Explosive House Report Shatters Secret Service’s Narrative From First Trump Shooting
Top U.S. House investigators announced on Monday that the July 13th attempted assassination against President Donald Trump was entirely “preventable,” according to a preliminary report that relied on expert and witness testimony about multiple security failures that day.
A lack of communication and planning between state and federal agencies exhibited gaps in the protection around Trump during a Butler, Pennsylvania rally where a gunman was able to hit him with a rifle round from a nearby rooftop. Fox News quoted the initial report by a House Task Force which cites stunning failures within the Secret Service. “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 said. “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.”
Task Force Chair Mike Kelly (R-PA) has quietly issued three subpoenas to local Pennsylvania agencies for “sensitive documents,” according to Politico, which are expected to be reviewed and wrapped into a final report slated for release this December. Local authorities have previously refuted statements from former Secret Service leadership about the quality of training and preparation, including which side was responsible for the rally’s perimeter where the gunman found his vantage point. The investigation also revealed that the Secret Service borrowed members of Trump’s detail from other federal agencies, and some were only trained via a brief webinar before being sent out into the field.
Shortly before 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire, a breakdown in communication 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,” and the Secret Service “did not effectively verify responsibilities were understood and being executed,” the report states. There was no joint meeting between the Secret Service and its state and federal partnering agencies that day.
The communication breakdown also hampered agents’ ability to share information about the shooter, the report found. One instance of poor communication cited in the report was the initial spotting of a suspicious individual, which was not relayed to the agency’s command post until 5:51 p.m. — nearly one hour after it was first reported. Three local officers first noticed Crooks’s odd behavior, including the use of a rangefinder, around 5 p.m. that day. “These observations were made independently, and based upon each officer’s experience, Crooks’s behavior and manner were suspicious,” according to the report.
An officer with Butler Township Police PD, identified as witness four in the report, testified that he was among the first to spot a long gun in Crooks’s possession, a message which tragically did not make it to the USSS counter-snipers who engaged. Crooks was able to fire more than eight rounds before being shot and killed. “From there, I just start yelling out to the guys that are there, I yell on the radio right away. I start saying, you know, ‘South end, He’s got a long gun, male on the roof.’ I just kept repeating, ‘He’s got a gun, he’s got a long gun,’” the witness told the task force, according to the report. Politico added that the report notes: “To date, the Task Force has not received any evidence to suggest that message reached the former President’s USSS detail prior to shots fired.”
