Tag: assassinations

Five unanswered questions over assassination attempt on Donald Trump including why was rooftop unsecured despite being identified as a security risk, how Matthew Crooks got on the roof and why it took so long for snipers to take him out

Questions surrounding how would-be political assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to get into a position just 100 feet from Donald Trump was speaking, take aim with a rifle and fire off at least eight shots, remain. 

Crooks, 20, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper moments after he opened fire at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. The presumptive Republican nominee was wounded in the ear while supporter Corey Comperatore tragically lost his life.

In the aftermath of a seismic day in US politics, it now appears that it was sheer luck that Trump was not killed by Crooks’ gunfire which the ex-president’s ear and did not cause major injury. 

The Secret Service is coming in for the most scrutiny of their handling of the event. The building that Crooks’ fired from was identified as a security risk but the shooter was still able to establish a position and fire off multiple shots.  

New videos appear to confirm witnesses accounts that attendees at the rally notified law enforcement about Crooks’ presence after seeing him bear crawling and armed atop the building. 

After witnesses alerted cops when they saw Crooks bear crawling, an officer was hoisted by another officer on to the rooftop. 

Once there, Crooks trained his gun on the officer, forcing him to duck for cover. Moments later, shots rang out, terrifying the crowd. 

Trump was said to be in ‘great spirits’ on Sunday while telling the Washington Examiner that he has rewritten the speech he will deliver at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden spoke for about five minutes from the Oval Office and noted that the Republican National Convention was opening in Milwaukee on Monday, while he himself would be traveling the country to campaign for reelection.

He said passions would run high on both sides and that the stakes of the election were enormous.

But the president added, ‘it’s time to cool it down’ and noted not just the weekend attack on Trump but also the possibility of election-year violence on multiple fronts.

Here, the MailOnline looks at five of the key unanswered questions surrounding the first assassination attempt in 43 years and the security lapses around it.

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Feds question Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’ parents, neighbors as they scramble to figure out motive

Federal agents are still searching for a motive on Monday — two days after Thomas Matthew Crooks shot and wounded former President Donald Trump in an assassination attempt.

Agents wearing shirts emblazoned with “Pittsburgh Bureau of Federal Investigation” have spent the morning speaking to the Crookses and their neighbors, brandishing their badges at the front door.

“They asked questions I didn’t really have answers to. I’m not really one to go around talking to my neighbors,” said Kelly Little, 38, who has lived across the street from the Crookses’ modest one-story brick house since 2018.

Law enforcement sources told The Post that investigators are waiting for details from Crooks’ phone and computer to help them determine why he fired on Trump at Saturday’s rally on Saturday.

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10 Burning Questions That Every American Should Be Asking About The Trump Shooting

The people that guard our leaders are supposed to be the most highly trained security personnel in the world.  So how could something like this have happened?  As I mentioned in a previous article, I have been trying to put the pieces together.  To me, it appears that we either just witnessed incompetence on an epic scale or something more insidious was going on out there.  The American people deserve answers, and hopefully we will get them.  But I think that one thing is clear.  I don’t see any possible way that the head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, can be allowed to keep her job.  There is no way that this shooting would have happened the way that it did if competent people were running the show.

I have been digging into what many of the experts have been saying about this incident, and there is so much that just doesn’t make sense.

So I have compiled a list of 10 burning questions that every American should be asking about the Trump shooting…

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Secret Service blames local police, says they were tasked with securing properties surrounding Trump’s Pa. rally

The Secret Service blamed local police for failing to secure the rooftop from which gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, insisting it was outside the perimeter the federal agency was tasked with protecting.

Instead, securing and patrolling the factory grounds of AGR International Inc. — located about 130 yards from the stage where Trump was speaking Saturday — was the responsibility of local Pennsylvania police, Secret Service representative Anthony Gugliemi said, according to the New York Times.

The Secret Service was only tasked with covering the grounds where Trump’s rally took place, with local police being recruited to assist with those efforts and secure the area outside the rally.

But neighbors living near Butler Farm Show Grounds told The Post they were never visited by any law enforcement agencies — local or federal — in the days before or during the rally.

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Secret Service faces serious questions about security footprint and rooftop access at Trump event

In the wake of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, there are widespread concerns and questions about how a sniper was able to obtain rooftop access roughly 150 meters from the former president’s position at the podium at an outdoor rally.

Sources have described the shooting as coming from the “three o’clock” position of Trump’s podium location, with shots coming from his right side. Seconds after gunfire rang out, Secret Service counter-assault snipers began shooting the suspect who was found on top of a roof.

Notably, the shooter’s location was outside the security perimeter, raising questions about both the size of the perimeter and efforts to sweep and secure the American Glass Research building, and how the shooter was able to obtain rooftop access.

President Joe Biden said Sunday he has directed US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle “to review all security measures – all security measures – for the Republican National Convention.”

“I’ve directed an independent review of the national security at yesterday’s rally to assess exactly what happened. And I’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people,” Biden said.

Law enforcement sources say that part of the aftermath will include a review of whether the Secret Service had enough assets to protect Trump days ahead of officially becoming the Republican presidential nominee and whether procedures were followed to conduct security sweeps of the building that offered a vantage point for the alleged shooter.

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Major Media Outlets Refuse To Call Attack On Trump’s Life An Assassination Attempt

Following the leftist media’s initial pathetically biased reactions to the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Sunday headlines continue to roll out with the same misleading propaganda.

While video, photo, and eyewitness accounts all point to the same conclusion — that this was an attempted assassination — several large corporate media outlets have peddled a joint narrative that characterizes the events at Saturday’s Pennsylvania rally as a “shooting” or an “attack” and not an assassination.

While it is true that shootings are frightening situations for anyone to experience, the choice to describe the events as a “shooting” or an “attack” compared to an “attempted assassination” is telling. Only four presidents have been assassinated, and, including Trump, three former or sitting presidents have been injured in assassination attempts. Any assassination of a president, attempted or fatal, is a nation-shaking event with potentially dire consequences, and the media’s tactic to minimize or breeze over the brutal assault on Trump’s life is purposeful.

The recent cover of Time Magazine included the instantly iconic picture of Trump pumping his fist in the air with the American flag flying behind him. The headline reads, “Attack on Trump” with no mention of an attempted assassination. Below the headline, it says, “Former president survives shooting with nation on edge.”

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The Left Spent Years Running An ‘Assassination Prep’ Campaign

It was the shot heard round the world. A sound no one wanted to hear but one that was the culmination of the moral rot that has infested our political left and corporate left-wing media. The assassination attempt on Donald Trump was an act of depraved wickedness — but not everyone sees it that way because corporate media spent months desensitizing Americans to the possibility of such an egregious attempt.

For years the left has smeared Trump and his supporters as “threats to democracy.” Pundits portrayed Trump as a man akin to Adolf Hitler. But these deliberate and malicious misrepresentations of Trump were part of the left’s plan to prep the public for an assassination attempt against Trump. As Federalist Co-Founder and CEO Sean Davis explained back in December, this type of rhetoric is “assassination prep by the corrupt regime.”

“It is an obvious information operation meant to justify and even incite the most extreme measures, up to and including unconscionable violence. They will stop at nothing to retain power.”

Last November, The Washington Post’s Opinion Editor-at-Large Robert Kagan called a “Trump dictatorship … increasingly inevitable.”

“Barring some miracle, Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president,” Kagan wrote. “When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favor.” Kagan went on to compare Trump and his supporters to Hitlerites in Nazi Germany before once again posing the ominous question: “Can Trump win the election? The answer, unless something radical and unforeseen happens, is: Of course he can.” Kagan concluded that the “odds are … pretty good” that Trump would become a dictator.

“The Trump administration will be filled with people who will not need explicit instruction from Trump, any more than Hitler’s local Gauleiters needed instruction.”

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Quantico Reportedly Can’t Access Shooter’s Phone, Yet Claims ‘He Acted Alone’—Tech Mogul Elon Musk Responds

Biden’s FBI has announced that they believe the would-be assassin at former President Trump’s Pennsylvania rally on Saturday acted alone.

The statement comes despite the bureau’s inability to access data from the suspect’s cell phone, which has been sent to Quantico for further examination.

Kevin Rojek, FBI Special Agent in Charge Pittsburgh, said that the information currently available to the bureau suggests that there is no further public safety concern. However, he also noted that the investigation is still in its early stages, according to Fox News.

“We have not identified an ideology associated with the subject, but I want to remind everyone that we’re still very early in this investigation,” Rojek said during a press conference on Sunday.

The FBI is actively engaging with the suspect’s friends and family in an effort to uncover whether anyone had prior knowledge of his plans. According to the AP, the FBI was investigating the shooting as a potential act of domestic terrorism.

FBI released the following statement Sunday:

The FBI is investigating the shooting incident at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which resulted in one victim’s death and injuries to former President Trump and other spectators, as an assassination attempt and potential domestic terrorism.

While the investigation to date indicates the shooter acted alone, the FBI continues to conduct logical investigative activity to determine if there were any co-conspirators associated with this attack. At this time, there are no current public safety concerns.

The FBI has not identified a motive for the shooter’s actions, but we are working to determine the sequence of events and the shooter’s movements prior to the shooting, collecting and reviewing evidence, conducting interviews, and following up on all leads. We have also obtained the shooter’s telephone for examination.

The FBI has searched the shooter’s home and vehicle to collect additional evidence. Suspicious devices found at both locations have been rendered safe by bomb technicians and are being evaluated at the FBI Laboratory.

The firearm used in the shooting was purchased legally.

The shooter was not known to the FBI prior to this incident.

The FBI has obtained Crooks’ cell phone.

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FBI is Now Investigating Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump as ‘Potential Domestic Terrorism’

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has revealed that it is currently investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump as a case of “potential domestic terrorism.”

On Sunday, the FBI disclosed in a statement that the suspected assailant, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, appeared to have acted alone.

However, the bureau has not decided on the possible involvement of co-conspirators in the Saturday assassination attempt.

“The FBI is investigating the shooting incident at the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, which resulted in one victim’s death and injuries to former President Trump and other spectators, as an assassination attempt and potential domestic terrorism,” the bureau said in a statement.

“While our investigation to date indicates that the shooter acted alone, we continue to conduct thorough investigative activities to determine if any other individuals are connected with this heinous act,” it added.

During a press conference, FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek told reporters that the firearm used in the attempted assassination of Trump, during which the shooter also died, was an “AR-style 5.56 rifle” purchased legally.

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Analysis of Secret Service Failures in the Trump Assassination Attempt

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday has led to widespread criticism of the Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting current and former U.S. presidents and presidential candidates. Observers have pointed out glaring errors in the protection of President Trump. The fact that he was so shot by a sniper from a distance of only 130 meters, from an easily visible and obvious position, highlights significant security failures. Mainstream media outlets are conducting interviews and publishing analyses of the various failures of the Secret Service in this incident. This article amalgamates the numerous failures outlined by experts and reported by multiple media sources.

Rooftop Security Lapses

A significant failure was the shooter’s ability to access the rooftop of the American Glass Research building, just 130 meters (140 yards) from where Trump was speaking. The U.S. Army’s primary manual on physical and executive security, FM 3-19.30 (formerly FM 19-30), outlines critical steps that were overlooked in this case. These include conducting a thorough tactical analysis to identify strategic points and potential threat areas, and performing detailed reconnaissance to gather real-time information through site surveys and intelligence resources. Ignoring these essential procedures likely contributed to the security breach that allowed the shooter to position himself with a clear line of sight to the former president. Furthermore, despite the presence of Secret Service counter-sniper teams, the shooter managed to open fire before being neutralized. This shows a major lapse in the advance security sweeps and the failure to eliminate sight lines to the stage.

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