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Donald Trump is now blaming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for “not properly protecting” him during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania where a gunman fired at the former president and killed an attendee.
Trump’s allies have floated baseless and dangerous conspiracy theories about an assassination plot orchestrated by the administration, or debunked claims that the administration had rejected pleas from the former president for extra security.
On his Truth Social, Trump revived those claims by directly placing the blame on the president and his likely Democratic rival for the presidency for the threat to his life.
“The Biden/Harris Administration did not properly protect me, and I was forced to take a bullet for Democracy,” he said on Tuesday. “IT WAS MY GREAT HONOR TO DO SO!”
His post comes as US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her post after widespread demands for her exit in the wake of the shooting.
She stepped down one day after she testified to a congressional committee about law enforcement failures at the rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, where one rally attendee was killed and at least two other people were critically injured.
“She never gave me proper protection, so I ended up having to take a bullet for democracy,” Trump told Fox News Digital after her resignation on Tuesday.
“Many requests were made by on-site Secret Service for more people, always with a turn down or no response,” he added. “I have the biggest crowds in history, and they should be treated accordingly.”
Trump’s claims are “absolutely false,” Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said hours after the shooting.
“In fact, we added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,” he said.
Trump, whose first televised interview after the shooting aired on Fox News on Monday, said he did not receive any warning of a “problem” from Secret Service agents and other officers following reports that top law enforcement officials had denied requests for additional manpower at events before the shooting in Pennsylvania.
He also appeared to float a conspiracy theory that the 20-year-old gunman who fired at him “had some encrypted phone numbers and to foreign countries.”
“You hear all different stories,” Trump told Fox News. “I would say probably he was a loner, but you don’t know that. You have to check out the phone numbers, you have to check out the phone.”
During Monday’s House Oversight Committee hearing where Cheatle was grilled by members of both parties, Trump-allied congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene demanded to know whether the Secret Service was engaged in a “conspiracy to kill President Trump.”
“Was there a stand-down order, Ms Cheatle? Was there a conspiracy to kill President Trump?” she asked.
Far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert has also revived a conspiracy theory that the Secret Service sniper was “given an order to hold fire.”
Members of Congress have warned Cheatle that her agency’s failure to publicly provide more details about the events surrounding the attack are likely to fuel more conspiracy-mongering.
During Monday’s hearing, Democratic congresswoman Jasmine Crockett told Cheatle that if people are led believe that the shooting was the result of a far-fetched government conspiracy, “that potentially incites the next level of violence at the next event, in retaliation for this.”
“So long as these conspiracy theories continue to fester, it is going to make your job that much harder,” she said.
