While members of the Secret Service in a Butler, Pennsylvania command center were notified that an individual later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting suspiciously before he tried to assassinate Donald Trump, members of the former president's secret service detail were not informed of the threat, according to the Washington Post.
Members of former president Donald Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers have privately questioned why they were not informed that local police were tracking a suspicious person before that person opened fire on Trump at his July 13 rally in western Pennsylvania, according to people with direct knowledge of the concerns.
Approximately 20 to 25 minutes before Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at the former president, local countersnipers noticed him behaving strangely and sent his photograph to a command center staffed by state troopers and Secret Service agents, the head of Pennsylvania State Police told a congressional committee Tuesday.
According to three sources, members of Trump's Secret Service detail have complained to confidants and others inside the agency that they were never made aware of the warning, and they had no idea that local countersnipers eventually lost track of Crooks - or that a local police officer who was hoisted onto the roof of the building saw Crooks perched there with a gun.
Trump was on stage a full eight minutes - roughly 20 minutes after Crooks was spotted and reported - before shots rang out, wounding Trump, critically wounding two others, and killing one rallygoer.
"Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem," Trump told Fox News in an interview last Monday. "They could’ve said, ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes, something. Nobody said — I think that was a mistake."
Meanwhile, the Secret Service, which initially lied about denying Trump additional security requests, is not talking.
"As it relates to communications at the rally, the Secret Service is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again," said spox Anthony Guglielmi, the guy who lied about the denied security.
Trump’s team has been at odds with Secret Service headquarters over various requests that the agency denied, including more magnetometers at events, more countersnipers at some events and other specialty teams at other events, The Post has reported. The Secret Service and Trump’s team also repeatedly clashed over security and logistics at the Republican National Convention earlier this month.
The Butler, Pa., shooting is also emblematic of what some Secret Service critics say are chronic communication problems that have dogged the agency and contributed to serious security lapses. -WaPo
Yes, just a breakdown in communication. Nothing nefarious.
Also on Monday, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle deflected when asked by House lawmakers why the Secret Service didn't immediately delay Trump's speech when local police reported a suspicious person - telling the committee that such reports are commonplace.
"At a number of our protected sites, there are suspicious individuals that are identified all the time," she said. "It doesn’t necessarily mean that they constitute a threat."
Cheatle - who resigned last week, admitted that the Secret Service was notified of a suspicious person at the Butler, PA rally "somewhere between two and five times," and she didn't know when Trump's security detail was notified.
Turns out, they weren't.
