CHAKRABARTI: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro just yesterday. Frank Figliuzzi joins us now. He’s in Houston, Texas. He’s the former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI. Frank, welcome back to the show.
FRANK FIGLIUZZI: Thank you, Meghna.
CHAKRABARTI: Okay. So let’s just keep our focus on Pennsylvania and Butler here for just another few minutes.
There’s been already a lot of criticism of the Secret Service, of potential failures in oversight, of sweeps, et cetera. Where would you be looking right now to find out if there were holes in security for that Trump rally on Saturday?
FIGLIUZZI: I don’t often arrive at conclusions early, but Meghna, I can do that here.
It’s clear to me from 25 years in the FBI, working alongside Secret Service and seeing all the data that we’ve been able to take in, that this was indeed a failure on multiple levels. Look, the Secret Service uses the following phrase to describe their mission. Zero fail. It failed. It failed.
And they operate on a theory of multiple levels of security, so that if one fails, the other one will come in and take over. That did not happen. And I think we’re going to see here, based on all known reporting, that the Secret Service knew that this particular building, this particular roof indeed was high ground.
That could be used by a sniper close enough in distance, within range of a rifle and identified, yet somehow considered to be outside their perimeter of responsibility. And I think we’re going to find Meghna that they were delegating this spot to local or state police. And clearly somehow that broke down and here we are.
CHAKRABARTI: No, that’s a really important point. I just wanted to ask you more about that, Frank, because there are, of course, there’s cooperation between multiple law enforcement agencies at any event like this. It scales up for a convention, for example, in Milwaukee.
But so how is it determined? Can you give us a little bit of insight how it’s determined, where those perimeters of responsibility end and a new law enforcement agency would take over?
FIGLIUZZI: Yeah. So it’s a couple of things here. One, I think the American public is going to learn from this investigation once it takes place, that there’s an uncomfortable reliance.
On local and state police for secret service deployments like these very common rallies. Why is that? It is because the Secret Service has been stretched very thinly in the last few years with way too many protectees, way too many responsibilities. And so they’ve surely, but quietly, gone about assigning important tasks to local law enforcement.
And by the way, we’re going to see that at the RNC. Which starts today in Milwaukee. Many people don’t realize that over 100 local police departments are sending from out of state, their officers to Milwaukee. So we will see badges and patches on uniforms from Florida. From Tennessee, from Ohio, all on the streets of Milwaukee.
So the dirty little secret is that this tiny agency, the Secret Service has something like no more than 4,000 special agents to cover the world, financial crimes, bad checks, mortgage fraud and comma, by the way, when they can squeeze it in, protect the president and the candidates.
CHAKRABARTI: To your point about Milwaukee, I’m seeing here the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported that if there’s the hard perimeter right around a convention where guns are not at all allowed, but I believe Wisconsin is also an open carry state.
So guns will be permitted by state law outside that hard perimeter. And the Wisconsin governor Tony Evers has been saying that he’s requested that decision to allow firearms be reconsidered, cause we’re talking about the soft perimeter area. And there, I guess they’re still trying to work that out.
Your thoughts on that?
FIGLIUZZI: My thoughts on that are not pleasant. Look, the state of Wisconsin has a law on the books that says you cannot tell a citizen they can’t carry a weapon. Even designated soft security zones. What does that mean? It means the designated free speech zones, the parade route that’s scheduled, the protest areas and speakers’ platforms outside the venue, you’ll be permitted to carry.
And this seems absolutely antithetical to a safe and secure environment, and the fact that one state’s interpretation of the constitution somehow overrides the need to secure a national security special event. I’m sure astounds many, and I’m sure particularly those outside the country looking at us.
Like we’re crazy.
