In a Tuesday post on X, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed concerns after writing that Homeland Security personnel assigned to his protective detail at Trump’s July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania had only received “2 hours of online training.” 

A rally was abruptly halted when a 20-year-old man tried to assassinate the ex-president, and as a result Trump suffered an injury with one audience member dead and another injured.

In an interview with Fox News, Hawley was critical of the preparedness of his security detail. 

“Think about this: This former president of the US…is sent out on stage, most of the people there are not trained, they’re not qualified. They only got a webinar training and even that didn’t work,” Hawley shared.

Tuesday, the latest batch of claims claimed Hawley also sent a letter to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe about Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) agents who work with the Secret Service. He said these latest allegations “indicate that the Secret Service inexplicably failed to adequately equip a considerable number of their personnel assigned security duties for former President Trump at the July 13 rally.”

“When Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents partner with the Secret Service, they should be properly trained. New whistleblower allegations contend that this isn’t happening…,” Hawley wrote. 

The Missouri senator also underscored the experience of a whistleblower, who told Hawley that “some HSI agents reassigned to work protective details only receive any training through a two-hour Microsoft Teams webinar with pre-recorded videos.

As the whistleblower Hawley cited put it, “Imagine 1,000 people logging onto Microsoft Teams at the same time after being informed at the last minute that everyone needed to login individually,” a whistleblower said, according to Hawley. “Once it got rolling, the Secret Service instructor couldn’t figure out how to get the audio working on the prerecorded videos (which I’m told are the same videos as last year). All told, they restarted the videos approximately six times …. The content was not helpful.”

The letter claimed the “latest whistleblower allegations contend HSI agents were pulled off child exploitation cases in order to serve on protective details for which they were unprepared,” Hawley also said of Nellies, adding that she heard about these.

After the assassination failed and 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump in the ear, Anticipating researchers have told Hawley that no security training adjustments were made subsequent to this occurrence. 

“Since the attempt to assassinate former President Trump, nothing has changed, and if anything it is even more decrepit,” a whistleblower said.

Rowe into how many HSI agents were present at the rally, and how many of those only went through webinar training specific timeline as well as provide a line-by-line overview of curriculum and relevant material. And the Secret Service has come under Congressional scrutiny for its handling of rally security in Butler and questions remain about how such massive breaches could occur.