The FBI, a scandal-plagued federal agency, should not be entrusted with investigating the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, given its recent sordid association with America's 45th president, prominent political adviser Roger Stone said in an exclusive interview with The New American.
Stone's career
Stone, who wrote a best-selling book about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and is currently writing a new one about the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, said deep state operatives have orchestrated numerous plots to take out prominent politicians in the past.
“They succeeded in killing the president of the United States,” Stone said Monday, referring to the assassination of President Kennedy. “We still don't know for sure who killed President Kennedy. The American people have never been told the truth about who tried to kill President Ronald Reagan.”
Asked whether the FBI could take the lead in investigating the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting, Stone made it clear: “No, I can't trust the FBI to investigate it themselves,” he said in an interview on “Important Conversations” on Monday.
“I can't believe the FBI would investigate the Secret Service,” he continued. “I can't believe they would investigate the Secret Service. The Department of Justice is so politically incompetent to lead an investigation into this.”
Secret Service Failure
On Monday, lawmakers grilled U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle during a congressional hearing, in which some of the heated exchanges went viral on social media. In one exchange, Cheatle acknowledged that she had not been to the rally site in the nine days since the shooting.
Less than 24 hours after the hearing, Cheatle announced his resignation. “In light of recent events, I have made the difficult decision to step down as Director,” he wrote in a letter to employees on Tuesday. “The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leadership and financial infrastructure. On July 13, we failed to fulfill that mission.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) announced Tuesday they would create a bipartisan task force to investigate the security failings surrounding the assassination attempt. Stone believes Congress is the only institution that can lead a credible and legitimate investigation.
“In this day and age of the internet, there's so much information out there that you have to sift through it to make sure you have the facts,” Stone said. “Only House Republicans have the authority to investigate this thoroughly.”
The assassination attempt had been predicted for years.
In 2017, in an explosive and wide-ranging interview with a New American writer, Stone predicted that the “deep state” would do anything to stop Trump. Assassination was “Plan C” to be used if Mueller's “Russia collusion fabrication” and attempts to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment failed. Seven years later, Stone believes the latest assassination attempt is the result of earlier failed attempts to remove Trump from office and block his reelection.
“I worked through the Russia collusion case,” Stone said, “and through that experience I learned that they will use any means necessary, and that breaking the law means nothing to those in power. Some of these acts are acts of treason.”
“The coup failed. Trump did not go bankrupt. He did not get barred from running in all 50 states,” Stone added. “There was only one other option … to kill him.”
The legendary political operative, who served under multiple presidents dating back to Richard Nixon, said he had long-held concerns about the reliability of Trump's Secret Service and warned that the former president's frequent rallies increased the risk of an assassination attempt.
Remembering the Kennedy assassination?
The failure of USSS snipers to eliminate the threat posed by Thomas Crooks 20 minutes after he was identified led Stone to conclude that the shooter was not acting alone in a sinister plot.
“If the FBI had waited until the gunman had finished firing before killing him, the insurgent sniper would have been Jack Ruby,” Stone said. “In essence, they silenced the assassin, ensuring that no one would ever know the truth about who he was, what his motives were, how he got there, or why the Secret Service didn't act sooner.”
Announcing the House of Commons investigation, Mr Johnson and Mr Jeffries described the security failings as “shocking”.
“This reminds me of Dallas,” Stone said, referring to the scene of the Kennedy assassination. “Many of the violations of the Secret Service code of conduct that occurred in Dallas were also seen in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
Many unanswered questions remain for investigators to investigate.
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
English
French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish