Trump Receives ‘Tragic and Shocking’ News
Top U.S. House investigators revealed on Monday that the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was entirely "preventable," following expert and witness testimony regarding several security failures on July 13th.
During a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a gunman was able to target Trump from a rooftop due to a lack of communication and coordination between local and federal officials.
Fox News reported on the House Task Force’s initial findings, which exposed significant deficiencies within the Secret Service. The report stated, “Although the findings in this report are preliminary, the information obtained during the first phase of the Task Force’s investigation clearly shows a lack of planning and coordination between the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners before the rally.”
The report further concluded, “Put simply, the evidence obtained by the Task Force to date shows the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened.”
According to Politico, Task Force Chair Mike Kelly (R-PA) quietly issued three subpoenas to local Pennsylvania agencies for "sensitive documents." These documents are expected to be analyzed and included in a final report, anticipated for public release in December.
Former Secret Service leadership’s claims about the level of training and preparedness, as well as which agency was responsible for securing the rally’s perimeter where the shooter gained his vantage point, have been disputed by local authorities.
The report also indicated that certain members of Trump’s security detail received only a brief webinar training before being assigned, and the Secret Service had borrowed personnel from other federal agencies.
The investigation concluded that the Secret Service "did not effectively verify responsibilities were understood and being executed," and that communication failures between the Secret Service and other agencies caused "critical pieces of information … [to move] slowly due to fragmented lines of communication and unclear chains of command on July 13," just before 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire. On that day, the Secret Service did not conduct a joint meeting with federal and state partners.
The communication breakdown reportedly hampered agents' ability to share information about the gunman. One instance highlighted in the report described how the agency’s command post wasn’t alerted about a suspicious individual until 5:51 p.m., almost an hour after the first sighting. At around 5 p.m., three local officers had observed Crooks’ unusual behavior, including the use of a rangefinder.
The report noted, “These observations were made independently, and Crooks’s behavior and manner were suspicious based on each officer’s experience.”
One of the report’s key witnesses, an officer from the Butler Township Police Department, testified that he was among the first to spot a long gun in Crooks’ possession.
However, the Secret Service counter-snipers did not receive this critical information. Crooks was able to fire over eight shots before being fatally shot. The witness described the scene, saying, “I immediately start shouting over the radio and to the people that are there after that. ‘South end, he’s got a long gun, male on the roof,’ I begin to add.
I simply kept saying, ‘He has a gun, he has a long gun,’” the report recounted. According to Politico, the Task Force has "not received any evidence to suggest that message reached the former President’s USSS detail prior to shots fired."