Phone calls this week between lawmakers and the heads of the Secret Service and FBI have done little to quell a growing litany of questions as to what actions law enforcement officers did and didn’t take to allow an assassination attempt on former President Trump.
New admissions that the Secret Service had flagged gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks as “suspicious” and a possible threat more than an hour before the Saturday shooting — and that Trump was still allowed on stage — has placed intense heat on the agency.
With more questions than answers at this point, Republicans have intensified calls for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s removal.
Cheatle so far has refused to step down, with the agency asserting that the “Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident,” according to a statement issued late Wednesday.
Here are four revelations:
In one of the most explosive discoveries this week, law enforcement had identified Crooks as a person of interest at the Butler, Pa., rally 62 minutes before the gunman fired several shots at Trump.
Crooks, 20, of the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, drove roughly 35 miles north to the Trump rally with an AR-style weapon, climbed a building just outside of the event’s perimeter, and fired several shots at Trump. One bullet grazed Trump’s ear, one spectator was shot and two others were injured.
It’s now known that Crooks visited the rally site on July 7 to scout out the location and also visited it the morning of the rally, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and FBI Director Christopher Wray, told senators in a half-hour conference call Wednesday.
Crooks later returned and was eyed by authorities around 5:10 p.m. before law enforcement spotted him with a rangefinder at 5:30 p.m., sending a radio alert to a command post.
Local law enforcement and Secret Service agents then tried to locate Crooks but he was not spotted again until roughly 5:52 p.m., when the shooter was seen on the roof by an agency countersniper positioned on rooftops immediately in the vicinity of the stage.
Ten minutes later Trump took the stage, where he talked for several minutes before, around 6:09 p.m., those in the crowd cognizant of Crooks crawling across the roof began to try to alert law enforcement to the gunman, according to multiple videos posted to social media.
It would be another two minutes after that, at 6:11 p.m., when Crooks fired his first shots. Secret Service located him and returned fire less than 30 seconds later, killing him.
Lawmakers are frustrated, in particular, about why Trump was allowed on the rally stage after law enforcement became aware of a suspicious person in the area.
In a stunning scene Wednesday, a group of GOP senators, including John Barrasso (Wyo.) - the chamber’s No. 3 Republican — Kevin Cramer (N.D.) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) chased the Secret Service director on the floor at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday. The lawmakers loudly accused her of refusing to answer questions about the assassination attempt, according to video posted to social media.
Cramer later told CNN he and other lawmakers specifically want to know why Trump was allowed on the stage after the potential threat was discovered at the rally.
The Secret Service has not yet revealed its thinking and decision-making process as to why the rally was allowed to proceed.
“That shooter was identified as a suspect, suspicious character a full one hour before the shooting occurred, had a range finder, a backpack, and then they lost sight of him and never really followed up on that,” Barrasso said in an interview with NBC News Now. “This was an hour before.”
Questions still swirl as to the reasoning behind no officers were sent to the roof of the building the gunman climbed ahead of the rally’s start, even after Crooks was flagged in the area.
Cheatle earlier this week said no agent was placed on top of the building in earlier planning because it had a “sloped roof,” citing safety dangers. Instead, a “decision was made to secure the building from inside.”
And local police had informed the Secret Service that they “did not have the manpower” to fully secure the building, including placing a patrol car outside the structure, according to District Attorney Richard Goldinger of Butler County.
Local law enforcement instead placed three snipers inside the building, one of who spotted Crooks and took a picture of him as he scanned the building.
Later, after a threat seemed more concrete, an officer tried to access the roof with the help of a colleague who boosted him up, according to Butler Township Manager Tom Knights.
The officer scaled the side of the building to try to see Crooks, who pointed a rifle at him, Knights said.
“The shooter actually turned towards him and pointed his weapon at the officer. The officer took a defensive position to duck. He lost his grip on the roof, fell approximately 8 feet to the ground, was injured. But both of those officers involved in that attempt, both radioed, indicating that, yeah, there's somebody on the roof and yes, he is armed,” Knights told ABC’s Pittsburgh station.
Moments later, however, “the individual commenced firing,” Knights said in a separate statement.
Five days after Crooks attempted to kill Trump, federal investigators seem no closer to understanding the gunman’s motives.
Cheatle, Wray and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who briefed the House and Senate by phone Wednesday, told lawmakers there was still no clear reasoning they could see for Crooks to climb onto a roof and shoot at the presidential candidate, lawmakers have said.
Authorities now know that Crooks, who purchased an ammunition box at a Walmart on July 5, two days after the rally was announced — had images of both Trump and President Biden on one of his cell phones, according to ABC News.
Lawmakers also told CNN the phone had pictures of congressional leaders House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), as well as politicians Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former attorney involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney currently prosecuting Trump and Giuliani.
The briefers noted that Crooks was using encrypted communications platforms that they have yet to penetrate, The Hill earlier reported.
The shooter’s home also has been a dead end as to political or ideological information about Crooks, with Abbate reportedly telling lawmakers in the briefings that the FBI had not found such evidence there.
Senators were told Crooks had another phone, found at his home, that contained just 27 contacts, which FBI agents are going down the line and attempting to interview, Fox News reported.
His laptop search history, meanwhile, included dates of the Democratic National Convention, future Trump events, and searches about major depression disorder, the officials told lawmakers, according to multiple reports.
Investigators have been searching for more clues as to what Crooks — a registered Republican who had donated to a progressive campaign in 2021 — was doing in the weeks, days and hours leading up to his assassination attempt. But the digital and physical trails have proved frustratingly limited, with nobody yet interviewed reporting Crooks discussing politics.
