Report: Secret Service spokesperson now says that local police sniper as well as Secret Service sniper shot would-be assassin after he began shooting at Trump. Wait, did they have to hold their fire until the suspect with the rifle fired first? Pointing his rifle at a protectee wasn’t enough? Surely you aren’t serious. You are serious? Then may the Lord help us. We have idiots in charge.
In short, 1) Secret Service keeps changing its story, a sure way to reduce confidence to absolute zero, below which it cannot fall; 2) For all we know only the local police sniper’s shot neutralized the killer, while the Secret Service sniper’s shot may not have been fatal. 3) Everything else may be errors, perhaps egregious errors, but still errors. But allowing Trump to mount the podium and begin his speech while the suspect was still on the roof with his rifle was nothing short of malicious. It cannot be explained away, even by habitual liars.
In law there is something called “express malice.” Say I am late for work, run to the bus stop, knock down an old lady, she breaks her hip and dies in the hospital. I can argue I intended her no harm and the death was accidental.
Now say I pick up a brick, hit her on the head, steal her purse, and she dies in the hospital. The state does not have to bother proving what I intended. Hitting someone on the head with a heavy object is “express malice,” it speaks for itself.
Same here. Allowing a person you are legally and morally obligated to protect to assume a dangerously exposed position when you know the danger still exists is, I would argue, express malice. It speaks for itself. It cannot be explained away, even by habitual liars.
If, like Jack Kennedy, Trump had the right side of his head blown off, with a piece of his skull in the street, I believe we would be considering murder indictments against the officials in charge, including Secret Service Director Cheatle and Homeland Security Secretary Mayokas.
But unlike Jack Kennedy, Trump providentially turned his head at the last split second. Instead of his life he lost only a small piece of his ear. But this was no thanks at all to the officials responsible for guarding him.
