There were a series of security lapses before and after a sniper took shots at former President Donald Trump, said Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont.
"First, preshot, there's a number of breaches, a number of errors, a number of security gaps," Zinke, a former Navy SEAL, told Newsmax's "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE."
"They are numerous: the shooter on the roof, the lack of communications, to include one report out there that he was seen, but they didn't know whether it was his guy, that you know, a friendly force. Look, if there's a guy on a roof pointing a gun at the presumptive, you know, Republican nominee and President Trump, I think you should take action," he added.
After the shooting, there were problems, too, said Zinke.
"You remember when [President] Ronald Reagan was shot, he was in a car at 1.5 seconds, and he actually didn't get shot directly. It was a fragment. So when President Trump was shot, what happened?
"You know, all you know is the president is bleeding. You don't know whether it's one shooter, you don't know two shooters. You don't know if it was one of those guys, like in Las Vegas had blew out a window, high elevation with multiple rounds. You don't know."
The procedure should have been to remove Trump from the situation immediately, said Zinke.
"You're supposed to cover the president. They have a 5-foot-3 security guard holding up a hand. That's not covered. ... Trump is bleeding. He should have been on a ballistic blanket. And by the time the president realized he didn't have his shoes on, he should have been two miles away.
"And yet what happened? They propped him up for a second round. If there was a second shooter, this is a calamity of errors. And this is all where it leads."
There was incompetence and gross negligence, said Zinke.
"But is the gross negligence, willing? Did someone willingly and knowingly commit and form a security perimeter, knowing and willingly it was full of holes? And if it's knowingly and willingly put the president at risk by reducing, by atrophying, by lack of training, and it is willing, that's what this task force has to determine; and it has to determine it quickly."
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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