Secret Service Cites STUNNING Excuse For Not Having Agent On Rooftop Where Shooter Fired At Trump

Embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle made a stunning admission to ABC News on Monday as she attempted to explain why an agent was not placed atop or near a rooftop adjacent to President Trump’s rally on Saturday where a gunman nearly claimed his life.

Speaking with ABC News, Cheatle accepted responsibility but also appeared to cast blame on local law enforcement for failing to secure the rooftop, which sits about 400 feet from the stage where President Trump held his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Only by turning his head at the last second was the Republican leader able to escape certain death as a round from a high-caliber rifle grazed his ear. Cheatle argued that she declined to place an agent on the roof because it had a sloped incline.

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“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 told ABC News in an interview Tuesday, according to the Daily Mail. “And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”

From his vantage point, Crooks – a 20-year-old man described as a “loner” by his former high school classmates – was able to put President Trump in the sights of his AR-15 rifle and get off eight shots before a Secret Service sniper rifleman was able to neutralize him. Cheatle confirmed that Crooks was previously targeted as a “potential person of suspicion” but declined to state whether or why the Secret Service did not follow up on him as an imminent threat that day.

“The shooter was actually identified as a potential person of suspicion,” Cheatle said. “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.”

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that rallygoers alerted local law enforcement officers to Cheatle’s position on the roof a full 86 seconds before the first round was fired. Continuing on, Cheatle seemed to indicate she thought it was the responsibility of the responding officers to address the threat. Previous reports noted that an officer climbed a ladder to the roof only to descend again after Crooks pointed his rifle at them.

“In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the USSS was responsible for the inner perimeter,” Cheatle said. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There was local police in that building, there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”

President Trump on Monday told Fox News that he was awestruck by the ability of his agents to tackle him like “linebackers,” taking him out of the line of fire before he rose to raise his fist in the air and promise his fans he would continue to “fight.”

“I’m not supposed to be here,” the former president told the New York Post in an exclusive interview on his way to the GOP convention in Milwaukee. “I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump said. “I’m supposed to be dead.”