Politics
JUST IN: Major Development In Butler, PA Trump Attack Emerges One Year Later
On the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s brush with death in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new report casts doubt on the U.S. Secret Service’s readiness that day, including the revelation that authorities shelved a “classified threat” against him.
Agents became aware of the threat at least 10 days before Trump took the stage on July 13, 2024 in Butler, where he was struck with a rifle round fired by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, the lone shooter who was killed by snipers after unleashing a hail of bullets that killed a bystander and wounded others.
Despite their knowledge, former leaders of the Secret Service failed to convey knowledge of the threat to the agents tasked with protecting Trump that day, according to a report by a federal watchdog.
The Government Accountability Office singled out the withholding of the report as an example of the “siloed practice for sharing classified information” inside the Secret Service, which has been irreparably tarnished as a result of the shooting. Within weeks, former Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned, and agents around Trump that day were placed on leave pending a full investigation.
“The Secret Service had no process to share classified threat information with partners when the information was not considered an imminent threat to life,” the GAO wrote in its 98-page report, which was released by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
Details were not shared about the threat, which was described by Secret Service officials as “highly classified.”
“This information was not more broadly shared across the Secret Service partly because the information was highly classified, which involved constraints from the Intelligence Community on sharing information,” the report said.
The report also stated the Secret Service failed to lay out processes for sharing “classified threat information” about “a significant threat to security operations but not considered an imminent threat to life.”
Authors of the watchdog report added that the threat against Trump was general in nature and not specific to his Butler rally.
Elsewhere, GAO officials wrote about speaking with the Special Agent in Charge at the agency’s Pennsylvania office who said that, had they known about the threat against Trump, they would have “requested additional assets, such as ballistic glass, additional drone mitigation, and a full counter sniper advance team, among other assets.”
The site agent for Butler, who was new to the Secret Service, had no prior experience planning a large, outdoor event for a presidential candidate, let alone one as controversial as Trump, the report goes on.
Other security lapses are referenced by the GAO, including admissions from Secret Service agents in Butler about how they relied on their own judgment and experience to staff the event, citing a lack of uniform guidance given to them that day. Drones that could have potentially spotted Crooks on a rooftop before he opened fire had been diverted to protect the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the Daily Caller reports.
Corey Comperatore, a local fire chief who attended the rally with his son, was shot and killed while standing behind Trump on stage, a short-lived dream come true.