Tag: secret service

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin who opened fire on former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania campaign rally Saturday, hid the weapon in advance, according to a Secret Service source.

It was not immediately clear where he hid it, however.

By the time agents spotted him on the roof, he was already holding it.

“We went from golf range finder to AR-15, and now we have to fill in the gap,” the source told Fox News.

When authorities first observed Crooks carrying a golf range finder Saturday, he was perceived as a “person of interest” but not a “threat,” authorities said Thursday.

Range finders were not banned from rally events at the time, but authorities are expected to review the list of items that are not allowed.

He did not become an official threat until he was seen with a weapon.

There were four counter-sniper teams stationed around the rally, according to the Secret Service – two from the agency and two provided by local law enforcement.

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Jim Hulings is the Butler County GOP Chair. He had only recently been elected to the volunteer position when, on Saturday, he found himself in the VIP section of the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, as shots rang out during the nation’s most recent presidential assassination.

“It was the worst moment of my life, to think that President Trump had come here, to Butler, and was being killed in front of us. I just couldn’t believe it.

And that was then matched by the greatest moment possible when Trump emerged, bloody but triumphant, and told us to fight! It was the greatest feeling to see that in person, and thank God they didn’t kill our President,” Hulings said.

“We did not run, they had to tell us to leave,” he added.

“When they opened up (security) at 1:00PM, they let the General Admission people go. We had to go through the checkpoint, we had to go through the magnetometers, and we had to turn over things that weren’t on the list. Umbrellas, chairs. The General Admission… I don’t think there was any security there… We were going through one at a time, they went down 30-40 at a time… I’m thinking… that doesn’t seem very secure to me because they didn’t check those people.”

Hulings said he felt the security at the event was “bizarre” because it closely searched and inspected some in the crowd, but let others in with no security whatsoever.

Hulings said he could not see the normal detachments of snipers throughout the rally.

“The security at the event, however, was letting people into the event without any screening and I knew that that was a major security lapse. Someone could have gotten a gun into the event very easily.”

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Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino says an “unimpeachable source” told him there was supposed to be someone on the roof from where gunman Thomas Crooks shot at Trump but that they “didn’t show up.”

Bongino made the comments during an appearance on a podcast with Tucker Carlson at the RNC.

“So I was just showing Tucker some material from an unimpeachable source let’s just say on the matter,” said Bongino.

“That post, according to my source, that roof was supposed to be a police post, there was supposed to be someone there,” he added.

“They’re now making up excuses saying the pitch or the roof, my source says to me no one knows why the source didn’t show up, so that’s a nonsense story they’re putting out in the media,” Bongino asserted.

The former NYPD officer also claimed that Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle has been told to “keep your mouth shut” by the Biden administration and the DHS if she wants to keep her job.

Bongino said if site post logs and police instructions were made public, it would unravel what really happened.

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The Secret Service director said the security agency did not station snipers on top of the Pennsylvania roof from which a gunman shot former President Donald Trump last weekend because it was “sloped.”

Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service chief refusing calls to step down after Trump was shot in the head, told ABC News that federal officials opted to forgo snipers on the rooftop that was identified as a security threat days before the event.

“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she said. “And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”

Three counter-snipers were positioned in the building underneath the roof from which Saturday’s gunman fired multiple shots killing one rallygoer and injuring three others, including Trump. The event’s security “command center” was even notified of the shooter moments before the would-be assassin began firing into the crowd.

“The shooter was actually identified as a potential person of suspicion,” Cheatle told ABC. “Unfortunately, with the rapid succession of how things unfolded, by the time that individual was eventually located, they were on the rooftop and were able to fire off at the former president.”

Cheatle told the network, “The buck stops with me,” but she continued to resist calls to resign her post as head of the federal security agency.

Republican Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert introduced legislation Monday to strip the Secret Service director of her salary and expense reimbursements after last weekend’s failed assassination attempt of the GOP presidential nominee.

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