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After a gunman nearly killed Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally last week, officials are racing to understand how a former president was left so vulnerable to attack, despite his Secret Service protection detail.
The vaunted unit has denied assertions that it turned down requests for additional security resources at the Pennsylvania event, but admitted on Saturday it may have rebuffed similar requests from the Trump team in the past, according to The Washington Post.
The security agency told the paper it had new information, indicating its headquarters may have turned down some requests from Trump’s team for additional resources.
The denials included rejections for more security at public outings like Trump’s visits to sporting events, and a denial for more counter-snipers at a 2023 rally in small-town South Carolina surrounded by numerous residential and commercial buildings, unnamed sources told The Post.
Since the assassination attempt, the Secret Service has maintained that it didn’t reject any Trump requests about the event.
“The assertion that a member of the former president’s security team requested additional security resources that the U.S. Secret Service or the Department of Homeland Security rebuffed is absolutely false,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the day after the shooting. “In fact, recently the U.S. Secret Service added protective resources and capabilities to the former president’s security detail.”
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who fired on Donald Trump, hid on the roof of the American Glass Research building, about 400 feet away from the rally stage, outside the secure area guarded by Secret Service agents and metal detectors.
Security personnel had multiple warnings about Crooks, well before the shooting took place.
An hour before the attack, police saw him pacing outside the event’s security screening with a backpack and a range finder, prompting police to radio their concerns to other agencies, including the Secret Service, according to the Wall Street Journal, before Crooks melted back into the crowd and made his way to the AGR building.
Once the gunman got on top of the building, he was spotted by by both Secret Service Snipers and rallygoers, who called out to nearby police to alert them.
As ABC News reports, 20 minutes elapsed between when Secret Service snipers spotted Crooks and when he fired on Trump. A local Butler Township police officer looking for a suspicious person also reportedly accessed the roof of the building and saw Crooks, before fleeing when the gunman turned his weapon on the officer.
The Secret Service and local police have traded blame over who was responsible for securing the building from which the gunman fired on Trump.
The Secret Service has said the building was being used as a staging area for local police, and it was their job to secure the facility.
Local police, meanwhile, say they told the Secret Service in advance they had no plans to be on the roof and instead would occupy a second floor of the building, not wanting to expose local police snipers to 90 degree heat on top of the building. They’ve also described the federal protection agency as ultimately overseeing plans for the campaign rally.
Donald Trump has said he was not warned about Crooks by the Secret Service either.
The Republican presidential candidate told Fox News host Jesse Watters: “Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said it was a problem.
“[They] could’ve said, “Let’s wait for 15, 20 minutes, 5 minutes.
“Nobody said…I think that was a mistake.”
Trump also questioned how Crooks made it onto the roof at the Butler rally last Saturday (13 July).
Trump said: “How did somebody get on that roof? And why wasn’t he reported, because people saw he was on that roof.”
