Donald Trump’s security personnel and sniper team were unaware there was a gunman on a rooftop until he opened fire on the former president, the acting Secret Service director said Tuesday.
According to FBI officials, local law enforcement officials identified gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks as a “suspicious person” about 90 minutes before the attack at a Trump campaign rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Since the assassination attempt, questions have arisen about when the Secret Service knew a gunman was on the roof of a building overlooking the campaign trail.
“Based on what I know, neither the Secret Service counter-sniper team nor members of the former president’s security team were aware that a subject with a gun was on the roof of the AGR,” acting Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe told a joint Senate committee.
“The only information we had was that locals were working at a location at about three o’clock, which was to the former president’s right-hand side, where the shots were fired,” Rowe said.
“Nothing about a man on the roof or a man with a gun,” he said.
FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said Monday that a police officer was pushed onto a roof by another officer at 6:11 p.m.
Crooks pointed his rifle at the officer, who “immediately fell to the ground.”
“Approximately 25 to 30 seconds into this encounter, the accused fired eight rounds of bullets, following which he was successfully neutralised,” Rojek said.
Rowe said Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper “within 15.5 seconds” of the first shot being fired.
The Republican presidential candidate suffered a wound to his right ear, while two rally attendees were injured and a Pennsylvania firefighter was killed.
‘Ashamed’
Rowe said he could not defend why the roof from which Crooks fired was not better secured, and said he was “ashamed” by the security lapse.
He said local law enforcement agencies were tasked with securing the roof. “We assumed state and local people had that responsibility,” he said.
When asked why Trump was allowed on stage, Rowe said Crooks had not been identified as a threat but merely as a suspect.
“We had nothing more to offer other than what we were told about a suspicious individual,” he said. “The suspicion did not rise to the level of danger or imminent harm.”
Rowe said a communications failure between local law enforcement and the Secret Service led to a “failure on multiple levels.”
He said the Secret Service had “technical difficulties” with its anti-drone capabilities on the day of the attack and that they were “not operational until after 5 p.m.”
According to the FBI, miscreants flew a drone near the rally site for 11 minutes, about two hours before the attack.
FBI Deputy Director Paul Abate also addressed the committee hearing and said officials had not yet determined a motive.
He said they had identified a social media account possibly linked to Crooks.
“Over 700 comments were posted from this account over a period of time in 2019, 2020,” Abbate said. “Some of these comments, if ultimately attributed to the shooter, reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes, support political violence, and are described as extremist in nature.”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned last week, acknowledging that the agency had failed in its mission to prevent the assassination attempt.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
