The people that guard our leaders are supposed to be the most highly trained security personnel in the world. So how could something like this have happened?
As I mentioned in a previous article, I have been trying to put the pieces together. To me, it appears that we either just witnessed incompetence on an epic scale or something more insidious was going on out there. The American people deserve answers, and hopefully we will get them.
But I think that one thing is clear. I don’t see any possible way that the head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, can be allowed to keep her job. There is no way that this shooting would have happened the way that it did if competent people were running the show.
I have been digging into what many of the experts have been saying about this incident, and there is so much that just doesn’t make sense.
So I have compiled a list of 10 burning questions that every American should be asking about the Trump shooting.
1. How did the shooter get so close without being seen by the Secret Service?
It is being reported that he was able to crawl onto a roof that was just 130 yards away from Trump. How on earth did a gunman who was acting suspiciously crawl onto the roof of a building 130 yards away from where former president of the United States was speaking and manage to fire at least eight shots before he was taken down?
That is just one of the damning and terrifying questions that are unanswered after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump that is being described as an enormous security failure.
Terrifying new video from TMZ has captured the moment Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, lay down on the roof of a nearby building, in full view of horrified Trump supporters, and fired toward the stage.
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2. Why weren’t security personnel on that roof?
Every roof that had a direct line of sight to Trump should have been covered, and Steve Nottingham, a former SWAT commander in Long Beach, California, called Saturday’s shooting “a fundamental security failure.”
He has worked security details for visiting world leaders, including presidents, and now trains officers on how to respond to critical incidents. He pointed at likely breakdowns in the pre-event scouting and real-time monitoring of places a gunman could shoot from.
“They were behind the curve, because they should have had those places covered ahead of time,” Nottingham said.
3. Why didn’t authorities respond when they were warned about a man with a gun? One witness says that he repeatedly tried to warn law enforcement about the shooter but he was ignored.
A man who was present at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet during a failed assassination attempt Saturday night said police ignored him when he told them there was a man with a rifle crawling on a rooftop moments before the shooting.
In the immediate aftermath of the deadly shooting, a man wearing a red “Trump 2024” visor spoke to BBC News from the community of Butler and claimed he tried to warn law enforcement officers about imminent danger regarding the president.
“Probably five to seven minutes of Trump speaking… we noticed a guy crawling–bear crawling–up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us,” the man said.
4. According to testimony from another eyewitness, the shooter actually had time to “move from roof to roof” before he started shooting at Trump. If people in the crowd could see this movement, why couldn’t the Secret Service?
An attendee at former President Donald Trump’s rally at the Butler County fairgrounds says he saw the alleged shooter on a nearby rooftop as Trump was delivering remarks to supporters Saturday.
Trump is safe after he was rushed offstage by Secret Service agents and whisked away to a secure location. Blood could be seen coming from his face after shots rang out. The shooter was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper, law enforcement sources told CBS News.
Ben Macer told KDKA-TV’s Jennifer Borraso that he was up along the fence line and “saw the guy move from roof to roof. [I] told an officer [the alleged shooter] was on the roof.”
5. Once the shooting started, why did it take so long for the Secret Service to get to Trump?
There should always be agents just a couple of steps from Trump at all times. But somehow Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to get off at least eight shots at Trump.
As I watch video of the incident over and over, it seems like an eternity before Secret Service agents get there. After Trump is shot, there are several long seconds before a couple of agents finally get to Trump.
If the shooter had better aim, Trump would not have survived. Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino is calling this entire episode a “catastrophic failure.”
Actively communicating with a number of former colleagues from the Secret Service about the assassination attempt.
This is an obviously catastrophic failure and no excuses should be made, or even attempted.
The failures are profound and questions must be answered about ground surveillance, air surveillance, post-stander support and counter-sniper advance work and response.
Security personnel have one job and came within inches of a deadly failure Saturday. An uneventful failure is not a success.
6. Why was security so much better at previous Trump rallies? One man that was there when Trump was shot said that there was a “noticeable” difference between security at this rally and security at a previous rally that he had attended.
Robert D. Philpot said he attended a Trump rally at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport during the previous presidential campaign and immediately noted that the location had a lot of buildings similar to those from where the shooter took aim during yesterday’s attack.
“Every rooftop of every hanger had three, four five guys on top,” said Philpot, noting that armed Secret Service and law enforcement were everywhere.
“First thing I did when I got here yesterday was, I did a complete look around at every rooftop and I said to myself that’s strange, I don’t see one cop, sniper, nothing, I don’t see anything, and I just thought that was kind of weird,” said Philpot.
The eyewitness said it was “so noticeable” that the security was so lax for yesterday’s event compared to the one he attended four years prior.
7. U.S. Representative Mike Waltz claims that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas turned down requests for better Secret Service protection for Trump on multiple occasions. Why did he do this?
A House Republican lawmaker is alleging that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied stronger Secret Service protection for former President Trump multiple times.
Rep. Mike Waltz, (R-FL), made the accusation hours after Trump was grazed by a bullet at his Saturday Pennsylvania rally.
“I have very reliable sources telling me there have been repeated requests for stronger secret service protection for President Trump. Denied by Secretary Mayorkas,” Waltz wrote on X.
8. Did inflammatory rhetoric inspire the shooter to do what he did? As J.D. Vance has aptly observed, the Biden campaign has been labeling Trump as “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.”
Today is not just some isolated incident.
The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.
And many have pointed out that less than a week ago Joe Biden stated that it was time to put a “bullseye” on Trump.
President Joe Biden reportedly told donors on a phone call on Monday that it was “time to put” former President Donald Trump “in the bullseye.”
“Biden told donors on a private call this afternoon: ‘It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,’” Kenneth P. Vogel, a reporter with the New York Times, wrote in a post on Monday.
9. I think that the timing of this shooting was very interesting. If Trump was killed just before the convention, he would not be the Republican nominee.
So who would have come out of the convention as the replacement nominee?
10. How will this shooting affect the general election? When Ronald Reagan was shot, his poll numbers went up dramatically. Will the same thing happen to Trump?
The polls already suggest that Trump is likely to win back the presidency in November, after a torrid few months for his opponent and a criminal conviction that has had little impact on his popularity.
If history tells us anything, the events of Saturday will only increase his support. In the months after President Reagan was shot, the newly elected Republican president saw a poll boost of eight points.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens to the poll numbers, but already Trump’s odds of winning in the betting markets has been spiking.
I know that Trump likes to hold big open air rallies where he can interact with huge crowds of people, but I really do hope that he will be a lot more careful in the future.
We are moving into a time of unprecedented chaos, and what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning. It certainly isn’t going to take much to push our nation over the edge. If Trump had not moved his head at the last moment, he almost certainly would have been killed. That would have completely ripped our nation apart, and it is probably only a matter of time before someone else tries again.
Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “Chaos” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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