‘Lack of Planning’: House Task Force Investigating Trump PA Assassination Attempt Releases Damning Interim Report
“To date, the Task Force has not received any evidence to suggest that message [Crooks having an AR] reached the former President’s USSS detail prior to shots fired.”
The bipartisan House Task Force investigating the failings of the United States Secret Service (USSS) regarding the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump released its interim report.
It’s not good.
“Indeed, federal, state, and local law enforcement officers could have engaged Thomas Matthew Crooks at several pivotal moments,” wrote the members. “Throughout the afternoon, as Crooks’s behavior became increasingly suspicious, fragmented lines of communication allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement and, eventually, climb on the roof of the AGR complex and fire at the rally stage and crowd, killy a rally attendee and injuring three others, including former President Trump.”
A USSS agent neutralized Crooks while local law enforcement officers also fired at Crooks.
A gunshot to the head killed crooks.
“Put simply, the evidence obtained by the Task Force to date shows the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened,” added the committee.
The committee found eight critical failings:
- Inadequate planning and coordination before the July 13 rally
- No one secured the AGR complex and surrounding area
- Local sniper teams inside the AGR complex had a narrow field of vision and were not positioned to monitor the AGR property
- No Unified command post to facilitate communications between the USSS, state, and local partners
- Important pieces of information about Crooks and the escalating threat situation moved slowly due to fragmented lines of communication and unclear chains of command
- Local law enforcement testimony shows they fired at Crooks before the USSS sniper fired the kill shot.
- Crooks did not have a ladder
- Crooks died by one bullet to the head
The communication failure stunk, but I just cannot get over the fact that no one secured the AGR complex.
It turns out Drew Blasko, a patrolman with the Butler Township Police Department and an assistant team leader with the Butler ESU sniper team, told the committee he relayed his concerns about the AGR complex to the USSS.
Blasko told the USSS that he “did not have the manpower to post officers around the AGR property, and asked the Secret Service for additional officers to be posted there.”
The USSS told Blasko the agency would handle it.
But USSS Acting Director Rowe claimed the agents believed the local police would secure the AGR complex.
Edward Lenz, Commander of the Butler ESU, also told the committee that the USSS never gave his team guidance on how to use its assets.
Local and state law enforcement had eyes on Crooks for 40 minutes before word reached the USSS.
Gee, maybe they should have established a communications line with the local folks.
One witness said they observed Crooks “looking up at my sniper elements or what I believed he believed was our sniper elements, because there was open windows — well, as much as they should open — and then, again, would kind of come and go.”
Crooks raised red flags with the witness because he seemed to have “zero interest in anything that was happening inside the fence.”
Another witness said:
What I observed Crooks doing was – to me he looked he stood out. He was walking around the grassy area between AGR and the secondary fence line, kept looking up, looking at the building. One point that is what raised my suspicion is he was looking directly at the window and underneath of it against the building to the point where I couldn’t see him. That made me feel as though he was looking or could – was potentially looking at the window to see if there was somebody inside the building. And when he went up against the building to where I couldn’t look down on him, I found that to be very suspicious.
“To date, the Task Force has not received any evidence to suggest that message reached the former President’s USSS detail prior to shots fired,” wrote the committee.
Sheesh.
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The USSS apparently adopted the Sergeant Shultz Strategy vis-a-vis Donald Trump. If one of his particularly crazed detractors, of which there are many, decided to a$$a$$inate him, who are they to stand in the way? They see nothing!
Of course, if Trump does win, the first department that needs a top down overhaul is the USSS.
could be Secret Service incompetence.
One of the contributors to PowerLineBlog commented approx 3-4 weeks ago that he went to a funeral of a well known politician in Northern Minnesota. He was at the funeral home (with a concealed carry gun).
Walz showed up unexpectantly. The Secret Service inspected all new arrivals, but did not inspect people already inside the funeral home, thus the individual who was armed, was not searched since he was already inside when the secret service arrived.
While Trump was crewing at McDonald’s, did the USSS search the workers and premises prior to his arrival, and were they conducting searches of customers both in the restaurant (and, if he arrived while business was already being conducted, did they search those customers already in the restaurant) and those who were driving up (esp. while DJT was serving at the window)?
What is their SOP for securing locales open to the public (or locations like non-public workplaces)? How do their SOPs differ when the appearance (by a protectee) is planned and when it is spontaneous?
These things would have to be known in order to pass judgement on USSS’ performance at any given event (and to judge the adequacy of the SOPs themselves). But surely, its performance at Butler was abysmal.
As I understand how these events work, they would have screened the place days in advance, would have vetted all employees and then searched them on the day, and all customers would have been searched before entering the premises long before Trump got there.
At least that’s how it worked with his planned visit to Gottlieb’s restaurant in Brooklyn (which ended up not happening because Mr Gottlieb died the same day Trump was supposed to visit), and then that’s how it worked with his visit to the Lubavitch Ohel in Queens.
Where they do early voting is where I play pickelball.
Today TEXAS starts early voting
About a 30 -45 min line
I will vote after my games
“lack of planning”
yeah thats what pelosi as to what was the problem
No, not LACK of planning, just “different” planning to suit the “fel need” a the time, which was plan was ded tromp.
Stinks of Dealey Plaza, Texas Book Depository, Carcano, Zapruder film heavily “edited” after the fact….
“Lack of planning” is the Deep State’s/Dhimmi-crats’ euphemism for willful sabotage, resource denial and dereliction of duty.
Willful and malicious.
I’ll read through the “interim” report tonight. Skimmed the fourth page, second paragraph, and this popped up:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“Although the findings in this report are preliminary”
But Clay Higgins submitted a preliminary report last August:
Higgins’ report was straight forward. The interim report may turn out to be whitewash.
The Secret Service has been ruined by DEI hiring, getting the “right” identity group rather than the best person for the job.
https://www.secretservice.gov/employee-support/deia
Also ask Boeing and Harvard how DEI hiring has worked out for them.
The infamous — or rightly famous — photo supplies incontrovertible proof of the results of DEI hiring. A couple of female SS agents are part of the group surrounding Trump, but they are about a head shorter than the male agents, and the one in front is ducking — what good is that, when there was a live, active threat from that direction?
a practical application of the old “SOS” policy.. Save Our Skins”
Erik Prince’s people should be protecting PDJT at this point. I’d be surprised if they weren’t. Women who can’t holster their firearm protecting anyone,is a travesty.
dei
affrimaction
hate crimes
welfare
all meant to give (mostly) whites some peace of mind that they can walk the streets freely w/o getting attacked by the hood
well…that hasnt worked out too well
“A USSS agent neutralized Crooks while local law enforcement officers also fired at Crooks.”
My tinfoil hat heard a different story. Crooks was shot at and hit (maybe killed, maybe injured) by the local yokels first… it was one of them that shattered his stock. Once it was clear that Crooks was no longer able to function, only then did USSS fire a single “anchor shot” — because, 1) it would have looked damning if USSS took no shot at all, and 2) dead men tell no tales.
The utter disregard for the safety of DJT filters from the top down, from Mayorkas, from the woman who was at the top of Secret Service at the behest of mrs/dr jill biden, from the woman from the Pittsburgh office who was responsible for the detail at the 1st Butler event … to each and every person (secret Service or the other fed employees on site) who could care less because the protectee was DJT.
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