Josh Hawley says lead advance agent at Butler rally failed exams

Sen. Josh Hawley (R- MO ) reported Thursday that the Secret Service's lead advance agent in charge of former President Donald Trump's trip to Butler, Pennsylvania, where the assassination attempt on his life occurred, failed one or more of her training exams.

"The Trump rally was undermanned. It was understaffed. They did not have people who had experience on it," Hawley said on Fox News's Jesse Watters Primetime. "Now this advance agent, I'm told, may have failed one or more of her training exams and was known not to be a top quality agent. I mean, this is absurd."

Information on the agent is the product of whistleblowers speaking out months after the former president's ear was grazed by a gunman's bullet at the July rally, according to the senator.

"The fact that the director will not level with the American people about what's going on here is just totally unacceptable and unbelievable," Hawley said.

Kimberly Cheatle, former director of the Secret Service, wanted to increase the percentage of female agents in the organization, which Hawley said made him question how this female agent could have her performance record and still be named as lead advance agent.

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"If she was known not be really one of the Secret Service's top agent, she's in the Pittsburgh office, why was she put in charge of the entire trip?" he said. "I mean the whole thing. She was in charge of the whole works. From the time the president landed to the time he went to Butler. It's just totally inexplicable."

"I'm told by people close to and have knowledge of the Secret Service's own internal investigation that the Department of Homeland Security is leaning on the Secret Service not to comply with document requests to Congress," Hawley added.