(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The New York Times published an investigation Wednesday into the Secret Service’s security failures at the deadly July 13 Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—revealing the identity of some agents, including two who have hired lawyers.
Much of the NYT investigation retreads the same information about Secret Service’s lack of planning ahead of the rally, as well as its lack of communication with local law enforcement. NYT also aired the opposing opinions about whether the Secret Service or local law enforcement was to blame for not securing the AGR building used as a perch by Trump shooter Thomas Crooks.
More interestingly, NYT revealed the name of the Secret Service’s lead counter-sniper at the rally, John Marciniak; the agency’s lead advance agent, Meredith Bank; and two site agents, Myosoty Perez and Dana DuBrey—the latter two who have hired lawyers.
DuBrey and Bank have been put on administrative duties along with the agency’s Pittsburgh boss, Timothy Burke.
FBI whistleblower Greg Roman told Headline USA that the Secret Service agents lawyering up is an indication that the agency may be looking to scapegoat them for the Butler failures.
“The Secret Service higher ups will gladly sacrifice a few of their own just to placate Congress and some in the media to put this thing to bed as soon as possible. At least one of the scalps will have to be a bit higher in rank/position, such as Burke … so it doesn’t appear lower level line agents get all the blame,” Roman said.
“It’s smart for them to lawyer up while they’re on administrative leave. They obviously smell the stench of whatever is being cooked up against them. They’ve been isolated and virtually excommunicated and I doubt the Secret Service HR department is of any help to them whatsoever.”
According to NYT, Perez hired Larry Berger—a lawyer who’s represented embattled Secret Service agents in the past—while DuBrey has hired notorious anti-Trump lawyer Mark Zaid.
Readers may be well familiar with Zaid.
A self-described advocate for whistleblowers, Zaid has worked on a wide variety of politically charged matters, including the first Trump impeachment. His clients have included Facebook’s dubious pro-censorship whistleblower, Frances Haugen; the brother of impeacher-turned-war profiteer Alexander Vindman; and a slew of CIA agents who’ve made numerous unfounded claims about having so-called “Havana Syndrome.”
Additionally, Zaid has been accused of spreading disinformation about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. According to acclaimed JFK researcher James DiEugenio, Zaid once gave a speech arguing against the probability that Lee Harvey Oswald was an intelligence asset—despite his numerous links to the CIA.
“At this same conference, Mark Zaid then went down to Dealey Plaza where some of the witnesses were arrayed, and handed out literature saying why they were not credible,” DeEugenio wrote in December 2022.
“And this is the guy demanding cred and calling the witness he never met ‘garbage.’ I guarantee you if this witness said, ‘I saw the files and there is nothing in there incriminating the CIA,’ Zaid would have a grin on his face.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
