House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and members of the Committee on the Judiciary sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray saying they had learned the Secret Service was understaffed at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania because the agency was covering a NATO summit in Washington, D.C.
Jordan posted a copy of the letter on X Thursday, which was dated July 18, 2024.
The committee is conducting oversight of the attempted assassination of Trump on July 13 as well as investigative actions taken by the FBI ahead of, and after the shooting.
“Information provided to this Committee raises serious questions about the thoroughness of the security planning by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in support of President Trump’s campaign rally,” the letter read. “Law enforcement overlooked a number of vulnerabilities prior to and during the event in Butler, Pennsylvania, allowing an assassin to shoot a President, murder an attendee, and critically wound two others. This tragedy demands a full and transparent investigation.”
After the incident, the Secret Service cleared the scene and the FBI began its investigation.
The letter also points out information learned through whistleblowers on the matter.
“Whistleblowers have disclosed to the Committee that the [Secret Service] led two briefings regarding the July 13 campaign rally on July 8, 2024, with the Western Pennsylvania Fusion Center (WPFC) and other stakeholders, to discuss the upcoming, unrelated visits by President Trump and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden,” the letter read. “The [Secret Service] Special Agent in Charge, Tim Burke, reportedly told law enforcement partners that the [Secret Service] had limited resources that week because the agency was covering the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C. FBI personnel were present at those briefings.”
The FBI declined to attend a hearing with the House Homeland Security Committee next week, on the events leading to a shooting during a presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that nearly claimed the life of former President Trump.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green confirmed the FBI declined to attend the hearing, scheduled for next week.
FBI Director Christopher Wray is still expected to testify before the House Committee on the Judiciary on Wednesday, July 24.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
A source tells Fox News that former President Trump has met with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in Milwaukee -- the site of the Republican National Convention -- following last weekend's shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania.
The meeting on Wednesday was described by the source as short.
Cheatle has been facing calls to step down from her position following the attempted assassination against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
When Cheatle appeared at Republican National Convention on Wednesday, she was confronted by several senators demanding answers.
Fox News' Alexis McAdams contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}EXCLUSIVE: Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is questioning Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s decision to appear at the Republican National Convention (RNC) on Wednesday night, as House GOP leaders push for accountability for the security failures that led to the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
"I’m not sure what she was doing here. Why would she walk around when she's under so much scrutiny?" Johnson told Fox News Digital in an interview at the RNC in Milwaukee.
"I don't understand her decision-making process, and I don't think she's fit to lead at this critical time."
The embattled Secret Service director was seen in the RNC venue on Wednesday, where she was confronted by several Republican senators who have been dissatisfied with her answers thus far on what happened last weekend.
Johnson, for his part, is the highest-ranking official so far to call for Cheatle’s resignation in the wake of the deadly rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, last weekend.
Retired Secret Service agent Mike Matranga told 'America's Newsroom' on Thursday that the Trump rally shooting is a “catastrophic failure of communications.”
“The last five days, the director or upper administration of the Secret Service failing to even address the American people or to point the finger solely at the local law enforcement is just not right,” Matranga said. “The American people deserve better, the former President deserves better, the individuals who were harmed and the individual who succumbed to his injuries deserves better.
“At the end of the day we just need to say what it is, this is a catastrophic failure of communications,” Matranga added. “We have known this for decades, that we rely too heavily on our local counterparts to do the jobs that we are designed to do.”
“This is a catastrophic failure – any other explanation beyond that is just completely asinine,” Matranga concluded.
BUTLER, Pa. – The Trump rally shooter searched "major depressive disorder" before he nearly killed the former president, FBI director Chris Wray told Congress, according to reports.
Investigators uncovered the medical search on Thomas Matthew Crooks' cellphone, along with the times and dates of the Democratic and Republican national conventions and photos of Trump and President Biden, The New York Times reported.
Crooks appears to be on good terms with his parents, who are both counselors, but they weren't part of his daily life, according to The Times.
Wray revealed the investigators' findings during Wednesday's congressional hearing, where he said the FBI has conducted 200 interviews and combed through 14,000 images on Crooks' phone.
Despite the voluminous investigation, there is still no definitive motive for Saturday's attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, Wray told lawmakers during a hearing Wednesday.
{{#rendered}}Lackawanna County commissioners have announced that they have “indefinitely suspended Community Relations Manager Rick Notari" over “an inappropriate comment he made on social media following the assassination attempt Saturday against former President Donald Trump.”
“Lackawanna County’s government serves all of its residents regardless of their political affiliations,” Commissioner Matt McGloin said in a statement. “An attempt on a former president, and current presidential candidate’s life, is a time for the country to come together to condemn political violence, rather than deepen existing divisions through inappropriate commentary on social media.”
Lackawanna County is in northeastern Pennsylvania and includes the city of Scranton.
The Scranton Times-Tribune is reporting that Notari wrote on X “It’s a shame the guy missed” in response to a post that sports commentator Rich Eisen made regarding the shooting.
The family of Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old volunteer firefighter who was shot and killed over the weekend at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, has released a statement Thursday calling his death “unthinkable.”
“Corey Comperatore was our beloved father and husband, and a friend to so many throughout the Butler region. He was a local leader and veteran, a former fire chief, and a committed Christian who found peace and joy through our church. He loved and cared for us, his family,” the statement says.
“Our family is finding comfort and peace through the heartfelt messages of encouragement from people around the world, through the support of our church and community, and most of all through the strength of God. We thank the countless people who have prayed for us throughout the past week. We deeply appreciate your kindness,” it continued.
“We ask for your continued prayers and privacy as we mourn and adjust to the realities of Corey’s unthinkable passing,” the statement added.
Helen Comperatore, Corey's widow, wrote on Facebook this week that Trump has called her and was "very kind."
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin who opened fire on former President Donald Trump's Pennsylvania campaign rally Saturday, hid the weapon in advance, according to a Secret Service source.
It was not immediately clear where he hid it, however. By the time agents spotted him on the roof, he was already holding it.
"We went from golf range finder to AR-15, and now we have to fill in the gap," the source told Fox News.
When authorities first observed Crooks carrying a golf range finder Saturday, he was perceived as a "person of interest" but not a "threat," authorities said Thursday.
Range finders were not banned from rally events at the time, but authorities are expected to review the list of items that are not allowed.
He did not become an official threat until he was seen with a weapon.
Fox News' David Spunt contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}The director of the Secret Service has agreed to testify at an upcoming House hearing probing the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee subpoenaed Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to appear in front of Congress as part of the open investigation into the Trump-rally shooting, claiming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Secret Service "failed to provide assurance regarding your appearance" as reasoning.
Cheatle has since agreed to comply with the subpoena, the committee announced Wednesday evening.
"Americans demand and deserve answers from Director Cheatle about the attempted assassination of President Trump and the Secret Service's egregious failures," the GOP-led committee wrote on X after Cheatle agreed to appear.
Bloomberg is reporting that documents it received from the Secret Service reveal that agents responded to dozens of potential threats against former President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
The documents highlighted repeated incidents in which people gained unauthorized access to the property while Trump was there, according to Bloomberg.
But the report says it doesn’t appear any of the people that got into Mar-a-Lago posed an immediate threat to Trump and many were charged with trespassing and resisting arrest, while others were sent to local mental health facilities.
In one instance in 2018, an 18-year-old college student showed up at Mar-a-Lago while Trump was there and was allowed through a Secret Service checkpoint following a screening.
A document stated that the individual “was on the property for approximately 10 minutes and posted multiple Snapchat videos, one of which was titled ‘Sneaking into Trump club is like taking candy from a baby.’”
That student later was questioned and told agents “he wanted to explore and was curious” before being “sent on his way,” the document continues.
But the individual eventually was charged with entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, Bloomberg reports.
In another 2018 case, a man was arrested for criminal trespassing after showing up at Mar-a-Lago telling the Secret Service that he “wanted President Trump to sign an executive order to release six trillion dollars he believed he was owed for his marketing strategy associated with the production of a video game rental idea,” according to a document obtained by Bloomberg.
“He believed President Trump was holding his money hostage in an attempt to collect a percentage of his earnings and insisted President Trump should be executed through the Executive Branch for his actions,” the document added.
CNN’s Van Jones said the differences between former President Trump and President Biden couldn’t be starker after Biden came down with COVID-19 Wednesday.
The political commentator took part in a panel covering the Republican National Convention as news broke about the president testing positive for COVID-19 and having to quarantine. This announcement came as more and more high-profile Democrats have reportedly called on Biden to leave the presidential race.
Biden's diagnosis showed a clear sign of weakness compared to the former president recently surviving an assassination attempt, according to the former Obama adviser.
"There are a lot of people who want Biden to stay in. A lot of those people pointing out that still grassroots love Joe Biden, but everybody doesn’t agree. But today is a terrible day. If you pull back and look at this thing: strength versus weakness. A bullet couldn‘t stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden," Jones said.
{{#rendered}}Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was perceived by the U.S. Secret Service as a “person of interest,” not yet a “threat” after law enforcement saw him acting suspiciously and determined he had a golf range finder, according to Secret Service Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Crooks was only identified as a threat when he “retrieved the weapon” and climbed onto the roof, according to Guglielmi, who adds that a threat requires, “a different protocol and a different course of action than a person of interest.”
Guglielmi maintains that it was only once Crooks retrieved his weapon and got on the roof that he was identified as a threat.
Soon after that Butler Township police officers confronted Crooks on the roof and he pointed his weapon at one of them, who then dropped off the roof.
Crooks then fired on former president Trump and was taken out by a Secret Service counter sniper.
Fox News' Jake Gibson and David Spunt contributed to this report.
Fox News has been told that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle flew to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to make a “courtesy connection” with the Secret Service on the ground there after the assassination attempt against former President Trump in Pennsylvania.
The convention organizers were aware that Cheatle was there and told senators – and later four of them were captured on video confronting Cheatle: John Barrasso of Wyoming, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and James Lankford of Oklahoma.
After being pursued by the senators – who told her that they owe the people and the president "answers” -- Cheatle finally said to them “this is not the venue.”
In addition, Fox News has learned that Cheatle was on a Senate call yesterday where FBI Director Christopher Wray briefed lawmakers on the investigation into Saturday’s shooting, although she was not billed as being a participant.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on 'Mornings with Maria' on Thursday that he is ready to call on President Biden to fire Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the U.S. Secret Service.
“I'm prepared this morning to call on President Biden to fire Director Cheadle. Yesterday I said that she should resign,” Johnson said. “It's clear that she has no intention to do so. But the oversight here, the mistakes, the ineptitude, whatever it is, was inexcusable.
“We almost lost the life of a former president. And I think there has to be accountability. And it begins at the top. This is ridiculous,” Johnson added.
Cheatle so far has resisted calls from lawmakers to resign from her position.
“Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident and U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has no intentions to step down. She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement late Wednesday.
Fox News’ Scott McDonald contributed to this report.
{{#rendered}}Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on 'Mornings with Maria' on Thursday that lawmakers “really are going to get to the bottom of this” when it comes to the Secret Service’s handling of Saturday’s Trump assassination attempt.
The interview unfolded after Republican senators confronted Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, telling her that they owe the people and the president "answers."
Video shows Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., confronting Cheatle in Milwaukee. Sens. James Lankford, R-Okla., and Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., were also involved.
"Stonewalling," Barrasso can be heard yelling at Cheatle as she moves through the convention center.
“I'm glad that they were trying to get answers from her,” Donalds said Thursday.
“We really are going to get to the bottom of this. And I will also say we have members on the other side of the aisle who are taking this just as seriously... I mean, you have Democrat members who want to get to the bottom of this just as much as Republicans,” he added.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
The 20-year-old loner who attempted to assassinate former President Trump on Saturday had an account on the encrypted Discord app, a sign that he preferred anonymous interactions to real-world relationships, experts told Fox News Digital.
A spokesperson for the platform confirmed that Thomas Matthew Crooks had an account and that it had been deactivated by Discord after the assassination attempt that wounded Trump and killed a rally attendee.
"It was rarely utilized, has not been used in months, and we have found no evidence that it was used to plan this incident, promote violence or discuss his political views," the spokesperson said. "Discord strongly condemns violence of any kind, including political violence, and we will continue to coordinate closely with law enforcement."
Fox News learned late Wednesday that Crooks wrote an ominous message on the gaming platform Steam, "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds." His laptop also had searches in early July for Trump, Biden, when is DNC convention, and July 13 Trump rally.
Retired FBI agent and behavior analysis expert Jim Clemente said the Discord community is especially popular with gamers and that Crooks' usage comes as no surprise.
"It's encrypted, so it does provide a level of privacy and anonymity," he said. "So, somebody who might feel disenfranchised, a loner who felt bullied, those kinds of people, it’s very common for them to spend more time online interacting with others rather than the real world because their experiences with the real world are so negative."
A former SWAT commander balked at the "audacity" of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle blaming the "sloped roof" for not positioning snipers on the building where Thomas Crooks opened fire at Saturday's rally for former President Trump.
Gene Petrino, who served as the SWAT commander for Florida's Plantation Police Department for 26 years and is an expert on active shooter incidents, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that Cheatle's "sloped roof theory" was "shocking."
He added that there were clearly more favorable spots for snipers to scope out the venue in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Crooks killed one man and injured three others, including Trump.
"That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point," Cheatle said in an interview with ABC News. "And so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof... the decision was made to secure the building from the inside."
"This site plan should have identified that roof as a major vulnerability," Petrino said, "but there was no one there to protect it."
"The audacity for her to say that there was an issue with the sloped roof when her men were already on a sloped roof," he said, referring to published photos of other Secret Service snipers perched on sloped roofs in the vicinity.
Petrino also said he was puzzled by an apparent lack of drone surveillance at the rally, and questioned why snipers hadn't been stationed at a water tower that "would have had a vantage point of all the roofs," which is visible in aerial photos of the area surrounding the rally site.
{{#rendered}}BETHEL PARK, Pa. – A former classmate of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks says the 20-year-old gunman was quiet with a small friend group , noting that she would never have pegged him for his actions at the Trump rally.
Sarah D'Angelo, a nursing student, shared with Fox News Digital her scant interactions with Crooks as the pair attended school together for eight years and shared a homeroom classroom at Bethel Park High School.
D'Angelo painted a portrait of Crooks' personality, interests and perception at the school.
"He had a small friend group," D'Angelo said. "He wasn't a loner but was not the most popular kid in the class."
The 20-year-old's political leanings have been a hot topic, with people pointing to his Republican voter registration and others pointing to his $15 campaign donation to a progressive political action committee.
D'Angelo said Crooks did not reveal his political affiliation in class, even as the classmates shared an American politics class in high school.
"We had [an] American politics class. It was half a year during senior year," she said. "And he never made any of his political views outward."
An executive security expert ripped Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle for failing to protect former President Trump on Saturday, saying the agency needs to clean house, especially after her "sloped roof" excuse.
Bill Stanton, who has worked in the field for four decades, took aim at Cheatle's assertion that agents passed on manning a nearby roof used by shooter Thomas Crooks because it was sloped.
The would-be assassin climbed to the roof of the building and squeezed off several rounds that injured Trump and killed rally attendee Corey Comperatore. Two others were critically wounded.
"Her explanation that it was dangerous that the roof was pitched to me is the equivalent of a school child saying that the dog ate their homework," Stanton said. "How does that pass muster for anybody, regardless of political affiliation?"
Stanton said Trump was inches from certain death and that Cheatle would have been squarely to blame.
"God forbid that bullet was 1 inch over to the right, and it actually killed our former president," he said. "Was that the excuse she was going to give, that the roof was too pitched, and she still has a job?"
Dr. Houman Hemmati, speaking on 'Fox News Live,' said former President Trump “avoided, narrowly, getting an injury to the facial nerve which is a nerve that branches out right from where the ear is and innervates the muscles of the face, including the mouth and the eye lids and where the cheeks are.”
Hemmati said the nerve is “involved in smiling and just being able to keep your face up.”
“I was looking [at Trump] very closely at the convention, it looks like he is able to smile normally, everything is working just fine,” Hemmati continued.
“It looks like a chunk of his ear may be missing, which is probably why he is covering it at this point,” Hemmati also said, describing Trump’s injuries after being shot on Saturday during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “It may need some reconstructive surgery, but I think that is going to be mostly cosmetic in President Trump’s case.”
{{#rendered}}BETHEL PARK, Pa. – A local GOP volunteer who helped set up and later attended former President Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last weekend, said he and other activists raised concerns the night prior about the venue’s security.
Zach Scherer, a volunteer firefighter from Chicora – a short drive northeast of the Butler Farm Show – told Fox News Digital on Wednesday he was also in the third row behind Trump on the risers at the moment the former president was injured and fellow firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed.
"Friday night; I'll take it back a day -- there was a group of us that had volunteered on the Trump campaign to do rally set up, which included setting up the barricades, the stage set-up and other things that were needed to make sure this was a successful event," Scherer said.
"We did a walk through at 7 PM on Friday night, and we raised multiple concerns with the state GOP staff about parking, about security issues we saw, where there were a lack of barricades at."
"And all of our safety concerns that we that we brought up on Friday evening were strictly turned down and there were no answers given to any of our questions or concerns about security in that matter," he added.
Scherer said he has volunteered for at least 20 other Trump rallies and that whenever security or logistics concerns were brought to party or law enforcement officials, they were rectified by the time the event began.
"We always saw the change in place the day of the rally. And [Butler] was the first one that I saw no changes made from Friday night to Saturday morning when we got there at 7:30 [AM]."
Fox News has learned that U.S. senators were told during an all-member briefing on Wednesday, July 17, that former President Trump's would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, wrote a threatening message on a gaming platform ahead of his shooting.
On "Steam," a popular platform where gamers purchase games and communicate, Crooks allegedly wrote: “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”
When investigators reviewed the laptop, they found a few searches in July of: Trump, Biden, when is DNC convention, and July 13 Trump rally.
Investigators found no evidence of a particular ideology on the laptop, which the FBI believes is notable, and nobody in interviews reported Crooks discussing politics.
The senators learned that the suspect had two cell phones. The primary phone was recovered from the scene along with a remote transmitter. A secondary cell phone was found at the home, it had only 27 contacts. The FBI is in the process of tracking down and interviewing those people.
Fox News Channel Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich contributed to this report.
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s office sent a statement late Wednesday that said she will not step down as the agency’s director after top Washington lawmakers have called for her removal following an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
“Continuity of operations is paramount during a critical incident and U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has no intentions to step down. She deeply respects members of Congress and is fiercely committed to transparency in leading the Secret Service through the internal investigation and strengthening the agency through lessons learned in these important internal and external reviews,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi stated.
The remark came on a day when Cheatle took part in a briefing with U.S. Senators regarding the attempted assassination of Trump at his rally in Butler, Penn., last Saturday.
GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and John Barrasso of Wyoming confronted Cheatle at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Wednesday to demand the director to answer questions about the agency’s leadership.
Blackburn said that Cheatle would not answer their questions, telling the Republican senators it was not the time or place. Blackburn also tweeted Cheatle escaping the senators as they questioned her at the convention.
“This was after we’ve been through a conference call today where the questions queue got cut off,” Blackburn said. “But I’ve got a message for her: she can run but she can’t hide because the American people want to know how an assassination attempt was carried out on former President Donald Trump.”
Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz, Aishah Hasnie and Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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