'I mean, it just begs the question, what is going on?' Sen. Hawley asked on 'Hannity'
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., joined "Hannity" after grilling the acting Secret Service director for answers on the security failures at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Trump narrowly escaped assassination. Hawley said whistleblowers have since stated that law enforcement was assigned to be on the roof where the gunman fired.
JOSH HAWLEY: What whistleblowers tell me is that actually there was law enforcement assigned to be on that roof. I asked the Secret Service director about that today, and he said, 'well, gee, I'm not sure.' And I said, how can you not be sure? Seventeen days have gone by. But here's the reason why: Secret Service hasn't even talked to local law enforcement. They've done zero local law enforcement debrief or interviews since the shootings. Zero. I mean, it just begs the question, what is going on? Are they really trying to get the facts or they're just trying to cover their rear ends? And it sure looks a whole lot to me like the second thing, the American people deserve the truth here. Not whitewashing, not stonewalling, not a bunch of bureaucratic gobbledygook. They deserve the truth and I am not going to stop pushing until we actually get it.
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I don't trust any of these people to give us the facts. We saw it today. All we get is this stonewalling garbage. I went [to Butler] myself and the FBI came onto the property and said 'we're doing an investigation, you need to get out of here.' To which I said, I don't care what you're doing, I've got my own oversight to do.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid)
Whistleblowers previously told Hawley that a law enforcement officer who was assigned to monitor the roof of a building that would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks fired from on July 13 left their post because it was "too hot."
Crooks, 20, fired multiple rounds from the roof of American Glass Research (AGR) Building 6, which was outside the rally perimeter but had a direct line of sight to where the former president was standing on stage at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
"This comes from a whistleblower with direct knowledge of the Secret Service plan and setup that day," Hawley said. "And what this whistleblower tells my office is that there was at least one law enforcement person assigned to the roof itself. In other words, the plan called for a law enforcement individual to be on the roof at all times during the rally. And that did not happen. And what the whistleblower tells me is the law enforcement individual who was assigned to that roof abandoned it."
Fox News' Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
Elizabeth Heckman is a digital production assistant with Fox News.