai. The associate producer is Claudia Hernández, and the CAFE team is Matthew Billy, Nat Weiner and Jake Kaplan. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.
