USSS sniper team leader warned counter snipers by email, not radio communications, about Crooks lurking with a rangefinder and did not urge agents to keep Trump off the rally stage
Some alarming revelations appear in the bipartisan Senate report on the U.S. Secret Service’s handling of the first attempted assassination of former President Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pa. in July.
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Report on Trump shooting in Butler, Pa.pdf
1 – The full report, released on Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, detailed how an inexperienced Secret Service drone detection operator was on the phone with customer service, trying to figure out how to properly operate the C-UAS drone detection system as suspect Thomas Crooks’ assassination plot was unfolding.
“C-UAS system experienced technical problems and was inoperable until 4:33 pm, after Crooks flew his drone near the rally site,” the report said. “With no backup system, the USSS agent responsible for overseeing the C-UAS capabilities at the July 13 rally called a toll-free 888 tech support hotline ‘to start troubleshooting with the company,’ which took several hours. That agent had only three months of experience working with that equipment and lacked knowledge about it.”
2 – The report revealed that a USSS Counter Sniper Team Leader warned counter snipers by email, not radio communications or mobile text messaging, about Crooks lurking with a rangefinder and did not urge agents to keep Trump off the rally stage.
The leader received text messages from a local sniper at approximately 5:45 pm “regarding an individual near the AGR building with a rangefinder looking toward the stage.” The text messages he received included two photos of Crooks, whose identity was unknown at the time. He forwarded the information to USSS counter snipers in an email, which contained an error. The message said, “Kid learning around the building we are in” instead of, “Kid lurking around the building we are in.”
One of the snipers who saw the email told the committee it was “worded vaguely” but they still tried searching the site for Crooks.
3 – A Secret Service sniper saw local law-enforcement with guns drawn, heading toward the building where Crooks was about to shoot from, but did not alert the agents protecting Trump.
By Nicholas Ballasy
