Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) on Sunday called Saturday's assassination attempt of former President Trump a “huge failure” for the U.S. Secret Service.
In an interview on Fox News's “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Mills, a former Army sniper, said it was “divine intervention” that Trump survived the shooting in Pennsylvania, stressing the proximity of the shooter to the former president.
“Look, at the end of the day, this is a shot that your basic training boot camp soldier is requested to make within their nine-week period. This is one of the easiest shots,” Mills said, noting that he was trained to make a similar one when working for the State Department.
“Bottom line is that this is massive negligence, to the point of me speculating on what was intentional and what wasn't,” he added.
Mills referenced reporting that the alleged shooter — 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks — encountered local law enforcement just moments before he shot at the former president, from a rooftop less than 150 meters from the stage.
After attendees at the former president’s rally noticed a man climbing to the rooftop of a nearby building, they warned local law enforcement officials, the AP reported, citing two law enforcement officials who spoke to the outlet on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
A law enforcement officer then climbed to the roof and encountered 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who the AP reported pointed his rifle at the police officer. When the officer climbed down the ladder, Crooks then “quickly took a shot toward” Trump, the AP reported.
At that moment, Secret Service counter snipers reportedly opened fire at Crooks, killing him.
As soon as the local officer encountered the alleged shooter, Mills said, there should have been an alert sent out notifying agents of a “shooter on the roof,” and “Secret Service should have rushed the stage and immediately took the president and took him off, and then responded, the counter sniper.”
“The shot should not have gone off. That's the failure in itself,” the lawmaker said. “The best security is when you go in and you're actually able to prevent an incident, not react to an incident.”
The interview comes amid questions over how a gunman was able to get close enough to the former president to injure him with an AR-style rifle at Trump’s Saturday rally, with a bullet grazing Trump’s ear before he was promptly rushed off stage by Secret Service agents.
The FBI said on Sunday that the gunman appears to have acted alone and there was no known ideological motive behind what officials are calling the attempted assassination.
The incident marked one of the most significant lapses in Secret Service security since former President Reagan was shot in 1981.
Biden, on Sunday, said he directed an independent review of the security at the rally and called for cooler heads to prevail following the shocking event.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle pledged on Monday to “participate fully” in the independent review.
