Staff Reports
A recent investigation by a Senate committee into the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has unearthed a plethora of questions—mainly about bullets. It seems that amidst the chaos of the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, there’s been a bit of confusion over the number and trajectory of the shots fired.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has been trying to nail down the details, specifically requesting the FBI to provide a comprehensive analysis of the shots fired during the rally. While the FBI has claimed there were 10 rounds total—eight from would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, one from local law enforcement, and another from a Secret Service sniper who eventually took down Crooks—questions about the exact sequence of these shots remain unanswered. It looks like the FBI hasn’t exactly been jumping to share their findings.
Senate probe raises questions about bullets fired at Trump’s Butler rally https://t.co/g3wZoRzKA9
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) September 25, 2024
Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, has not held back in his criticism of the FBI’s seeming reluctance to cooperate with the investigation. He emphasized that understanding the bullet trajectory is critical, especially given the contradictory accounts from the Secret Service snipers who were supposed to secure the event. They were there to protect Trump, but they also seem to be fumbling around more than a toddler at a birthday party.
During their hearings, the committee discovered some eyebrow-raising assertions from the counter-snipers assigned to the rally. One sniped that he heard shots close enough to make him wonder if his partner had been hit, highlighting the chaos and confusion of the situation. Furthermore, another member of the Hercules 2 team expressed confusion on how a bullet could fly between him and his partner when they couldn’t even see Crooks. Such discrepancies raised more than a few red flags for Johnson and the committee.
The Secret Service’s decision-making was also certainly put to question. While local police were rushing to respond to the shooting, the Secret Service team leader admitted he didn’t think to warn Trump about any potential threats. It just took a sniper team leader “not to clog the radio” while shots were being fired for them to finally realize something was amiss. One doesn’t need to be a military strategist to see that communication, especially during a life-threatening situation, was less than ideal.
Moreover, the committee’s reports mentioned that local law enforcement had fired the first shot but buried that information on page 84 of a 90-page report. This oversight seems less like an accident and more like a deliberate effort to downplay the local officer’s involvement. The officer himself expressed confidence that he hit Crooks before the Secret Service sniper finished him off, yet the FBI’s cold response claimed they had “no forensic evidence” proving any of this. More stonewalling, anyone?
As the investigation continues, it becomes evident that the failures are piling up. With missing autopsy reports and the FBI playing hard to get, this assassination attempt is beginning to resemble a poorly scripted thriller rather than a serious investigation into threats against a former president. The questions surrounding security protocols and coordination raise significant concerns, especially when considering that the subject of this entire debacle is a man who was once the highest officeholder in the land. If any headway is to be made in this inquiry, the FBI will need to stop dodging questions and start delivering the hard facts.
