President Joe Biden is in charge of protecting his political rivals. He’s in charge of the Secret Service. Elections need candidates. The assassination attempt against Trump was a literal attack on the integrity of America’s elections. If the president won’t vigorously protect his rival candidates, then he’s not protecting American democracy.

Instead of taking responsibility for what happened, President Biden has repeatedly expressed full confidence in Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas who, in turn, has expressed full confidence in Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle. Unlike in the cases of the attacks on sitting Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, former President Trump and candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cannot, as candidates, direct the federal government to provide adequate protection. It is President Biden who is responsible for providing that protection.

Biden is also responsible for providing the American people with a prompt and accurate explanation of what went wrong. Unless he fires the responsible officials, he is tacitly endorsing what happened in Butler, Pa., and inviting repetition. It’s up to him, not the American public, to restore public faith in the federal government by prying the truth from his subordinate agencies.

We’re still learning key facts about the attempt on President Trump’s life. Where did the ladder come from? Why is there no apparent social media for this 20-year-old? Why wasn’t the shooter’s vantage point, an obvious point of attack, covered by the Secret Service? The gap in security far exceeds anything that Lee Harvey Oswald or John Hinckley, Jr. had to exploit. We’re not talking about a window overlooking a speeding motorcade. The rooftop should have been secured—nobody disputes that. 

The glaring security lapse is made more problematic by Biden’s heated rhetoric, calling Trump a dictator who will end democracy. He has repeatedly suggested the urgent need to “stop” Trump. Trump, according to Biden, is an “existential threat” to American Democracy. His speech blaming Trump for violent rhetoric has no credibility. Trump is not responsible for the assassination attempt. Trump doesn’t invoke the urgency of rising fascism in 1930s Germany. The anti-Trump hysteria created an environment in which many people warned of the gathering conditions that put Trump at risk of exactly what happened. Almost everyone saw the attack coming.

The FBI has swooped in to take control of the case. Unfortunately, the agency has given the American public ample reasons to be skeptical that it will handle the investigation in a professional and nonpartisan manner. We can predict this outcome because the FBI has a long history of abusing its role in investigating high-profile cases. The examples of the FBI mishandling high-profile cases are much longer than the list of their successes:

• The Robert Hanssen case
• the Atlanta bombing case
• the Anthrax attack investigation
• the Ted Stevens corruption case
• the DC sniper case
• Midyear Exam (the Clinton email investigation)
• Crossfire Hurricane (the Trump/Russia collusion investigation)
• the Mueller probe
• FBI agent David Harris (sexual predation of multiple children)
• the Seth Rich investigation
• the Epstein “investigation”
• the Larry Nassar investigation
• the Las Vegas mass shooting
• the Hunter Biden laptop

Each of these examples follows a common pattern. The FBI rushes in to control the narrative but fails to timely deliver a bona fide criminal case or provide a clear picture of the facts. In political cases, the FBI has repeatedly used its authority to influence domestic politics. But rarely, if ever, has the FBI handled a high-profile case in a manner that fosters confidence. These aren’t exceptions. The pattern is almost uninterrupted.

There’s really no hope that the FBI will help Americans gain a greater understanding of the attack on Trump. The case is political and the FBI, at its core, is a political operation cosplaying as a law enforcement agency.

The FBI’s long pattern of misconduct has become so obvious that serious people are asking whether the rogue agency does more harm than good. Many have detected a contemptuous, dismissive attitude from FBI Director Christopher Wray towards the FBI’s constitutional masters. In light of the recent ascendance of its most famous victim, Donald Trump, skepticism of the FBI will only grow. 

We all remember FBI Agent Peter Strzok promising his anti-Trump lover, FBI attorney Lisa Page, that he would use his authority as an FBI agent to “stop” Trump from being elected. Many believe this attitude persists within FBI leadership. This time eight years ago, the FBI had already started hatching plans to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power to Trump. If the FBI bungles the assassination investigation, we should treat it as a last straw and get rid of the agency.

The lack of a coherent explanation for what happened in Butler breeds conspiracy theories. When we hear the head of the Secret Service explain that the slope of the roof prevented the Secret Service from closing off the threat to candidate Trump, we know we’re being lied to. The roof’s slope was no greater than that used by the Secret Service counter-snipers who shot the assassin. While important, the safety of the Secret Service officers is never paramount to the safety of a current or former president.  

Will we find emails and texts among Secret Service personnel like the ones exchanged between Strzok and Page? Will we uncover denials of requests to boost Trump’s security detail? The stonewalling hints that the truth is more terrible than we already know. 

But there’s no question who is at fault. President Biden is in charge of both the FBI and the Secret Service. He is responsible for providing answers to the public questions about this attack on our election. If he won’t answer the questions, it’s because the answers would make him look even worse than he already does.