Teaser:
All the while, as bewildered-looking officials circle the building but take no action, Crooks readies himself for zero hour….
As bipartisan committees continue to probe the security breakdowns at the campaign rally that allowed a gunman to fire eight rounds at Donald Trump and into the crowd, a shocked nation is hearing from whistleblowers about a string of incomprehensible security failures that led to disaster.
Senator Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), revealed that multiple whistleblowers have contacted his office with testimony that opens a window on an operation marked by gross incompetence bordering almost on criminal negligence.
In one disclosure, the Secret Service allegedly turned down offers from local law enforcement to utilize drones to reinforce security at the rally. “The drones that USSS were offered had the capability not only to identify active shooters but also to help neutralize them,” the letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said.
In other words, had the drones been deployed, firefighter Corey Comparatore who died from a bullet meant for Trump might be alive today.
Sen. Hawley serves on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee which conducts oversight of Secretary Mayorkas’ DHS. He has been one of the congressmen leading the drive for accountability after the near assassination of Donald Trump.
Hawley opened a whistleblower tip line within his office shortly after the event, pledging to protect the anonymity of all who contact his staff in an effort to shed light on the historic security breach.
“According to one whistleblower,” Hawley wrote in his letter to DHS, “the night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service [USSS] repeatedly denied offers from a local partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally. This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. Secret Service said no.”
“It is hard to understand why USSS would decline to use drones, particularly given the fact USSS permitted the shooter to overfly the rally area with his own drone mere hours before the event,” Hawley wrote.
The letter added that according to the whistleblower, “USSS changed course after the shooting took place and asked local law enforcement to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.”
The senator pressed Mayorkas to explain why the Secret Service turned down the offer of drone technology for Trump’s July 13 campaign rally, and demanded his agency turn over all records and communications concerning the offer from local law enforcement.
In his letter to Mayorkas, Sen. Hawley also cited the allegations of other whistleblowers from the Secret Service agency who disputed testimony from former director Cheatle that the Secret Service had designated responsibility for the rooftops to local police.
The whistleblowers attested that USSS agents had in fact been assigned to the rooftop of the building from where Thomas Matthew Cooks later fired into the crowd, but abandoned the post after the tin roof became too hot.
Crucial Meeting with SWAT Never Took Place
In addition, a massive communication failure lies at the heart of the disaster at the Butler rally, whistleblowers report. The USSS and local police were unable to talk to each other on their radios. They were not given each other’s frequency.
“Normally, they put a person from the (local police) into the Secret Service area,” said U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “Today, the locals shared with us they were not allowed to have anyone in there. As far as radio communications, there was very little communication between the outer and inner perimeter.”
In perhaps the most disturbing revelation to emerge last week, members of the SWAT team from Butler County, Pennsylvania that was assigned to help protect Donald Trump at the July 13 rally, told ABC News that a routine but crucial meeting between themselves and U.S. Secret Service never took place.
Meetings between federal and local officials in the run-up to a presidential candidate’s visit are key to coordinating security preparations at the site, experts say. The meetings between the agencies are supposed to give every officer and law enforcement leader on the scene a full picture of the security plan well before the candidate takes the stage.
The goal is to assure the safety of both the candidate and crowds of supporters that can number in the thousands.
“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” said Jason Woods, the SWAT team’s lead sharpshooter, in the interview. “We had no communication. So, I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong.”
Woods said that the SWAT team’s first communication with Secret Service agents on scene came only after the shooting. By then, he said, “it was too late.”
Impaired Communication, Leadership Void
Woods described how his team had identified Crooks as “suspicious” prior to the shooting, sending texts with a description and pictures of the suspect. The information was apparently not relayed in a timely way to Secret Service leaders, he said. He blamed the lapse on the inability of the groups to directly communicate with each other.
The interview with the SWAT team built on the findings of Sen. Ron Johnson who launched an investigation within days after the shooting. Sen. Johnson issued a document titled, “Preliminary Findings July 13, 2024; Assassination Attempt on Former President Donald Trump.”
“Some of the key takeaways the senator’s office has learned to date which the public deserves to know, is that Secret Service did not attend a security briefing provided to local special weapons and tactics (SWAT) and sniper teams the morning of July 13, 2024,” the document said.
“There were less than 40 local SWAT operators and snipers assigned to the Butler rally, in a crowd of 20,000,” the document detailed.
In addition, local law enforcement said communications between themselves and Secret Service were siloed (not on the same frequency), and had to go through an intermediary step known as Command.
According to Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Ok., text messages show that Crooks was identified by SWAT team member as “suspicious” a full 90 minutes before the shooting. In addition, “video shows officers were surrounding the building where the shooter was posted, but still no one took action,” Brecheen wrote in an online post.
“It was a major communication failure and it requires more than answers,” he wrote. “It requires further accountability and procedural changes so that it is never allowed to happen again.”
The NY Post obtained a number of the texts that law enforcement members exchanged about a suspicious person lurking about the AGR building, including two cell phone images of Crooks. The messages about the suspect’s location went back and forth, at times with a significant amount of pause time between texts.
The messages reveal the officers’ uncertainty about the gravity of the situation, impaired communication between the law enforcement teams, and an absence of leadership.
At 5:41, one officer asked for the picture of Crooks to be sent to Command, who would forward it to Secret Service.
At 5:55, a stunning 14 minutes later, confirmation finally came from the Secret Service that the picture had been received. Minutes later came a request for more information about the suspect’s location. The officer who first sighted Crook responded, “I lost track of him.”
As Zero Hour Was Closing In….
Reading Sen. Johnson’s timeline of events and viewing witness footage of events leading up to the shooting is jaw-dropping.
The officials’ roundabout method of using an intermediary (“Command”) to convey critical time sensitive information plays out in slow motion, as law enforcement teams text messages instead of talking directly.
All the while, as bewildered-looking officials circle the building but take no action, Crooks readies himself for zero hour….
Footage of the Secret Service snipers on an adjacent roof indicate that one of them has the gunman in his sights at 6:05 but does not shoot until Crooks suddenly opens fire at 6:11, at which point the sniper returns fire, shooting him dead.
Why the tragic delay in neutralizing a man obviously about to perpetrate murder? No one has answered that question.
“What did the Secret Service do with the information [they received from local police] about a gunman on top of the AGR building?” Sen. Johnson’s document probes. “Why did the Secret Service not immediately send agents to the building?” Video footage shows that no one from the agency appeared on the rooftop until several minutes after Crooks was shot.
Did security have roving guards walking around those buildings at any point? Were they cleared before the event? Was there a hard perimeter, and if so, why didn’t it include those adjacent buildings? Were bomb sniffing dogs present?
Most importantly, Johnson asks, why was former President Trump allowed to go on stage? And why was he not removed immediately after being shot?
Criticism over the way Secret Service allowed Trump to linger on the stage after being shot echoed from many quarters.
“If I could see his face on TV, a second shooter could have easily seen him and scored another head shot,” wrote former Marine Joe Edge in an op-ed in the Augusts Press. “Yet 78 year old Trump was able to overpower Secret Service agents who should have removed him from the stage immediately. They allowed him to be clearly exposed to the crowd.”
“A representative from any one of the law enforcement agencies performing security duties that evening should have felt empowered enough to command, “‘Hold–get him off the stage,'” Rep. Brecheen said. “There are protocols for how to do this. It’s a major catastrophe of inefficiency that was exposed here.”
The 500 Yard Rule Was Ignored
“Every single rooftop in a 500 yard radius should have been secured,” the August Press op-ed insisted. “All Marines who graduate boot camp have the skill to hit a human size target from 500 yards away. Yet, the Secret Service found it necessary to secure [Donald Trump] from only 300 yards away.
“The building that the shooter was located on would require time and effort to get up onto. No one in law enforcement, including Secret Service snipers, saw a man shimmying up the side of a building with a weapon, and laying on a flat white roof less than 150 yards from Trump? That alone is insane,” the writer said.
“This shooter not only was allowed to be on a rooftop unmolested, he was found on the closest rooftop. A 20-year-old was able to outsmart what is supposed to be the most prestigious law enforcement group in the country. He did so easily and was able to fire multiple rounds before being shot himself.
“The whole thing reeks of failure after failure. And thus, conspiracy theories will start swirling.”
No “Eyes In the Skies”
Rep. Michael Guest, R-Miss., alongside 10 other bipartisan lawmakers, visited the rally site on July 22. He noted the presence of the water tower, which was among the buildings at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds where Trump held his rally.
“From being at the scene, I saw there was a water tower located roughly 100 yards away from where the shooter was positioned, and if law enforcement had someone up in that water tower, they would have been able to cover the entire perimeter from that elevated position,” he told news correspondents. “There was an immediate opportunity here that was squandered.”
“So clearly another failure that they did not have eyes in the skies that day, either in the form of drones or in the form of having someone in an elevated position that would have been able to look down and cover the rally site,” Guest said. “That might well have been the game-changer.”
*****
Secret Service Had “Too Little Resources” to Secure the Rally
Whistleblowers have come forward asserting that DHS deployed inexperienced, untrained personnel at the Trump rally, many of whom who were not familiar with standard protocols in properly securing a venue.
The reason for the replacement of Secret Service with DHS personnel, whistleblowers told Congress, was that the Secret Service had “too little resources” to cover the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania after covering the NATO summit in Washington, D.C.
This information came from a July 8 meeting of the Secret Service with the FBI and other law enforcement, the whistleblower told the House Judiciary Committee.
At that session, which was to review security needs for Trump’s upcoming rally in Butler, Pa., Secret Service Special Agent Tim Burke disclosed the problem of having insufficient security resources for the rally.
This was due to the Secret Service also having to cover Jill Biden’s event on behalf of her husband’s campaign in Pittsburgh the same day, Burke told those present.
The subject of “inadequate resources” for the Trump rally received prominent attention during a 5-hour Congressional hearing last week, as former Secret Service Director Cheatle was grilled over colossal security failures at that event.
Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C. questioned Cheatle about why Jill Biden’s 400-person event held in a private casino-ballroom in Pittsburgh received 12 extra Secret Service personnel, whereas the Trump rally, with a crowd of 20,000 held in an open-air fairground, was granted only three extra agents.
“When two events are happening around the same time, would you agree that a higher degree of risk at one of the events should get more security resources, given the higher threat level?” Timmons asked Cheatle.
He cited recent warnings from the U.S. intelligence community that Iran has made repeated threats to assassinate Donald Trump, and might try to carry out the threat. [See Sidebar]
“No resources were diverted from the Butler rally,” the former director said, sidestepping the question of whether the Trump rally should have warranted more security personnel.
“I’m not asking you whether resources were diverted. I’m asking whether a higher threat level warrants greater resources,” Timmons said.
“The answer is yes,” Cheatle replied.
“Who made the decision to grant 12 extra security personnel to the Jill Biden event—an indoor event of only 400 people, and only three extra agents to the Butler rally?
Cheatle declined to answer, saying only, “the resources at the Trump rally were sufficient.”
“Did you just say there were ‘sufficient resources’?” Timmons fired back incredulously. “President Trump was shot! A man was killed! There clearly were not sufficient resources. Whoever made that decision needs to be fired. And you need to resign because you have lost the trust of the American people.”
A $3 Billion Budget Is Not Enough To Cover Security For Trump’s Rallies
Rep. Michael Guest, R-Utah, noted in an online post that that Congress increased the Secret Service’s budget this year, swelling it to more than $3 billion.
“Congress increased the budget of the Secret Service knowing it was a presidential year, and they would need additional resources, additional personnel,” he said. “We actually gave Secret Service more resources than they requested, to make sure they could provide the protective teams needed for the presidential and vice presidential candidates.”
Despite the generous increases, the agency has complained about having to spread itself too thin, and according to the Washington Post, has warned Donald Trump about holding outdoor rallies; the Secret Service can’t guarantee they can provide enough security to keep him safe.
Trump, however, said he would continue to stage outdoor rallies.
*****
Secret Service Claims it Ramped up Security For Trump After Threats from Iran
U.S. intelligence recently detected an Iranian plot against former President Donald Trump, CBS News reported, shortly after the assassination attempt against him at the Butler, Pa. rally.
Officials say they have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump administration officials ever since former President Trump gave the order in 2020 to take out arch terrorist General Qassem Soleimani in a ‘targeted assassination.’
Soleimani led the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s elite Qud force, responsible for providing weapons, military training and money to anti-American and anti-Israel terrorist groups in the Middle East.
According to the CBS article, “the Secret Service said that upon learning about the heightened Iranian threat against Trump, it increased resources and assets for his protection.”
“Additional resources including counter assault team personnel, counter sniper team personnel, drones and robotic dogs were provided,” the article said.
Interestingly, almost every mainstream newspaper last week carried the same story—almost word for word—about a “surge” in Secret Service resources for Donald Trump, in response to intelligence about Teheran’s plotting against him.
Yet, Trump’s security team has complained that far from receiving ramped up security personnel and resources from the Secret Service, its requests for additional protection have been consistently turned down by the agency for the past two years.
After first calling this claim “unequivocally false and baseless,” the Secret Service last week admitted it had in fact denied “some requests” from Trump’s team for heightened protection.
Ironically, the “surge” in security resources supposedly granted to Trump was nowhere on display during the Butler, Pa. rally, where the former president was nearly shot dead by a 20 year old gunman after massive security breaches.
Trump, in turn, called for the annihilation of Iran if they ever assassinate him. His statement was made alongside a video clip of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last Wednesday, where he highlighted Iran’s threats.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote, “If they do ‘assassinate President Trump’ which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth. If that does not happen, American leaders will be considered gutless cowards.”
