We’ve been getting some details about the face-off between the arch criminal below and the $3 billion/year Secret Service.
Wikipedia says that the building from which Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Mr. Trump was identified as an ideal location for an assassin, that police snipers were sitting inside the building eating donuts and drinking coffee rather than risk falling off a mostly-flat roof, that law enforcement ignored the crowd’s attempts to warn them of Mr. Crooks’s activities, and that Crooks’s use of a rangefinder wasn’t considered sufficiently suspicious for anyone to take action. The state of knowledge as of July 16, 2024:
According to WPXI, Crooks was photographed twice by security officers prior to the shooting. Prior to 5:45 p.m. EDT, a police officer saw Crooks on the ground and reported him, with a photograph, as a suspicious person. An officer searched for Crooks but did not find him. Multiple local law enforcement officers identified Crooks and believed that he might have been acting suspiciously near the event’s magnetometers; they expressed their suspicions over the radio, and their radio communications were available to the Secret Service.[38] At 5:45 p.m., a member of the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit (ESU) tactical team saw Crooks on a roof, notified other security services, and photographed Crooks.[47] According to Forbes, in one of the two cases of Crooks being photographed, the police officer who photographed Crooks saw him “‘scoping out’ the roof and carrying a range finder”.[43] Reports indicated that several bystanders also witnessed a man carrying a rifle on the rooftop and alerted the police about him nearly a minute and a half before shots were fired at Trump.[48][49] A Butler Township police officer attempted to climb to the roof of the building in search of Crooks, hoisted by another officer. Crooks spotted the officer while the officer’s hands were clinging to the edge of the roof and aimed his rifle at the officer, at which point the officer let go, falling 8 feet (2.4 m) to the ground and severely injuring his ankle. Crooks undertook the assassination attempt immediately following the confrontation with the officer.
My question for today is “Suppose that the Secret Service and local law enforcement actually wanted a random kid to be able to shoot and kill Donald Trump. What would they have done differently?” Short of actually handing out rifles, scopes, and ammo, how would it have been possible for the Secret Service and police to facilitate what young Mr. Crooks was trying to do?
Note that the Secret Service was supposedly at its most vigilant last weekend. “U.S. Detected Iranian Plot to Kill Trump Separate From Last Weekend’s Shooting” (NYT):
U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking what they considered a potential Iranian assassination plot against former President Donald J. Trump in the weeks before a gunman opened fire last weekend, several officials said on Tuesday, but they added that they did not believe the threat was related to the shooting that wounded Mr. Trump.
The intelligence had prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before his outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, officials said. Yet whatever additional measures were taken did not stop a 20-year-old local man from clambering on top of a nearby warehouse roof to shoot at Mr. Trump, grazing his right ear and coming close to killing him.
American progressives now agree with Iran on both (a) Palestine, and (b) the importance of getting rid of Donald Trump?
Separately, at least according to Joe Biden and/or his minders, here are some of the threats that Mr. Crooks came close to eliminating:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
It is hard to understand why no one has been fired for this.
As any former government employee knows, no one in the US government ever gets fired for anything – except perhaps for mis-gendering someone.
Perhaps because he is travelling, Phil wholly missed the DEI angle – the photo of the porky little secret service agent fumbling with her weapon and the director of the secret service, Ma Cheatle, hand picked by the acting president of the USA, Dr. Jill, whose last job was guarding shipments of Doritos, who refused to give her men permission to post themselves on a building roof because it was “too steep” and therefor could be “unsafe.”
Could Mr. Crooks be hired by Iran or its high-appointed above the law agents in the US? For example, Israeli security recently arrested a religious Israeli who was doing chores for Iran security and was getting paid in bitcoin online. The agent was hiring helpibg hands to do his tasks.
Would not be required in US. Biden administration has been paying Iran and some high-profile go-betweens have personal connections to Iranian regime. Some of them have Pittsburgh connections and have been pushing general anti-Israel narrative for a while. Hard to believe that all multi-billiond of dollars released to Iran have not benefited middle-persons personally. Probably same folks have personal connection to Secret Service big-wigs. Pennsylvania small town police departments are miniscule and do not have sufficient training or resources to secure presidential rally perimeter. Absence of Pennsylvania State Troopers at the event could be telling.
If they wanted a random kid to shoot Trump the could’ve recruited someone online the way the FBI recruited people to abduct Gretchen Whitmer. Someone suggested the CIA might use MKUltra to seduce an angry loner? But they would need to find someone who is actually a good shot, which they didn’t do here…
As for the Secret Service, the decision by Mayorkas to withhold all SS from RFK and shortchange Trump on SS seems unwise… in retrospect allowing J13 was as unwise as J6. Deliberately putting Trump and RFK’s lives in danger only seems like a good idea before a shooting, not after.
They’re about as good as any DMV employees. Guarding an ex president’s re-election campaign has never been done before. Maybe they have a lighter detail for retired presidents. Better hire Elon’s bodyguards.
What would the Secret Service have done differently if they’d wanted a random kid to shoot and kill Donald Trump? handing out rifles, scopes, and ammo!
I’m not really a Trump fan, but you have to appreciate the guy’s physical courage at this point. Defiant under fire! Sleepy Joe is going to have some problems. Can you imagine Kamala shaking her fist after being shot at? (You never know, but I can’t)
Trump did not find the peaceful transistion of power necessary, and is a threat to democracy.
I’d say that Trump also has the most violent rhetoric of any of the candidates. Cheering on violent people ever so often:
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/donald-trump-violent-rhetoric-catalogue
Steven: thanks for the link. I think it adds to the mystery that I wondered about two weeks ago. “Trump is a theeat to democracy” has been a standard Democrat talking point since 2016 yet Democrats also say they “pray to God” for this threat to be preserved from death or injury.