Fire Hydrant of Freedom
Politics, Religion, Science, Culture and Humanities => Politics & Religion => Topic started by: Crafty_Dog on July 13, 2024, 03:46:15 PM
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At rally in Butler PA.
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Sounds like he’s doing okay. Can’t speak for the quality of the recording I heard, but it sounded to me like a .22 from what I heard. Haven’t heard anything about an arrest….
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FOX: SS sniper team killed the shooter.
Unconfirmed that he was Antifa.
I'm hearing unconfirmed chatter about a 22 as well, but is that really a caliber for an assassination at distance?
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https://x.com/behizytweets/status/1812249272563142827?s=61
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If true, it needs to be hammered on:
https://x.com/seanmdav/status/1812278386514870623?s=61
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https://share.icloud.com/photos/0afgOk2LrHr0lDvumguvWu1tw
ETA, perhaps not:
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2024/07/fact-check-butler-police-did-not-confirm-arrest-or-identity-of-gunman-in-trump-shooting.html
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https://share.icloud.com/photos/00941r89yJQtIFFXdIO3tlX4Q
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1) Those fist pumps after he got back up was iconic!
That was it for me - Trumps' greatest moment!!! I loved it and I really loved it.
I am a fan for sure now. :-D :-D :-D Freakin' GREAT . Reminds me of Reagon's historical reaction to being shot.
2) We may well one day look back and remember July 13th as the first shots of the second American Civil War.
of course a quick turn on MSNBC who we all know are pissed he wasn't killed was their worry that security better stepped up for Biden :roll:
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https://share.icloud.com/photos/011jMvC53FNkjzzxQ4QfRVt-w
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I’m also hearing no MSM organ sent out a “breaking news” alert about this assassination attempt:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/07/13/media-reaction-to-trump-assassination-attempt-n2641833
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https://nypost.com/2024/07/13/us-news/thomas-matthew-crooks-idd-as-gunman-who-shot-trump-during-pa-rally/
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https://share.icloud.com/photos/0efLgFeIon5c-7rTzlkwBvJsw
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A knowledgeable friend writes:
"My opinion from having worked advance details and protective details: Someone dropped the ball for the rooftop area the shooter used if it was not covered by either SS agents or State Police/local LE posted for just that purpose.
SS has been notoriously short-staffed for Donald Trump's protective detail, with DHS refusing multiple requests for additional manpower, and therefore they would have to rely on local LE to help cover any potential threat area outside of whatever perimeter their manpower could cover.
In a case like this, a SS advance team would have assessed every every line of sight vantage point a possible shooter could access and use. With the shooter's location being a rooftop vantage point approximately 150 yards (148 yards by Google maps) from Trump's podium, this area would certainly have been assigned for direct observation, probably assigned to the PA State Police or local LE. While the SS marksmen would be observing in the direction of those areas from their perimeter positions, SOMEONE was supposed to have that area under continuous observation from the back or roof areas of those buildings, with a full view of any rooftop areas not visible to the SS marksmen. SOMEONE was not in their proper position doing their job.
The BBC video of an eyewitness relating his attempts to notify nearby LE about the guy with the rifle on the roof several minutes before the shooting is pretty damning, if accurate. The witness stated that he was "outside" the security perimeter."
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https://share.icloud.com/photos/0efLgFeIon5c-7rTzlkwBvJsw
It's not too soon. They are still denying protection for RFK jr?!
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4771060-calls-grow-for-rfk-jr-to-get-secret-service-protection/
This incident looks like they are denying Trump AND HIS SUPPORTERS full protection also.
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From Crafty's post:
"eyewitness relating his attempts to notify nearby LE about the guy with the rifle on the roof several minutes before the shooting is pretty damning, if accurate."
(Doug) Yes, damning. Local LE? 'someone should have been watching that location'?? Maybe I watch too many crime shows but the 'someone watching it' becomes the first one murdered.
I'm no expert but the first question might be how far can a sniper shoot, then secure the area.
Once again weakness will beget more violence. Every TDS 20 year old thinks they can get Trump and go out a hero. (Deranged is at the heart of TDS.)
The hate spewed by the Dem party including Dem media is at the heart of this. The whole theme is stop Trump, Trump is evil. And it comes from the highest places. Biden himself, Kamala, and I just saw two Dem Senators after the press conference, asked about keeping Biden, the answers were it's all about stopping Trump, any way you can. He is the threat. Trump is evil, as many non-specific lying ways they could say it. Keeping him off the ballot in Colorado and elsewhere, and the trials, are all ways of saying we don't care about settling this in a free and fair election. Those methods failing, somebody shoot him. Didn't a NYT columnist say it aloud?
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I also wonder is
how did the shooter 'know' this area was not being watched?
The SS must cordon off an area in some way that people know the areas beyond which are not covered.
Or was it a lucky guess on the shooter's part.
Also who shot him.
Did they get on the roof or a SS sniper from a distant area.
I was impressed with all the SS around Trump.
And the platoon of SWAT that moved in.
Just like in the old movies all they yelling was from girls !!! :-D
I also thought it a bit iconic from the video that guy giving the press the finger and you could read his lips "f..k y.."
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I begin with a silly tangent. Apparently, this is the would-be assassin at 00:03
https://streamable.com/mzfq3w?t&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2ZD8kuA-F1JDoPhe632dvy-TOvDP7rGd3hIjYv7CymI519rBa-3aLYVOw_aem_qwCjjBCXFMw73_JiP5kkMw
but I digress , , ,
My LEO and related type friends-- who are reluctant to Monday morning quarterback-- are asking how the hell this happened. That roof is in not difficult range for a clear shot and was in clear line of sight for the SS snipers-- who promptly shot the would-be assassin. If they didn't know he was there, how did they spot and shoot him so promptly?
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/cbs-news-cnn-immediately-attack-trump-for-what-he-said-immediately-after-he-got-shot?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR0VATnulRE3G9y_oJEQCdkb3H1jQOVhnaeP_B2FJrqlV-lWdxL2LnOjmMw_aem_5sIw2CpBC4QBComWWZeG2w
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https://revolver.news/2024/07/secret-service-under-major-fire/
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It was like seeing the video of the Marines raising the FLAG at Guadalcanal.
And people read the forum and saw my description as "iconic" :wink:
***https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/14/trump-shooting-fist-legacy-00168022
By sundown, and without concrete reporting about the deceased shooter’s identity, Republicans were openly faulting their political opponents for the incident.
“We will not tolerate this attack from the left,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), who was present at the rally.
The accusation was as raw as it was remarkable. It evoked the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which many Democrats immediately ascribed to the right-wing hostilities the then-president confronted in Dallas.***
Well it could have been an angry Palestinian or anti-Zionist I guess.
Shots rand out blood streaking down Trump's face people in audience shot yet the press was simply being cautious in taking forever to speak the obvious.
As Alexdouche lamented by starting to say and then for a quick moment thinking twice and maybe he should not say but then saying " this could make a matyr out of Trump"
Well Axeldouche it sure got me excited!!!
And Biden Clinton and Obama can take their crocodile tears and shove them up their noses. :wink:
They bashed trump for near a decade ceaselessly , never would ever say one kind word even for any of his successes.
We all know they wish that bullet was one degree more to the left of Trump's head.
Now they only worry someone from our side might shoot at them .
THANK YOU FOR READING MY VENT! :-D
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Crafty: " My LEO and related type friends-- who are reluctant to Monday morning quarterback-- are asking how the hell this happened. That roof is in not difficult range for a clear shot and was in clear line of sight for the SS snipers-- who promptly shot the would-be assassin. If they didn't know he was there, how did they spot and shoot him so promptly?"
(Doug) Biden said somebody 'independent will look into this? Meaning let it simmer down and fade away. No. We want answers right now. How did he get through? Who should have seen that and stopped that. And what was asked on the other post, if the Secret Service had view of him to shoot him after he shot. WTF happened before he shot? Who turned down additional security? Why, when, like bongino says, reported by the revolver, resign tonight. But resign tonight for one official is a figurehead start. We want to know all of what happened and what didn't happen, right now.
Biden said don't question the motives, trust the FBI. Bullsh*t. Why should we trust them? Biden left the stage and didn't take any questions. He should have been asked, who shot JFK? Why? We're going to wait for a government report on this after waiting 60 years on that? No. We're going to change governments and get one that protects and responds.
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https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/14/why-was-trumps-dedicated-secret-service-detail-on-break-during-pa-rally/
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https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-dei-push-in-secret-service-led-to-unqualified-agents-one-of-whom-threw-tampons-at-her-boss-in-unhinged-rage?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2zUPZ_fDpYB57hekviUTdAJ500hZ_92JUOmLFK_nZJAHl-HNj0vo7prXE_aem_A2CydmVHV4FY8GU_wZRfOQ
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https://www.tmz.com/2024/07/13/trump-rally-gunman-seen-opening-fire-shooting-gets-killed-new-video-clip/
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4th post
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13632985/Donald-Trump-shot-rally-assassinate-gunman-crooks-biden.html
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKHqxPNNxfA
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sixth
https://nypost.com/2024/07/14/us-news/dems-dialed-up-violent-rhetoric-against-trump-with-hitler-comparisons/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR00TZN-9haLC6tq5bQa84V9SuXelNYxyd838718841kVrNH5eHe8QeWUzk_aem_w0rl-Ou6q8gvRBr4eM7jKA
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seventh
https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/14/erik-prince-near-trump-assassination-caused-by-malice-or-massive-incompetence-by-u-s-secret-service/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/massive-secret-service-failure-led-nearly-successful-assassination-donald-trump
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I notice the media has not admitted any blame - of course
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https://x.com/LtTimMcMillan/status/1812383798740324380
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I notice the media has not admitted any blame - of course
Media IS to blame.
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seventh
https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/14/erik-prince-near-trump-assassination-caused-by-malice-or-massive-incompetence-by-u-s-secret-service/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/massive-secret-service-failure-led-nearly-successful-assassination-donald-trump
A 5 mph wind caused the bullet to miss killing him? 5.56 caliber at 140 yards?
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(https://tippinsights.com/content/images/size/w1304/format/webp/2024/07/GettyImages-2161356025.jpg)
https://tippinsights.com/content/images/size/w1304/format/webp/2024/07/GettyImages-2161356025.jpg
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My favorite one is the one with the American flag behind him in the sky.
BTW, it looks like as certain individuals in the background are being studied (e.g. the female SS agents, the man who was killed with a head shot, etc) at subtle edits and memory hole deletions are being made.
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Coverage from 'the internet':
"Alvin Bragg Indicts Donald Trump for Dodging Bullet"
And the Bee:
https://babylonbee.com/news/secret-service-beefs-up-trumps-security-with-squad-of-disabled-midgets
"Secret Service Beefs Up Trump’s Security With Squad Of Blind Midgets"
- You can't really say that aloud, can you?
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https://nypost.com/2024/07/15/us-news/video-shows-trump-gunman-crawling-on-roof-while-onlookers-alert-cops/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3pf-0ivmIuMEd6fFDsuPpm99XTqA3KnE1zlJv7h98Tw6lCDcgH3bHsehY_aem_e1vOQzMxSlZevHgwlX6unQ
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https://x.com/billmaher/status/1812386329247830366?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1812386329247830366%7Ctwgr%5E2a2048f5546c26d7bb2d86989db75cad3d7d6033%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdeadline.com%2F2024%2F07%2Fbill-maher-on-trump-shooting-1236010023%2F
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If true, WT actual F?
https://www.wpxi.com/news/local/alleged-trump-shooter-spotted-by-law-enforcement-nearly-30-minutes-before-shots-fired-sources-say/Q6GIK5RP6RBY5PHIMYBNXRTEBI/
ETA local popo said to be staging inside building shooter climbed on and shot from:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/live-updates/donald-trump-rally-shooting-assassination-attempt/?id=111916828
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From a forum that I frequent that is full of serious people:
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I know this is the Humor section, but since it was asked here I am going to respond here.
I am told that many on this detail except for the Team Lead were replacements, as many of the primary SS team for Trump had time off due to having been extremely overworked with short staff. I also see very few CS agents posted compared to what would be expected for that venue. This opens the possibility that she and others were additions to the team from a local field office. She and the others might have been PPD trained, but anyone with a certain level of military spec-ops or police SWAT/PP experience knows that a team needs to train extensively together to work well together. This group of agents and their attendant CAT seemed to have a lack of fluidity and coordination in the initial response that may be indicative of an ad-hoc team that had not trained together.
In short, she may have been a counterfeiting or other type of field agent, and was assigned to this protective detail due to the lack of manpower. I can see how this might be the case due to having the personal past experience of being pulled from my assignment as a firearms instructor and assigned to protective detail work as part of a team that I had never actually trained with, due to a need for additional manpower for that detail.
Some observations and personal opinion from my perspective:
Likely the first time she ever found herself in an actual "being shot at" situation. Many here know that one's first actual incoming fire experience shows one's true character, regardless of the level of previous training, and I did not see her freeze up or run away.
It doesn't look like there was any room for her to get into the dogpile, and she did move with the team to the vehicle.
She did continue to scan her immediate area for other threats. Drawing her pistol in that moment by the vehicle was not uncalled for under those circumstances, and is no more of an issue than the CAT guys with their carbines at low ready. It looks to me like she did what she was trained to do.
Despite the re-holstering issues, she had a good trigger finger index and good muzzle discipline. I did not see her flag anyone or otherwise do anything unsafe with her pistol.
I get the whole women vs men on a protective detail argument, but it appears this team made do with who they had available, and this agent appears to have done her job reasonably well in a less than ideal overall situation. Unfortunately she is going to be the butt of the jokes and memes for the entire internet army of armchair warriors who have never done her job.
In the end, my opinion really means bupkis in all of this, but I'll give her a pass on what I see as a trivial issue overall with the re-holstering.
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Both the Rhode Island and Conn. State Police Depts have issued formal statement that to their knowledge there is no connection with their states.
WTF?
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third
https://nypost.com/2024/07/16/us-news/trump-assassination-attempt-exact-timeline-of-police-failures/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1G51nYLt2Lj2rOiEm6wZHmEvXgNCuqhtHr5RmgWCHbuHDj5DFhuQDEg88_aem_so9H9NXE0xxi9lN5RnYFxA
"Incredibly, not only did Crooks manage to avoid being confronted despite sticking out like a sore thumb, he secured his rooftop perch right under the noses of a local police sniper team stationed inside the building, law enforcement sources told The Post."
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI8M9-QERXI
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Mystery Around Trump Shooter Deepens
FBI analyzed Thomas Matthew Crooks’s phone and found nothing to explain why he tried to assassinate former president
The house in which Thomas Matthew Crooks lived in Bethel Park, Pa., on Monday.
The house in which Thomas Matthew Crooks lived in Bethel Park, Pa., on Monday.
By Clare AnsberryFollow
, Sadie GurmanFollow
, and Joel SchectmanFollow
| Photographs by Ross Mantle for WSJ
Updated July 15, 2024 7:09 pm ET
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BETHEL PARK, Pa.—Two days after Thomas Matthew Crooks committed one of the most shocking acts of political violence in half a century, both investigators and people in his western Pennsylvania community are no closer to understanding why he did it.
The FBI has analyzed Crooks’s cellphone and has found nothing that explains why he climbed onto a roof and shot at former President Trump, grazing his ear, law-enforcement officials said. Crooks’s parents have spoken to law enforcement, but they also seemed to have little insight, telling authorities he didn’t appear to have any strong political leanings and had few, if any, friends.
The attempted assassination looked likely to drive the country to new levels of partisan distrust, but the initial mixed picture of the bespectacled young gunman, a quiet loner who wasn’t politically outspoken has instead left most of the American public scratching its head.
Thomas Matthew Crooks PHOTO: BETHEL PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT/AP
His most recent employer, a nursing home called Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, said that he had performed his job without concern and that his background check was clean.
A neighbor in the Crooks family’s Bethel Park neighborhood on Monday said he remembered Crooks as a polite child who would come over to play with his children in his backyard when they were younger. “He was quiet, maybe a little bit different,” the neighbor said, adding that many children are.
Crooks had been a member at a shooting range a half-hour drive from Bethel Park, on a hilltop at the end of a long, wooded drive, the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club. He was a member for about a year, an official for the club said, adding that he too had no inkling of what was to come.
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“We knew very little about him,” he said in a brief phone interview. “It was a terrible thing that happened Saturday.”
Crooks on Saturday fired at least six rounds from a rooftop roughly 400 feet away from where Trump spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., about an hour north of Bethel Park, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving the former president bloodied and defiant. Crooks’s father told authorities he assumed his son was at the gun range on Saturday, but became concerned when he couldn’t reach him and called police after news of the shooting.
Crooks’s most recent employer was Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home in Bethel Park, Pa.
The AR-15 rifle Crooks used was one of more than a dozen registered to and legally purchased by his father, with whom he often went to the shooting range, law-enforcement officials said.
In Crooks’s sedan parked near the rally, authorities found two explosives and a ballistic carrier, or vest, with three, 30-round magazines in it, the officials said, an indication that he might have wanted to cause greater carnage. He had also hidden another bomb in his bedroom in his family’s home. The discoveries suggest Crooks had a plan, but early indications are that he kept it to himself.
Crooks appears to have acted alone, investigators said, and they were turning to his computer and other devices in hopes of finding any clues about his ideology.
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Crooks had been a member at the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, a shooting range a half-hour drive from Bethel Park, Pa.
For a young man who had just finished his teenage years, Crooks left a surprisingly limited record online. Three cyberintelligence analysts asked by The Wall Street Journal to search for Crooks’s online footprint found little. A chess profile, an account for online coding classes and a few gaming accounts were some of the only leads they could uncover. None discovered public social-media postings, photos, or obvious ties to peer groups or organizations.
The shooter’s parents, Matthew and Mary Crooks, have been licensed professional counselors for over two decades with no noted disciplinary actions, according to licensing information maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of State.
The younger Crooks graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County with an associate degree in engineering science in May 2024, the school confirmed on Monday. The college said it would fully cooperate with law enforcement.
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TAP FOR SOUND
Investigators are piecing together information about the shooter who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump. Here’s what we know about the 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pa., whom authorities named as the suspect. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Bethel Park School District PHOTO: ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY; BETHEL PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT
Classmates remembered little about Crooks’s interests. “A lot of people on my team hunted, but I never heard any mention of him,” said Allie Cline, who was one year behind Crooks at Bethel Park High School and had been on the school’s rifle team. She said it was clear he was “a shy kid” just from passing him in the school hallways.
After he was killed on the roof, photos show Crooks wearing a gray T-shirt from Demolition Ranch, a popular YouTube channel with videos about firearms, demolition and other topics. The Journal examined a shirt sold by Demolition Ranch and was able to identify the same American flag silhouette and partial logo on Crooks’s clothing.
Matt Carriker, a Texas-based YouTube influencer who runs Demolition Ranch, said in a video that he was “shocked and confused” to find out Crooks was wearing a Demolition Ranch shirt. “To see my name next to the shooter’s name, it sucks,” he said.
Carriker said he doesn’t vet people who buy their shirts and never had contact with Crooks. “He bought a shirt online and unfortunately wore it that day,” Carriker said.
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A good, broad ranging analysis here:
The Trump Assassination Attempt: A Serious Audited Investigation is Urgently Needed
Was there a Second Shooter? New Acoustic Forensic Evidence
STEPHEN BRYEN
JUL 16, 2024
[Update: Since publication the gun has been identified as a DPMS AR-15 5.56 rifle that was purchases more than 10 years ago by the shooter’s father. DPMS is a low cost AR-15 and there are different models with price ranges today under $700. Compare to a Ruger AR15 which is over $1,000. There are some criticisms of the DPMS gun’s quality, but others find the rifle barrels good.]
An audio forensic analysis by Catalin Grigoras, director of the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver, and Cole Whitecotton, Senior Professional Research Associate, also at Media Forensics, based on audio recorded in Butler Pennsylvania, appears to show the possibility of three shooters. According to these experts, "The first three shots were consistent with alleged weapon A, the next five were consistent with alleged weapon B, and the final “acoustic impulse” was emitted by a possible weapon C."
Only one shooter has been identified and the FBI says he acted alone.
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They may want to reconsider their conclusion.
Obviously this controversial audio forensic analysis needs peer review. But there are other questions beyond the audio forensics that need attention.
Below I review some of what we know, and a lot we don't know, and I ask questions where the information we have so far leads.
I, among thousands of others, became a sort of student of the John F. Kennedy assassination. I have read tens of thousands of pages from books and articles. But what turned out to be most impressive, as far as I am concerned, are two things. Firstly, there in my opinion there was a massive coverup that still continues sixty one years after Kennedy was killed. Secondly, apparently President Trump withheld releasing some documents even though he had pledged to release everything still in the archives on the Kennedy killing. He allegedly told Roger Stone that he (Stone) "would not believe what is in the [still]classified [and unreleased] files." That tells me Trump thought it was too dangerous to walk that plank.
What is worrisome now in 2024 is whether we will get a proper investigation and whether all the evidence will be properly preserved. Apparently President Biden has ordered some sort of investigation. I personally would prefer a solid FBI investigation with Congressional oversight. The FBI has the forensic capability to do the job, but it takes leadership and oversight which, one would hope, will be forthcoming. It won't be easy to sell the American people on a sloppy or political biased review.
The Gun
We have not been shown the gun used in the shooting. No pictures of it. We don't have a model number or manufacturer's name.
AR-15's can be modified to make them more accurate. There are a number of websites that feature instructions.
AR-15 from article Accurize your AR-15
It isn't known if the gun had a telescopic sight or other aiming device. It was probably too far from the target for a laser pointer, although some claim a range of 500 feet in daytime. (The shooting distance to Trump was less than 400 feet from the location of the shooter.) In an environment where there is bright sunlight and artificial TV lighting, it seems too much. Moreover, no one saw any evidence of a laser on Trump.
We don't know if the gun was modified. My personal guess is it was used out of the box.
The gun will need to be forensically tested. Whether that has happened, we don't know, and if it was we do not know the results. In fact, we don't know if any of the bullets have been recovered. Fired and recovered shells, if found, could potentially be matched to the weapon or weapons. This will also be important in determining if there was a second shooter. It is important to note that the whole area was cordoned off by law enforcement as a crime scene. The hunt for shells and other evidence is likely underway.
We don't know if the gun had an over-the-shoulder carrying sling. Since eyewitnesses saw the shooter and the gun, they could clarify how it was carried and whether it was in any way concealed, which does not seem to be the case.
The shooter also purchased a 5 foot ladder at Home Depot. We are not sure what model, or its weight, but aluminum ladders are clumsy to haul around, but very light. There also are ladders made with plastic fibers that also are light. There is at least one photo of the ladder up against the building (assuming, for the moment, it was the Home Depot-purchased ladder). We also don't know if the two police who came to the building after being yelled at by the crowd that a shooter was on the roof used the same ladder, but probably so. When the first police officer poked his head above the roof line, the shooter turned toward him with his gun pointed at him and the officer said he "jumped" or fell to the ground.
It could be that the ladder was put in place the day before the rally. The shooter reportedly was on the scene and was seen hovering around the metal detectors at the site, exactly why we don't know because he did not enter the rally's security perimeter. There is no report he was hauling a ladder around.
You can see the ladder in this poor quality picture stood up on the right (red circle) somewhat behind a tree.
Some witnesses say the shooter crawled from one building to the next on the rooftops. But that does not align well with the position of the ladder as reported. We need to know more.
Many think this was well planned and the shooter had to have help. He also needed extraordinary luck to be able to climb a ladder in broad daylight onto a rooftop. Lots of people saw him but the response took too long, was lethargic, and ineffective. We don't know if the eyewitness warnings were relayed by radio or cell phone, but it seems to me that the Secret Service snipers were told where to look, so the answer is the location of the shooter was transmitted to the snipers. It is reported by Larry Johnson and Chris Whitcomb, a former FBI HRT sniper, that the Secret Service snipers looked at the shooter on the roof with a telescope before they took aim with their guns.
There is no information that any gunshot detectors were in use at the Rally. A good gunshot detector can, in a millisecond, triangulate and locate a shooter when a shot is fired. (I have worked for many years with an excellent gunshot detection company called Safety Dynamics.)
The gun was "legally purchased" by the shooter's father, according to the FBI. Since the shooter was at a gun range last Friday "practicing" it is clear he had access to the gun. Was it bought for his son? His son could legally buy a gun in Pennsylvania as he was 20 years old (minors in Pennsylvania under 18 cannot buy a gun, although there are some permitted gun activities allowed with supervision). We do not know when the gun was actually purchased, so it is possible it was bought for his son when he was a minor. When he was in high school he tried out for the school shooting team but was rejected as being inaccurate in aim and unsafe in gun handling. Does the gun trace to that time? Maybe students who saw him could identify the gun used then.
According to reports, the shooter was identified by DNA, meaning that family members would have needed to make DNA samples available (spit into the test tube). There are facilities in nearby Pittsburgh and perhaps elsewhere that once DNA samples were delivered, they could check for a match within 90 minutes. It is also highly likely that the gun serial number traced to the father.
Did the police take body samples for drug testing? The shooter, who saw the policeman climb up before he turned at fired at Trump must have been incredibly brazen and calm. Did drugs play a role?
No effort was made by the shooter to scrub out the serial number of the weapon so far as we know. If it was done the gun would not have been traceable to the father.
The shooter bought 50 rounds of 5.56 ammunition on Friday. It is likely the weapon clip held 30 rounds, as this is allowed in Pennsylvania.
Preliminary acoustic evidence (see above) says there possibly were three shooters. There was an initial burst of gunfire coming from the shooter's location, a second burst but the location isn't clear and not the same as the first burst, and possibly a third shooter firing one shot. The forensic acoustic experts suggest there were two shooters (not counting the Secret Service snipers).
The shooter could have moved location for the second round, but there was little time and no one has reported any change of location.
We do not know how many shots came from the Secret Service Agent snipers on the rooftop behind Trump on stage. Most say it took only one shot to neutralize the shooter. The Agents were equipped with sophisticated sniper weapons, one mounted on a tripod and one on a small stand for a prone shot. They fired after the shooter started firing, we are told, but that does not align exactly with the acoustic evidence. The acoustic evidence is that the last single shot, if confirmed, may have come from the snipers. The shooter was dispatched by a single headshot.
There are a few possibilities (perhaps more). One is that the sniper round was interspersed with the first or second firing rounds aimed at the podium and Trump. The problem with this theory is that the microphone on the podium may not have heard the sniper round, or would have heard it differently from the shots fired from some distance away. If it was interspersed with the first, then the second volley would have to come from somewhere else.
That leaves the third alleged shot unaccounted for. Alternatively, the third shot was the one fired by the Secret Service. That would mean that around 9 shots in two volleys had already been fired, a huge, potentially fatal delayed response. (One person was killed trying to protect his family, two others were critically wounded.)
As the recording of the ballistic blast of the rounds picked up by the podium microphone is available for further examination, we need to see if the initial determination by the Media Forensics team holds up to scrutiny.
The Shooter
The only candidate for the actual shooter is the 20 year old Thomas Matthew Crooks. If there was a second shooter, he or she got away and is not being pursued, or at least we don't know of any effort in that direction. The Secret Service and FBI both concur there was only one shooter, having made the declaration before the evidence was reviewed (including ballistic evidence). If it sounds a lot like the Kennedy Assassination, you would not be far off the mark.
To me it was premature and amateurish to make any concrete statement about the extent of the threat before there was any credible investigation. Unfortunately, all too often law enforcement puts out statements that are wrong or incomplete. If there was a second shooter, or other accomplices, they are long gone (which means there could still be an active threat against Mr. Trump).
Crooks is said to have been a good employee and reliable. Fellow students said he was a loner and was often bullied at school. Whether this amounts to any sort of motive is hard to judge, but often disgruntled bullied students turn on their school or fellow students and not on presidential candidates. It seems too much of a reach to be credible.
There is no social media record on the young man, which is very unusual. Most wannabe murderer-assassin's want publicity to air their grievances and get sympathy from the public. Some no doubt understand they may not survive, so the social media postings (including videos and manifestos) serves as last wills and testaments. Sadly the police have been known to withhold some things, as they did in Nashville after March 27, 2023, when a mass shooting occurred at the Covenant School. The shooter, Audrey Hale, was a transvestite. Hale's plan was to target 'white privileged cr***ers' and 'f****ts,' before turning the gun on herself.
No actual friends of Crooks have appeared so far, assuming he had some. Former students who talk about him say they really did not know him, that he stayed to himself.
It is worth asking whether Crooks was someone ripe for exploitation. A person without friends can be open to manipulation and can feel a sense of protection, even of inviolability. There is at least a supposition to be considered that Crooks did not expect to die when he shot at Trump. Reportedly there were bombs or IEDs in his old van that he parked across the field, suggesting he may have planned a "spectacular" escape. While the explosives devices in the van have been reported, they have not been seen. The van was towed away by law enforcement.
Security
There is a general consensus that security at the Trump Rally was poor. The main reason for that is the lack of coverage of buildings in the line of sight of the podium where Trump stood. The shooter had an unobstructed view of Trump's head when he fired from a prone position (which improves accuracy by making the shooter stable).
An aerial image of the shooter’s location, the sniper post, and the podium and stands. Take note there is no information that the Secret Service or local police used drones for security.
In a high security event involving the Secret Service, the Secret Service is not only in charge, but it is supposed to lay out all the protection ground rules and coordinate other law enforcement supporting the events. The Secret Service said it was the responsibility of local law enforcement to protect the outer perimeter, which is partially true but also intentionally misleading, since the Secret Service had to approve all the security measures. We do not know if this was done, and if the Secret Service actually approved all the security measures, and we wonder, like millions of others no doubt, how could they overlook the rooftops?
We also do not know anything about the communications set up. Surely there was a Secret Service command center (that's why these folks have clear plastic earphones connected to secure radios). One would also think there is a recording or recordings of the communications channels. The recordings are vital evidence.
Reports say that the Secret Service was undermanned, only got to the fairground the day before, and that its personnel were cobbled together because the "regulars" were out protecting Mrs. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. If true, and it may well be, it would suggest that the preparations were rushed and fell below professional standards.
There also has been criticism of the team assigned to physically protect Trump. They did their job, but sending short ladies to body protect a big, 6 foot 3 inch VIP does not make sense, as the video shows clearly. Of course, miracle de Dieu afforded Trump a chance to fist pump the crowd and yell "Fight, Fight" because the lady was too short to cover him. Not much planning there.
Let's face it, Secret Service protection sometimes blunders. They let President Reagan get shot (March 30, 1981) at the side entrance outside of the Washington Hilton, almost fatally. In the killing of both Kennedy's the Secret Service failed to protect either the President in a Dallas motorcade (November 22, 1963) or his brother running for President and murdered at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles (June 5, 1968). We also need to mention that President Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas consistently denied Secret Service protection to Robert Kennedy Jr., despite repeated requests. Mayorkas finally relented on July 15 after he was told to do so by Biden. Two hours before the Mayorkas announcement Trump, having met with Kennedy, called on Biden to provide protection to Kennedy.
It is important to point out that Mr. Trump praised the Secret Service protection.
It is likely the Secret Service will be subjected to serious scrutiny by Congress. Given the attitude of her director, who blames others for her failures, there is no hope of an internal investigation of any worth. Thus a good start to improving the Service would be for its director, Kimberly Cheatle, to step down as she is the person responsible for the debacle in Pennsylvania. She can go out the door with her boss Mayorkas, the man who denied protection to Mr. Kennedy.
I want to qualify Cheatle’s fate in a certain way. She is a highly qualified and deeply experienced Secret Service agent. But she is responsible for the mess.
The Secret Service needs a fresh start, beginning with dumping all the woke nonsense that corrupts its mission. It is supposed to be tough, military, highly trained and its agents willing to sacrifice themselves. Selfless attention to duty in terms of protecting Donald Trump was certainly on display at the Trump rally in Butler. The Secret Service sniper(s) did their job, but there are still questions about the timing as the threat could have been eliminated much sooner and lives perhaps could have been saved. Bullets flying around the shooter but not instantly killing him also could have been a partial deterrent. The argument that the Secret Service has to wait until actual harm has been done will not protect anyone, including our President.
The Secret Service needs a fresh start. The agency has already had too many failures, drunk agents, and other problems that needed attention and fixing.
New operating rules also are needed. Current training for Counter Assault Teams and Counter Sniper teams needs improvement. You should not have to wait for bodily harm to happen before you take out a threat.
Unfortunately the instinct of government organizations, just as in the civilian world, is to protect and cover up failure. This is not the time for that.
https://weapons.substack.com/p/the-trump-assassination-attempt-a?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
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https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/17/report-someone-was-supposed-to-be-stationed-on-roof-of-building-used-by-trump-shooter-but-they-didnt-show-up/
Tin foil: Was this deliberate to clear way for Crooks?
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second
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sniper-picture-trump-rally-shooter-rangefinder-assassination-attempt/
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Biden’s Team Crippled Trump’s Security To Allow Murder Attempt (thefederalist.com)
They kept the rooftop open, watched the shooter, kept Trump on the stage, and didn’t do a damn thing until after he had been shot. And we’re supposed to believe it was an innocent oopsie?
Nobody wants to hear this because of the implications, but oh well, because it needs to be said: Joe Biden’s security regime deliberately and with malice aforethought created the conditions that led to an attempted assassin shooting Donald Trump in the head. It is by the grace of God that he lived and our nation is not currently in the midst of a violent civil war.
They deliberately starved Trump’s security team of the resources it needed. And they did it repeatedly, over many weeks and months.
With Trump’s security detail understaffed, under-resourced, and stretched to its limits, Biden’s security regime reportedly diverted even more resources to a hastily planned Jill Biden event that just happened to be in the area.
Biden’s security regime then ordered the most obvious assassination perch in the entire area to remain outside the main security perimeter.
Furthermore, Biden’s Secret Service director ordered law enforcement and counter-snipers OFF the roof the assassin used.
If that weren’t enough, Biden’s security regime also refused to block the line of sight from the assassin’s perch to Trump’s location. When law enforcement radioed in a suspicious person using a laser range finder at the building and even took photos of him, nothing was done to detain the assassin.
The assassin was so obviously a threat that bystanders at the event begged law enforcement to stop him, but nothing happened. And even as snipers on the roof near Trump saw a gunman on the other roof, Biden’s security regime refused to have agents immediately surround Trump or remove him from the stage to protect him from being shot.
Given the lies and nonsense from both Biden’s Department of Homeland Security secretary and his Secret Service director, it’s increasingly difficult to believe this was just a series of independent mistakes (Secret Service director Kim Cheatle at one point this week claimed snipers couldn’t be on the roof because it was sloped and they might fall and hurt themselves). In contrast, when you look at the entire picture, what you see better resembles a deliberate plan to make Trump vulnerable but to appear at first glance to be just a couple of innocent mistakes.
And when you add in how little information we’ve been given about the shooter — apparently the only person on Earth not on the internet — you begin to wonder if maybe a group of people at a different three-letter agency might have been working on a parallel track to find and encourage people to take action against Trump at the very same time he was kept vulnerable by Biden’s regime.
We know this happens because the FBI did it with Gretchen Whitmer: It recruited and urged disturbed individuals to buy weapons and put together a plan to kidnap her. In that case, the FBI wanted a story it could use to slime right-wingers. So it created the story itself.
What happens when an agency like that, or maybe even another three-letter agency, decides instead that it’s had enough of Trump? Some former FBI employees might even call it an “insurance policy.”
So who was the shooter talking to in the hours, days, and weeks ahead of the event? Who was he meeting with? Did anyone suggest or nudge or urge him to go to the Trump rally in Butler? Did anyone suggest or point out to him the building he eventually used? Was he told at any time not to worry about security?
The FBI told us almost immediately that while it couldn’t open the assassin’s phone, it knew he acted alone. That’s kind of strange, when you think about it. They told us almost immediately that they identified him by DNA, despite him having no criminal record. They also said they found explosives in his car. Why didn’t they just identify him by his plates or registration or next of kin? That’s pretty weird, too.
At some point, you just have to say enough with the lies. We saw what they did with the Russia hoax. We saw the Kavanaugh hoax. We saw the Covid origin hoax. We saw the Ukraine hoax, the stolen election, the J6 op, and then the armed Mar-a-Lago raid and the myriad illegal cases against Trump.
They called him Hitler. They said he was an existential threat. They said he would destroy democracy. They said he was the most dangerous person on Earth. Then they denied him security. They kept the rooftop open. They watched the shooter and did nothing. They kept Trump on that stage. And they didn’t do a damn thing until after he had been shot in the head.
And we’re all supposed to believe it was just an innocent oopsie?
Sean Davis is CEO and co-founder of The Federalist. He previously worked as an economic policy adviser to Gov. Rick Perry, as CFO of Daily Caller, and as chief investigator for Sen. Tom Coburn. He was named by The Hill as one of the top congressional staffers under the age of 35 for his role in spearheading the enactment of the law that created USASpending.gov. Sean received a BBA in finance from Texas Tech University and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial management from the Wharton School. He can be reached via e-mail at sean@thefederalist.com.
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Well this is fodder for conspiracy theories:
https://x.com/joshwalkos/status/1813697562609623396?s=61
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Check out what was caught on camera here:
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1813761028683112623?s=61
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Good God on that put against Trump!!!
Here is today's NYP, which includes several links of interest:
https://nypost.com/2024/07/18/us-news/trump-gunman-thomas-crooks-used-bike-to-scout-rally/?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news_alert&utm_content=20240718?&utm_source=sailthru&lctg=649c637ec7c6527b1b0fe213&utm_term=NYP%20-%20News%20Alerts
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I am always leery of soon after the fact conspiracy theories or related fodder, but given the stakes and players I’m opting to stay ahead of this stuff rather than behind.
Perhaps it’s worth noting that the Bushes among others did not attend the RNC convention:
@DiedSuddenly_
REVEALED: The firm that took the suspicious and enormous bet against President Trump’s Truth Social stock ($DJT) ONE DAY before the assassination attempt is Austin Private Wealth LLC, majority held by George Soros’ Vanguard and BlackRock.
Coincidentally, BlackRock, the party that would have greatly profited from President Trump’s death, included the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, in a 2022 promotional video.
Alex Soros infamously shared an Atlantic Magazine cover image which featured a bullet hole in glass, followed by a picture of cash which added up to the number 47, a message some interpreted as a cryptic death threat against President Trump.
Austin Private Wealth LLC is also connected to the late-President George H.W. Bush, who was a client, and through his son, President George W. Bush, who attended events and was involved in the company's charitable initiatives.
Bush family close associate James A. Baker III, a former Secretary of State and H.W.’s White House Chief of Staff, has served as the firms Senior Policy Director since its inception in 2006. Being that this was the largest bet the firm has ever taken, it’s fair to presume Baker had a role in making it.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/07/18/former-classmate-shooter-insinuated-he-was-stupid-for-supporting-trump/
hmmmmm....
Crooks sounds like a typical Democrat who knows it all, acts like I am better than thou though this classmate claimed he hated "all" politicians
Obviouly he hated Trump
"bullying" may not be completely accurate after all.
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Computer simulation of the shooting:
https://x.com/amuse/status/1813943748386029809?s=61
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More on the stock short:
https://modernity.news/2024/07/18/investment-firm-denies-shorting-trump-media-stock-day-before-assassination-attempt/
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I can’t vouch for the accuracy here, but it certainly suggests how close a call this was:
https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1813612639718900009?s=61
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https://www.foxnews.com/us/trump-would-be-assassin-climbed-air-conditioning-unit-access-shooting-perch-report?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1V3wd9cU8omN0m1t4xBgTtA0x7XD71fOfKO_FpaHhQQ6kskcEVnTSIdEM_aem_1hfErXlSqTxZMkYH__0u4A
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https://www.foxnews.com/us/thomas-matthew-crooks-hid-rifle-advance-trump-rally-sniper-attack-secret-service-source-says
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Cong. Steve Scalise is hearing that Crooks had three overseas encrypted accounts that as of yet are uncracked.
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"July 13th will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds."
More like his *final act*, not premiere
as within seconds his skull blown off and brain gutted all over the rooftop.
Silver lining it helps Trump. That ear must be sore and painful. :-o
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A forum friend on a different forum writes:
"If you look in the Community Notes, they in general show that they transposed the Purchase Date of Puts with the Recording date of those Puts, showing that these were actually placed sometime the previous month."
So, not as flagrant as the day before, but still , , ,
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https://x.com/runews/status/1814274898199494946
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https://www.facebook.com/reel/1519879915601291
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From three days ago
https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/16/bidens-team-deliberately-kneecapped-trumps-security-to-allow-an-assassination-attempt/
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Who Normalized Political Violence in America?
It wasn’t Donald Trump, or Joe Biden
BY
LEE SMITH
JULY 18, 2024
Democratic Party officials and media deny that there’s any connection between their inflammatory rhetoric labeling Donald Trump a fascist, would-be dictator, and even Adolf Hitler and the attempt on the 2024 Republican candidate. But media executives must believe Trump supporters have a point or MSNBC wouldn’t have given Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski a 24-hour timeout Monday to put some distance between the shooting and the fare that Morning Joe has been dishing out for nearly a decade. Same with music industry executives who canceled Jack Black’s worldwide music tour after the funnyman’s bandmate told an Australian audience that his birthday wish was “Don’t miss Trump next time.” Politics aside, no concert promoter was going to pay the insurance premium required to host a band that celebrated attempted murder.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are angry at The New Republic after a recent issue put an image based on a Hitler campaign poster on its cover. The editors claim they weren’t entirely committed to the Trump=Hitler formula, but, as they wrote, “he’s damn close enough, and we’d better fight.”
In a way, left-wing journalists who say it’s not their fault the 20-year-old man whose adolescence was saturated with murderously anti-Trump rhetoric tried to kill Trump have a point. The media is reactive, not creative. Democrat-aligned media didn’t invent the idea that the Democratic Party’s 2020 candidate was, despite massive video and audio evidence to the contrary, cognitively 100%. They just sang from the sheet they were handed.
And when Joe Biden proved incapable of finishing a sentence without devolving into gibberish during his debate with Trump last month? It wasn’t the media that left him out there to melt like a Madame Tussauds simulation of a living person. In fact, the media was embarrassed by Biden’s performance—and in front of the people they hate most, Trump supporters, who have been saying for four years that Biden is in obvious decline. So, the media reacted—Joe must go! But that’s not their call. If media personalities had real power, no one would have dared muzzle Joe and Mika, not even for 24 hours.
Lending the government’s executive authority to an information operation contending that half the country supported a foreign agent was designed to destabilize America.
So, who created the climate of political violence?
Some propagandists lay the blame squarely on Trump. After pro forma denunciations of the attempted public execution of the opposition leader, a chorus of establishment stalwarts, like George Stephanopoulos, and David Rothkopf, and others argued that Trump and his aspiring assassin were cut from the same cloth: “The gunman and Trump, at their opposite ends of a bullet’s trajectory,” wrote David Frum, “are nonetheless joined together as common enemies of law and democracy.”
In other words, not only is Trump responsible for inciting Jan. 6—the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11, etc.—but he has polarized the country so profoundly that he is ultimately responsible for the attempt on his life. That’s Hamas logic: The violence of our victims drove us to burn them alive. Thus, the left is laying down the predicate for future violence against Trump and the half of the country that supports him: It’s OK to target them because being “at both ends of the bullet’s trajectory,” they brought it upon themselves.
No, the violence came from the left. The question is, who from the left is responsible for cultivating it? It’s not the media, and it’s not Joe Biden, either.
With the Democratic Party’s internal upheavals about replacing the incumbent, the left has openly acknowledged that the shadow presidency isn’t a MAGA conspiracy but fact. All the party’s chatter centered on Obama, identifying him as the man holding the party’s reins and directing its messaging: Did he sign off on George Clooney’s op-ed calling for Biden to step down? What was the true meaning of Obama aide David Axelrod’s tweet that the debate over Biden’s candidacy should have happened a year ago? Or when another Obama hand, David Plouffe, said it was DEFCON-ONE moment for Biden? Who did Obama prefer for 2024: his former vice president he made the 2020 candidate or the unelectable also-ran he slipped into the No. 2 slot to sneak her past the electorate when Biden’s malfunctions proved, finally, irreparable? Was the moment ripe for Operation Kamala?
As it happens, the timing backfired on Obama. The attempt on Trump’s life leaves him holding the bag. If Obama is responsible for calling the shots, then he must also be held accountable for them.
It’s no surprise that the left’s investigation into the roots of our current round of political violence has carefully avoided mention of the riots that filled college campuses across the country and the streets of American cities with Palestinian terror advocates. Indeed, the fascist-fighting New Republic now employs a pro-Hamas reporter. “Good morning,” Talia Jane tweeted over a picture of Israel’s border being overrun on Oct. 7. This wasn’t terrorism, she explained, rather it was “state oppression vs rebellion against state repression.”
In an article for TNR, Jane defended: antisemitic protesters at a Manhattan exhibit commemorating the hundreds killed by Hamas at the Nova festival; vandals targeting the homes of Brooklyn Museum administrators for calling the police on violent protesters; attacks on pro-Israel Columbia University professor Shai Davidai; and terror supporters filling a subway car asking other riders to “raise your hand if you’re a Zionist.” It could have been dictated from a Doha hotel hosting Hamas leadership.
But Jane’s ideology is not that different from the message Obama pushed into the mainstream of the Democratic Party. “The occupation, and what is happening to Palestinians, is unbearable,” is how he framed the Oct. 7 massacre for his former staffers during a Pod Save America panel in November.
And this wasn’t just talk. How did 2024 Brooklyn come to look and sound like 1938 Berlin? In part, according to U.S. intelligence officials, it’s because Iran funded and incited the pro-Hamas demonstrations. Where would the regime that arms and pays for anti-American terror and embodies Jew hatred get the idea that it’s OK to participate in the American political system by creating the conditions for a nationwide pogrom?
In 2015 the Obama White House struck an agreement with the Islamic Republic, legalizing its nuclear weapons program and thereby legitimizing the tactics it employs to accomplish its strategic goals—political violence, i.e., terrorism. The Iran nuclear deal was the instrument with which Obama normalized political violence.
Another Obama instrument cultivated it. Shortly before leaving office in 2017, Obama instructed his CIA Director John Brennan to produce an intelligence community assessment claiming that Vladimir Putin helped put Trump in the White House. The purpose of the official assessment wasn’t just to undermine his successor’s presidency and hobble his administration with phony investigations sourced to the perverted fantasies of an FBI informant once employed by British intelligence. No, lending the U.S. government’s executive authority to an information operation contending that one half of the electorate supported a foreign agent to govern the country was designed to destabilize America. Its purpose was to drive its citizens against each other.
That’s where we are today, still. These are the signs of a destabilized polity: the widespread prosecution of political opponents that was normalized in the wake of Jan. 6; mandating vaccines and villainizing those who resisted experimental medical treatments; recasting Trump supporters as domestic terrorists; opening borders to usher foreign criminals into middle-class communities; convicting elderly women for praying in front of abortion clinics; dispatching the FBI to raid the home of the opposition leader, unlawfully deputizing an officer to prosecute him, and most recently, but likely not summarily, the attempt on his life.
Trump said that, after what he went through, he couldn’t very well say the same words he’d planned to say Thursday night in a broadside attacking Biden. Rather, he needed to send a message of unity—which in this case is a story about redemption.
Americans know how to hear those stories because we’ve been telling them to ourselves and others from the beginning, starting with George Washington himself. The narrative thread goes through the Civil War, catching Lee as well as Grant, and up to the present. It seemed once that Obama, too, having attached himself to the mythography of Lincoln, was part of that story as America’s first Black president—and maybe he will reappear there in the future, rather than leave his mark in the book of America where it is now, in the chapter of Ahab, the maniacal completionist. The best stories we invent about ourselves all partake of the same longing, from Shane and Gatsby to Rocky and the Hunger Games. May this latest and perhaps most improbable protagonist of the great American story continue to draw on the source of redemption granted him by providence.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/who-normalized-political-violence-america
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/it-was-setup-senator-hawley-whistleblowers-most-trump/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2B0cSJH_4ggTqPlkQKwOZ6jE0Ohr49iAGpTIhwWXOB_iLrJYMCwvrCaGM_aem_ObXZaifiryo1L4bvl2Cm_Q
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Thought I had already posted this but Search didn't turn it up.
https://www.malone.news/p/assassination-and-the-banality-of?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=583200&post_id=146666036&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ngvbg&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR21-cygYql2Alk83M-wQ4u-N1gbHXH0XF2gwZUt7nphFoJfG3H2wyj0DKQ_aem_P0RobZ8bYx5vZZJ7Xvchlw
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Audio analysis of Trump shooting. Narrator states there were at least two separate guns shooting at Trump, possibly a third. I twill be interesting to get other audio sources, glean their locations, and then do the math to see if all audio sources show similar things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&si=rymZZDEguRv1Om4K&v=LouUbMYb7Bc&feature=youtu.be
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/snipers-saw-trump-gunman-on-roof-20-minutes-before-shooting-fbi-investigates-shooter-s-2-cellphones-here-are-the-latest-new-developments-in-the-attempted-assassination/ar-BB1qhz8b?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=7fcf3218f222480b82c787d882dc63fb&ei=14#fullscreen
The SS said the roof was too sloped ? Are you kidding me?
BBG :
I don't buy the two shooter theory.
Sounds like BS from people trying to drum up the Grassy Knoll theory for attention or selling something.
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Could it be as simple as "Of course there were two shooters-- Crook and the sniper"?
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Could it be as simple as "Of course there were two shooters-- Crook and the sniper"?
By that measure there were 3, Marc.
ccp: I don’t want to believe this eith, but I have listened to more than one audio source and have heard the same 8 or so shots. Moreover their are two distinct cadences: the first three measured shots (the first of which appears to be the one that struck Trump), and then 5 at a much quicker “spray & pray” cadence (with both of those sounding like .223/5.56), and then the more authoritative single shot that was likely a .308 fired by the Secret Service sniper.
Based on those audio recordings I come away with a different suspicion: If there were two shooters, I suspect the first three, disciplined shots came from inside a building. That would explain how an early shot passed by or near to Trump and then hit that gent in the shoulder standing in the top row of those far bleachers. Otherwise we’d have to believe a roof shooter shot downward toward Trump, with that shot then rising to the top of the bleachers. Perhaps that round skipped off something, but that trajectory appears difficult to explain.
Ideally what will happen is that all audio sources will be gathered and then brought into a sophisticated audio editing program, each on its own audio channel. They will use the first shot to sync up all audio sources. They’ll then do their best to geolocate the spot where each audio source was recorded. From there they will ID the 90 degree surfaces the supersonic bullet crack and then the (slower) actual sound of the round leaving the barrel, with the goal of using those echos to roughly ID the surface the sound is bouncing off of as a rough means of figuring out where the the bang of the gun would have been produced to reflect off the hard surface and be picked up on the mic.
My suspicion is that any shooter throwing shots from inside a building (standard urban sniping practice would be to set up on a table 10 to 25 feet from the opening the being shot through) was using a can (aka a “silencer) as shooting a high velocity round from inside a room would otherwise require hearing protection. As such the audio signal ought to be distinct compared to the non-suppressed roof shooter source.
Hopefully several audio engineers with the requisite skills will all work from the same data sources so we compare their work. The one source I’m not particularly interested in hearing from is the FBI as they’ve shown themselves to be tools of the Uniparty while their las have taken several big evidentiary hits over the years.
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It appears the dead shooter scouted the fairgrounds … with a drone:
https://notthebee.com/article/i-know-you-thought-this-crazy-week-was-over-but-it-turns-out-the-trump-gunman-used-a-drone-to-recon-the-area-before-the-shooting-and-no-one-stopped-him
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because it was sloped
but if you look at the image the building some of the snipers were on behind Trump is even more sloped:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/maps-show-location-of-trump-and-gunman-at-pennsylvania-rally-shooting/ar-BB1pXO3z?ocid=BingNewsSerp
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I forget his name, but a Green Beret congressman says the FBI has told him that Crooks had three encrypted email accounts with servers overseas and that procedures are underway with the relevant governments to see if they can crack into them.
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I am guessing he had crypto.
BTW , I wonder what he was thinking by saying something like watch my premiere.
Did he really think he would walk away from this?
Is it possible to escape while leaving one's head at the scene of the crime ? :-o
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because it was sloped
but if you look at the image the building some of the snipers were on behind Trump is even more sloped:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/maps-show-location-of-trump-and-gunman-at-pennsylvania-rally-shooting/ar-BB1pXO3z?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Begs two questions, why are they lying to us and what else are they lying about?
Metal roofs can be slippery to walk on. Wear good shoes and use the screws for grip. There are 20 to 30 screw heads per metal sheet. This is not a steep roof.
https://www.rrindustriesdaytona.com/how-many-screws-per-sheet-metal-roofing/#:~:text=General%20guidelines%20suggest%20using%2020,for%20standing%20seam%20metal%20roofing.
They make shoes for walking on ice. They're called broomball shoes.
https://www.amazon.com/Acacia-Grip-Inator-Broomball-Shoes-Black/dp/B00GYT29I2/ref=asc_df_B00GYT29I2/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=692875362841&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16685978247080772015&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9019596&hvtargid=pla-2281435176658&psc=1&mcid=15168a383f223766aecb97284a31b3e7&hvocijid=16685978247080772015-B00GYT29I2-&hvexpln=73&gad_source=1
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I forget his name, but a Green Beret congressman says the FBI has told him that Crooks had three encrypted email accounts with servers overseas and that procedures are underway with the relevant governments to see if they can crack into them.
Yes I heard he had encrypted Communications, pretty sophisticated for a guy that has no social media account. While they keep the investigation and the information secret, the conspiracy thoughts are going to run wild.
In the meantime to quell all the conspiracy thoughts, release the JFK file.
Like the very first joke said, why would you put CIA and Secret Service on the same roof?
I think this is just one nut job. But what went wrong was the security, not the existence of one nut job.
Mentioned in another post, the responsibility for this goes to the top of the executive branch.
The Secret Service used to be most feared. Someone let it rot.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/19/secret-services-incompetence-is-exactly-why-we-need-trump-to-dismantle-the-deep-state/
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Apparently he had a remote triggering device for the IED in his vehicle-- which was parked in advance?-- so he could trigger it as a diversion for his escape?
Which would explain why on the day in question he arrived on his bicycle , , ,
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Good animation of the shooting … and just how close Trump came to death:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJId8hiZgGs
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https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1136,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/163/862/229/original/84d112ecb1a9ba07.jpg
https://x.com/dom_lucre/status/1814272285844418862
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https://revolver.news/2024/07/whistleblower-says-hsi-not-ss-put-in-charge-of-butler-pa-security-guess-what-hsi-was-doing-jan-6th/
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/07/18/rep_waltz_trump_shooter_had_overseas_account_at_the_same_time_were_having_an_iranian_assassination_plot.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0h7Un7C4AzFMf5Z1TAEVJllXoXMBRoteb6JRiAg982jXeQ8yTZ21w414o_aem_IqvVHQuGG1H4xECevfhb_w
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https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/lady-macbiden
https://x.com/CryptoCzar51/status/1813561095506014234
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here we go the experts and the soon to be grassy knoll books.
Or maybe the failures are just screw ups.
I recall an active SS agent telling me circa '78 or 9 the SS would not likely stop a serious threat against the President.
Just the crazies who announce what they are going to do in advance. He is probably still alive as was ~ 31 yo then.
OTOH the Copyright Office was not interested in seeking truth about corruption as much as covering it up.
And when questioned about specifics did say it was simple mistakes.
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Despite claims to the contrary made by. DHS leadership. And it only took crack teams of WaPo reporters six days to report what conservative sites were reporting all the way along:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/07/trump-was-denied-additional-security-contrary-to-secret-service-assertions-wapo-reports/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trump-was-denied-additional-security-contrary-to-secret-service-assertions-wapo-reports
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Haven't watched this yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkHT0bwChsU&t=7s
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https://www.facebook.com/drew.serrano/videos/867782875231240/?fs=e&rdid=iwVH3npl0FKOCq2h
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https://www.facebook.com/drew.serrano/videos/867782875231240/?fs=e&rdid=iwVH3npl0FKOCq2h
Yes, what a mess. Good for Sen Ron Johnson for being on this and not leaving it to some federal agency inquiry.
In covering up their malfeasance, the feds look like they are part of a conspiracy. If they aren't, they should quit acting that way. Get the truth out and let the chips fall.
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@DC_Draino
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10m
We just watched the Secret Service Director refuse to answer whether Trump’s shooter was acting alone
She said they should “ask the FBI”
That’s DC legalese for “no he was not acting alone but I can’t say that”
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https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1815446054428352591
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https://x.com/OversightPR/status/1815446054428352591
WT Actual F?
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Looks like this is starting to get legs , , ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLpapDQSy0A
And a bit of shamelessness:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dem-rep-who-tried-to-pull-trump-s-secret-service-protection-quizzes-secret-service-director-about-bias-training/ar-BB1qr94I?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=b80916d760f04c6a82ff3c83f303e323&ei=56
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Bongino claims a substantial paper trail is about to wrap itself around Cheatle. Anyone else feel like they are immersed in a comic book with villians w/ names like Crook and Cheatle?
@dbongino
on newly-resigned Secret Service Director: “This is about to get so much worse…this is not over for Kim Cheatle."
Bongino says a documentation trail exists regarding requested additional resources denied to Trump’s security detail, and Cheatle will be unable to hide from it:
BONGINO: “Folks, this thing is about to get so much worse. I'm telling you, there is an email trail and white papers out there, a long email trail documenting multiple security enhancements, requests for the DTD, Donald Trump protective detail that were rebuffed and denied. Kim Cheatle is never, ever going to be able to hide from."
"And what happened? I want all of her communications, both before and after, business wise, conducted on a personal device in potential violation of administrative and possibly other rules and regulations for the Secret Service. This is not over for Kim Cheadle. And while we're at it, here's another Winky Winky nod, nod. Maybe you should ask Kim Cheatle if she's ever communicated on encrypted apps outside of her government device, government email or government texting capabilities."
"Everybody taking notes, taking notes in Congress about the cocaine scandal at the white House and the missing January 6th texts, too. I'm just going to throw that out there. This is your home for breaking news. Maybe you should ask her that under oath."
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2nd post:
@RealMacReport
·
22m
🚨BREAKING: On day two of the Trump assassination hearing, the heads of the Secret Service, FBI, and Homeland Security declined to testify before the committee.
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There was supposed to be a local LEO sniper team on that roof. Story is they bagged it as it was too hot. When Crook instead got up there the SS snipers were confused and though he was part of the LE team that should have been there:
@ReeveSwainston
BREAKING: 🚨
@dbongino
just reported the reason the CST didn’t engage Crooks immediately is bc they were confused about WHO was on the roof, since there WAS supposed to be a local (meaning not SS) CST on THAT roof.
They did not engage until they saw the muzzle flash of Crook’s rifle, which means the hesitation that got #Trump shot and resulted in the injury and death of others, was due to an “apocalyptic communication failure” by the SS.
Bongino is so well sourced he’s freakin’ breaking news a week before the useless MSM reports it (if they do).
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That sounds pretty plausible, especially when one adds in the silo'd comms.
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https://ace.mu.nu/archives/410736.php
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As I recall Napolitano is one of the most radical FAR left people radical FAR left Myorkas could choose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Napolitano
Funny, when Republicans demanded Cheatle resign her response was "I am going nowhere"
When a few Dems called for it she resigned the next day.
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https://www.theblaze.com/news/police-sniper-reportedly-shot-trumps-would-be-assassin-from-448-yards-away
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If someone was assigned to be on the roof, but went below because of the heat, then does that not cast doubt on many of our conspiracy theories?
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https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1815881608236523770
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Just saw an interview on Martha MacCaullum of witness who also provided video footage.
Clearly he was a shooter. His comments:
AR-15 with red dot reticle, not a telescope
Poor trigger discipline-- thus unable to reacquire well after first shot.
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NOBODY gets to the truth like Janet Napolitano. Her public breakthrough was to represent Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
Can someone tell me what public good came out of that? A pubic hair on a Coke can? But now she is the sloped roof czar, saving our democracy.
http://www.allgov.com/officials/napolitano-janet?officialid=28847
[Doug] The Anita Hill testimony to the Biden committee was the inflection point in the demise of our republic.
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Just saw an interview on Martha MacCaullum of witness who also provided video footage.
Clearly he was a shooter. His comments:
AR-15 with red dot reticle, not a telescope
Poor trigger discipline-- thus unable to reacquire well after first shot.
Sighted in correctly a red dot @ ~135 yards isn’t a difficult shot, though the smart tactic would be to aim at the center of mass as it will hold far more still than, as we saw, a head. A 5.56 torso shot, particularly with follow ups, will ruin your day.
The different trigger/shot cadence just doesn’t smell right to me. The first three shots had a slow, disciplined sounding cadence, albeit a fairly slow one. On the one hand the .223/5.56 doesn’t have much recoil, meaning follow up shots are not difficult to achieve at the three shot initial cadence. My then 12 year old daughter could easily make 100 yard hits at that cadence in a torso size target all day.
DPMS triggers, however, are milspec at best, meaning likely a gritty 5-8 .lbs trigger press with a nebulous reset. Be interesting to learn if the trigger group, which is a drop in piece that most users can replace with a few tools after watching a video about it, was upgraded. That and the glass (sights up top) are the two simplest upgrades to perform.
The second, 5-shot or so—dare I call it cadence—is what confuses me. It’s far different than the first three shots and if I was teaching and heard that I’d figure some spraying and praying was going on. Males in particular get ego stuff going and don’t want to be the last one to make their gun go “boom” or to be thought incompetent because of a slow cadence and so do some testosterone surfing by mashing the trigger as if it sounds fast is must be an expression of competence, right?
I’m trying to understand that gear shift. Were both volleys Crooks, or were we listening to two or more egos/types of trigger discipline in play?
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FBI Director Wray testified it is still unclear whether Trump's wound was from a bullet or shrapnel?!?
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Source material at X link. Rains on the whole “registered Republican” narrative:
NEW: Thomas Matthew Crooks made nine posts on Gab supporting President Biden, COVID lockdowns, and Biden's border policies, according to Gab Founder Andrew Torba (@BasedTorba).
"Im sorry explain to me how trump was ever concerned with what the left wanted, or anybody in the GOP for that matter?"
"The reason all the deaths are down is because you are in stuck in your house."
"Actually the executive order allows an easier path to US citizenship therefore no longer making them illegals and allowing children to join their already legalized immigrant parents in the US."
"first of all Biden executive orders don't incentivize human trafficking as human traffickers aren't interested in citizenships, likewise the majority of illegal immigrants are not criminals and in fact some studies(such as the one linked below) show lower rates of crime committed by these individuals, it is also unclear if the extensive path to citizenship is in fact effective at routing out potential bad actors hence why there is a review of that system."
"Thats funny because the first order mandates a reuniting of any families separated at the border, the 2nd and 3rd orders a review of trumps immigration policies and other previous policies. However his order doesn't actually open borders or reduce the authority of border patrol, or anything that would substantially reduce BP effectiveness."
https://x.com/kanekoathegreat/status/1816239121825947811?s=61
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https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1816818248727306406?s=61&fbclid=IwY2xjawEQ3HRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdc5SU6z-L0nB7cDK_Uy1yrCfJ3uBtvCvsO4lB9JmApxLHyttf-iD6Ws2Q_aem_OGswy4NQLY4uTCvnuKpiog
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU2zrO8xXss
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https://x.com/C__Herridge/status/1816543326604316812
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https://x.com/susancrabtree/status/1816511013040083289
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https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1816818248727306406
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Was it because they wanted to punish incompetence?
Was it because they wanted to punish a Federal official who was not forthcoming?
Was it because they were really outraged about the assassination attempt almost working?
No,
It was because they wanted to get her and the topic OFF THE FRONT page.
It was hurting their party and that is why.
Why else?
They NEVER do anything without it is some way helping their party. Country a very distant second.
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The not always reliable Zero Hedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/25-minutes-secret-service-command-center-never-notified-trumps-detail
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Thank goodness Elon ain’t memory holing:
So here's how it works:
The media spends years refusing to cover Trump's speaking events. They cut away mid-speech and describe it as "protecting their viewers from misinformation." Then, suddenly, there is a Trump event that gets covered by the major news outlets. Coincidentally, he it shot at 8 times and miraculously survives. Worse, he responds to the attack in legendary fashion and pumps his fist as blood streams down his face. Probably the most incredible political photo in modern American history gets taken. Does the media run it 24/7 for months like they would've had an attack on Biden or Obama occurred? No. They bury it. Is there a years long "national dialogue about political violence and the dangers of the radical left"? No. Zero.
In 14 days, the story is wiped from the headlines. Google suppresses all searches. Newspapers don't run the photo, stating openly that it makes him look too heroic. In just two weeks, it is like it never happened.
So what can we conclude?
Well, for one, the entire corporate media sphere works directly for the federal government and by "federal government" I mean the democrats or the establishment or the intel community. Take your pick. But you already knew that.
The conclusion, or oddity, that I can't get past:
You had a media blackout on Trump ever since J6. You've basically gone back to the blackout protocol over the past two weeks.
So...why, how etc.
Did you, the corporate news, decide to cover this one particular Trump event where he just so happened to come one inch from death?
Inquiring minds would like to know
https://x.com/libertylockpod/status/1817690696775516485?s=12
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Trump Shooter Began Buying Guns, Bomb Materials More Than a Year Ago, FBI Says
Trump has agreed to be interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation
By Sadie Gurman and C. Ryan Barber
Updated July 29, 2024 12:58 pm ET
WASHINGTON—The gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump began making dozens of gun-related purchases and stocking up on bomb-making materials more than a year ago, FBI officials said Monday, the strongest indication yet that he had been planning an attack well before he opened fire on the former president.
Thomas Matthew Crooks made 25 different gun-related buys online between spring 2023 and the first half of this year, and bought material used in explosives six times, officials said, offering new glimpses into their far-ranging investigation into the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania.
FBI officials said Crooks, 20 years old, searched online for information about power plants, mass-shooting events, improvised explosive devices and the May assassination attempt on Slovakia’s prime minister, said Kevin Rojek, the FBI special agent in charge in Pittsburgh.
“While the FBI’s investigation may not have yet determined a motive, we believe the subject made significant efforts to conceal his activities,” Rojek said. “Additionally, we believe his actions can also show careful planning ahead of the campaign rally.”
Crooks made the purchases online using an alias and collected the chemicals and gun equipment in the home he shared with his parents in Bethel Park, Pa., about an hour south of the rally site. But they weren’t alarmed because he had long been interested in science and experiments, Rojek said.
TAP FOR SOUND
Investigators are piecing together information about the shooter who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump. Here’s what we know about the 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pa., whom authorities named as the suspect. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty; Bethel Park School District
“For that reason, they weren’t concerned that it was focused on committing an attack of this nature or harming other people,” Rojek said. “The parents have said in their interviews that they had no advanced knowledge of any of this,” he said, adding that Crooks’ parents have been credible and cooperative.
Several investigations are ongoing into how Crooks was able to open fire with an AR-15 rifle from the roof of a building roughly 400 feet away from where Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving the former president with a graze wound to the ear. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing him.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has interviewed more than 450 people, including dozens of Crooks’ co-workers, family members and former classmates. On Monday, Rojek said Trump had agreed to be interviewed as part of the shooting probe. An interview with a crime victim is a normal part of any FBI investigation, but long-simmering tensions between Trump and the bureau have escalated since the shooting, raising doubts about whether the former president would submit to questioning. Trump was hit by a bullet or a bullet fragment, the bureau confirmed last week, after Trump grew upset with Director Christopher Wray’s circumspect responses to questions about how he was hurt.
“We want to get his perspective on what he observed, just like any other witness to the crime,” Rojek said. “It is a standard victim interview like we would do for any other victim of crime.”
In studying Crooks, the FBI has been able to piece together a picture of a highly intelligent loner who attended college and held down steady work at a nursing home and whose primary social circle was limited to his immediate family. But his motive remains murky.
The FBI has requested information from 86 companies as it examines online accounts associated with Crooks, but he appears to have had few interactions with others, even virtually, officials said.
Crooks’ interest in shooting began as a hobby and progressed to formal firearms training courses.
He registered to attend Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa., on July 6, three days after the former president’s campaign announced the event. The same day, he searched online for details about the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, querying, “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”
Crooks went to the rally site the next day and spent about 20 minutes in the area, including around the American Glass Research building, to conduct what law-enforcement officials believe was early surveillance. On the day of the shooting, he gained access to his rooftop firing position by scaling HVAC equipment and a pipe.
In Crooks’ car parked near the rally site, investigators found two “relatively crude” homemade bombs designed to be set off by remote control.
“These devices consist of ammunition boxes filled with explosive material, with wires, receivers and ignition devices connected to them,” Rojek said. Investigators found a transmitter on the gunman’s body. The bombs were capable of exploding, but the receivers were in the off position, Rojek said.
Write to Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and C. Ryan Barber at ryan.barber@wsj.com
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Only 25? Were they to look at my purchase history (assuming they haven’t already) the list would be a lot longer than a (totally legal and legit) 25 firearm related purchasing.
Don’t know what a “bomb making” purchase looks like, but I bet they err on the side of hyperventilation, much like how they report the “street value” of, say, a marijuana bust buy figuring out how many joints a give quantity of reefer would roll out to, then multiplying by the street price for a joint sold at a rave or whatever, and coming up with a factor at least ten times higher than most anyone actually pays for the stuff.
Which is a long winded way of saying I hope at some point to see a primary source for this reporting in the hope of assessing it for myself.
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/07/30/acting_secret_service_chief_played_key_role_in_limiting_resources_for_trump_151352.html
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Taken by one of those injured:
https://x.com/collinrugg/status/1818701419660427510?s=61
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https://x.com/ms_haleyjane/status/1818458616845734200
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second
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/07/31/the-reason-why-the-secret-service-had-no-drone-over-trump-attack-will-leave-you-slack-jawed-n4931217
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https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/08/02/garland-claiming-iran-is-out-to-kill-former-high-govt-officials-raises-eyebrows-and-red-flags-1477032/?utm_campaign=bizpac&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Get%20Response&utm_term=EMAIL
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https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/04/the-trump-assassination-attempt-and-the-kennedy-connection/
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This echos my thoughts upon hearing the different shot cadences, and additionally notes film of a potential muzzle flash from the window of the building Crooks was atop of:
Case Strengthens for a Second Shooter in Butler, PA
STEPHEN BRYEN
AUG 06, 2024
It is increasingly unlikely that there will be an honest investigation of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. So far, no one has been fired or disciplined in any way. Infighting between the Secret Service and the Butler police continues.
But the real story is that the evidence from witnesses, including audio and video, supports the possibility of a second shooter.
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The Secret Service cannot conduct an objective investigation. That is abundantly clear from the testimony of the former Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, and her "Acting" replacement, Ronald L. Rowe, Jr.. Both were willing to admit that mistakes were made, but both also try to convince the public that they got the shooter and we can all rest easy.
Adding the FBI into the mix also won't work because the FBI is extremely anti-Trump and spends their time at the behest of their Justice Department overseers trying to incarcerate Trump for phantom crimes. The raid on Mar-a-Lago, is a great example of how FBI thuggery was used against the former President.
The FBI lives in fear Trump will win the presidential election and clean house in the agency.
The Justice Department also has set up a team of investigators, but anything from the DOJ is not credible and should be dismissed out of hand.
There is a growing sense that Trump was set up at Butler. It is hard to believe that the Secret Service simply made "mistakes." There are whistleblower reports, still to be run down and confirmed, that Secret Service agents were told to stand down and not take action against a threat that was known hours before the shooting happened.
Trump reaches for his ear when hit
The audio evidence and the location of victims also raises serious issues.
The audio records nine shots, eight that seems to originate in the same location and one shot that is the Secret Service sniper that killed the shooter, Thomas Crooks.
The first eight shots consist of three shots coming fairly slow and then a slight pause and the remaining five shots more rapidly.
Based on the audio and video evidence it is clear that it was the first shot that nearly killed Mr. Trump. It may be that the next two shots were part of the series aimed at Trump. We are missing information on where those shots ended up, but maybe they hit low down as Trump got down after his ear was hit. The remaining burst of five shots could have been the ones that killed Corey Comperatore and wounded David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania, They were seated in the stands to Mr. Trump's right.
Victims including Corey Comperatore
We do not have a comprehensive track on the two shooting sequences, but it is clear that Mr. Comperatore's death and the wounding of Dutch and Copenhaver came after Trump was hit. In fact, Copenhaver was hit twice. It is noteworthy that Mr. Comperatore was trying to protect his family, so he was hit after he heard the first couple of shots.
Some important questions can be asked, assuming the above is correct. The first and most important is if the shooter hit Mr. Trump on the first shot (or possible one of the first three), why did he keep shooting? Added to this is the fact that the first shot or shots were extremely accurate, and the subsequent five shots (if they were aimed at Trump on the podium) were inaccurate, bizarrely so. These subsequent shots came no where near Trump and killed and wounded innocent bystanders.
A related question is why would the shooter, having hit his mark, go on to fire again, not hitting the alleged prime target?
Logic would say that once the shooter hit Trump, he would have skedaddled away in order not to expose himself to counter-fire. He could easily see the Secret Service snipers on the rooftops opposite him. Would he not have tried to extricate himself instead of shooting at non-essential targets? (He was earlier seen scooting across the roof, why would he not have done so after he hit his target?)
The shooter would not know if he actually killed Mr. Trump. He would have known that he hit the target, based on Trump's hand going to his ear and his action to immediately hit the deck. The shooter would not know if Trump was alive or dead, but he also would not have any immediate way to find out.
An alternative theory is that there were two shooters. The first shooter accurately targeted Mr. Trump. As is well known, Trump was only spared because he turned his head exactly at the moment the shooter fired. The second shooter, in this theory, would have been Thomas Crook. He shot wildly because he was a poor gunman and was not the "real" assassin.
There has been a lot of speculation about the possibility of a second shooter. There also is confusion on the presence of 8 shell casings on the roof near the deceased shooter Thomas Crooks. We don't have reliable information to back up the Secret Service claim that they found 8 shell casings. A video of shows that officers initially found five shell casings on the roof near the dead shooter.
An officer in uniform counts five shell casings on the roof
We now have a fragmentary video that appears to show gun flashes coming from a window in the same building as the shooter, who was on the rooftop. The source of the video is not stated, but it seems genuine. This obviously needs follow up and should be taken very seriously.
Screen capture of one of the “gun flashes” from a window below the shooter on the roof
There is now enough video evidence and testimony that supports a second shooter or, alternatively, leaves significant confusion about Thomas Crook's behavior.
Congress should hire a team of top forensic investigators and not accept anything they are being told at face value.
https://weapons.substack.com/p/case-strengthens-for-a-second-shooter?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
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Bongino points out how well behaved the crowd was post-shooting. No trampling, no panic, assisting the injured, making way for the rescuers. Think a "Progressive" crowd would behave in the same way, or would it be all assholes and elbows as they beat feet to escape? These are what real Americans look like:
https://x.com/thevivafrei/status/1821395762271379810
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Awful coincidences for sure.
As an aside I am surprised James Baker is still alive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baker
He was like Reagan previously a Democrat I read.
He was a no nonsense SoS but I am not sure he was as friendly to Israel.
I don't remember if it was him or Schultz who had a bit of an annoyed attitude to Jews and Israel.
I think it was him.
Otherwise, he seemed like a no nonsense Mike Pompeo SoS which is what we need.
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/08/12/dissension_toxicity_plagued_trumps_secret_service_detail_before_assassination_attempt.html
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https://x.com/jason_howerton/status/1824569075441471999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1824569075441471999%7Ctwgr%5Ee44e041079d1da1cb8434112db42428f3dc5ce08%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Ftipsheet%2Fmattvespa%2F2024%2F08%2F17%2Fwhat-this-comedian-said-about-the-trump-assassination-attempt-will-surprise-you-n2643518
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https://www.bizpacreview.com/2024/08/27/trump-rally-counter-sniper-backs-gop-lawmakers-bombshell-evidence-tampering-claims-1482851/?utm_campaign=bizpac&utm_content=Newsletter&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_source=Get%20Response&utm_term=EMAIL
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/failed-trump-assassins-father-hires-popular-criminal-attorneys-fbi-probes-familys-role-into-murder-attempt/
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https://x.com/i/web/status/1834395165043368246
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https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/09/just-secret-service-assured-butler-pa-law-enforcement/
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The Butler Farm Show was dangerous, and the Secret Service should have dissuaded the Trump campaign from holding a rally there, trained snipers said. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Trained snipers warn Trump against tempting fate with new rally in Butler
Two members of Congress who were trained snipers in previous careers said former President Donald Trump should not hold a second rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, because of the myriad security concerns with the site.
Mr. Trump was nearly assassinated on July 13 at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds. A gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and fired at the former president, grazing his ear. Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is set to go back to the site for a rally on Oct. 5.
“This was a horrible venue for a rally, and Secret Service should have done everything possible to dissuade the campaign from hosting it there,” said Rep. Elijah Crane, Arizona Republican, citing “alarming threat profiles” from multiple buildings that overlook the farm show grounds and other access areas surrounding the site.
“Though I appreciate the former president’s courage and strong desire to rally his supporters, I strongly suggest that he and his campaign avoid this site on Oct. 5 and in the future,” Mr. Crane said in testimony before a House task force investigating the July 13 assassination attempt.
Mr. Crane received military sniper
Rep. Cory Mills (left) and Rep. Elijah Crane told a House task force hearing Thursday that former President Donald Trump has been lucky that his two attempted assassinations were not from trained professionals.
training as a Navy SEAL. He and Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican who worked as a countersniper for a State Department contractor, visited the rally site after the attack on Mr. Trump to conduct a security assessment and identify vulnerabilities that led to the assassination attempt.
The two sniper-trained lawmakers testified at a House task force hearing Thursday.
Although Mr. Mills did not say so directly during the hearing, he told The Washington Times afterward that he concurred with Mr. Crane’s assessment that Mr. Trump should not go back to the Butler Farm Show grounds, although he admired his courage for wanting to do so.
Mr. Crane said during the hearing that Mr. Trump has been “extremely lucky” that the two assassination attempts against him — the July 13 shooting in Butler and a gunman perching at his Florida golf club on Sept. 15 — did not come from trained professionals.
He said he could tell from the weaponry they used and that Crooks tried to shoot Mr. Trump in the head.
“I can tell you from experience that most snipers are trained to take center-mass, torso shots if possible for the very exact reason that we saw him miss a headshot on July 13,” Mr. Crane said.
He questioned what would happen if Iran — which U.S. intelligence officials have said wants to assassinate Mr. Trump — or any other bad actor sent professionals.
“I think we can all see by now that their likelihood of success would be tremendous,” Mr. Crane said.
He and Mr. Mills suggested that Mr. Trump hire private security to supplement Secret Service protection.
Other witnesses at the hearing included three local law enforcement officials who worked the July 13 rally, a former Secret Service agent and the Allegheny County medical examiner who performed the autopsy of the would-be assassin.
Although the rally was held at the Butler Farm Show grounds, much of the testimony focused on the adjacent AGR International complex outside the Secret Service’s security perimeter for the event.
It was there, on the roof of a large building of interconnected warehouses, where Crooks fired eight rounds toward the stage. One of his bullets grazed Mr. Trump in the ear, and others hit rallygoers, one of whom was killed and two of whom were severely injured.
Edward Lenz, commander of the Butler County Emergency Services unit involved in the advanced security planning, said at no point did the Secret Service ask his unit to cover the AGR building.
The Secret Service did ask his unit to provide some sniper teams but didn’t give guidance on what areas to cover, he said.
“It was our decision to place those snipers on the second floor of the AGR building,” Mr. Lenz said. “They were aware of that.”
Countersnipers from Butler and Beaver counties posted on the second floor of the AGR building and, through a window, oversaw the stage and venue where most people gathered, Mr. Lenz said.
“They knew where we would be, what our plan was,” he said of the Secret Service, noting that the agency didn’t provide any feedback.
“There were additional things that probably needed to be covered, but they never asked us to do that,” Mr. Lenz said.
Drew Blasko, a patrol officer for the Butler Township Police Department, testified that he told the Secret Service that local police didn’t have the manpower to cover the AGR building.
The Secret Service responded that “they would take care of it,” he said.
The Secret Service provided four countersnipers to help cover the event, all positioned on barns on the farm show grounds behind the stage. One of those two-member sniper teams was assigned to provide an overwatch of the AGR complex, but their view was partially obstructed by trees.
Mr. Crane said he was dismayed that the Secret Service did not place any countersnipers on a water tower overlooking the AGR complex and the rally.
“That’s exactly where I would have placed myself as a countersniper because of its commanding view over the entire property,” he said. “Not only would any counter sniper have been able to easily engage Thomas Crooks from that position … but it is very likely that Thomas Crooks might have decided to abort his mission and go home had we had countersnipers on that water tower.”
Mr. Crane and Mr. Mills said other buildings within close range of the stage where Trump was speaking were left uncovered.
Mr. Mills said they talked with the owner of Kubota farm equipment dealership 400 yards away — a “very feasible shot” distance — who said no one from the Secret Service or local law enforcement ever spoke with them. That location could have been used as an overwatch position, he said.
It wasn’t just the buildings that presented vulnerabilities. Mr. Mills said the AGR complex being left outside of the security perimeter meant that anyone could have approached the fence line without being screened and taken a shot about 100 yards from the stage.
Rep. Mike Kelly, the task force’s chairman and a Pennsylvania Republican who lives in and represents Butler, said he has been assured that the AGR complex will be blocked off for Mr. Trump’s Oct. 5 rally.
Mr. Mills and Mr. Crane are conducting an independent investigation of the July 13 assassination attempt but pledged to continue to coordinate with the task force.
Thursday’s hearing focused on local law enforcement’s role. Mr. Kelly and Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, the top Democrat on the task force, said the next phase of their investigation will home in on the Secret Service.
The task force also will investigate the second assassination attempt in Florida. They had planned to visit Mr. Trump’s golf course on Friday but will reschedule because of the hurricane forecast to hit the state
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https://x.com/JD_Cashless/status/1838969222476468587
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https://headlineusa.com/secret-service-site-agent-has-no-idea-why-mystery-atf-agent-was-at-trump-shooting/
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Directs employees to contact supervisor before speaking with Inspector General and treads on whistleblower rights:
Secret Service Brass Interfered in IG Assassination Probe
By Susan Crabtree - RCP StaffOctober 31, 2024
Secret Service leaders meddled in an independent government investigation of the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and are still not following many basic agency security protocols for presidential candidates, presidents, and vice presidents in the final days before the election, according to emails reviewed by RealClearPolitics and several sources in the Secret Service community.
As Secret Service failures came to light in the weeks after the July assassination attempt, USSS managers sent emails to employees asking them to alert them to any “direct requests for information or interview” from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, or DHS OIG. The internal government watchdog is conducting its probe of the failures that led to the near assassination of Trump, the killing of fireman Corey Comperatore, and the wounding of two other rally-goers at the western Pennsylvania campaign event.
The emails, which RealClearPolitics reviewed, contained the subject line “DHS OIG Inquiries” and directed employees to tell their supervisors if an OIG official reaches out to them so Secret Service managers could coordinate “an organized response.” Supervisors sent the email five days after the same inspector general issued a negative report on the Secret Service’s actions before and on Jan. 6, criticizing the agency for failing to detect a pipe bomb near Vice President Kamala Harris and not flagging signs of potential violence to other agencies.
Normally, responding to DHS OIG investigators without talking to superiors would not warrant coordination with supervisors, the email stated. But after the first assassination attempt against Trump, USSS leadership needed to provide the proper context and a coordinated response.
“Generally, not an issue; however, this is NOT the normal course of action, and the Service needs awareness and to ensure an organized response with information in the correct context,” Secret Service supervisors wrote in the emails, noting that “only we know what we do.”
The email is now under Senate scrutiny. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime champion of government whistleblowers, on Wednesday sent a letter to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe expressing concern that the email and any other communications like it could have “a chilling effect” on employee disclosures to the inspector general’s office, as well as on congressional investigations.
“If this email is an accurate representation of the actions taken by Secret Service management, it could have a chilling effect on its employees from fully cooperating and providing information to the DHS OIG as well as congressional investigations out of fear of retaliation since supervisors will apparently be keeping tabs on their communications,” Grassley wrote in the letter, a copy of which his office provided to RCP.
Instead of trying to control the flow and context of information, Secret Service leaders should be “encouraging” employees to “come forward to provide truthful information to the DHS OIG and Congress so that lessons can be learned to prevent future assassination attempts,” Grassley added.
The Iowa Republican set a deadline of Nov. 13 for Rowe to hand over all records “between and among Secret Service personnel” related to providing information to the DHS OIG and congressional investigations into the July 13 attempted assassination.
Tristan Leavitt, an attorney and president of Empower Oversight, which represents Secret Service, IRS, and other government whistleblowers, said the email demanding that potential whistleblowers coordinate communications with their bosses stifles the free flow of information, which could help improve the agency’s performance and which federal law protects.
“Secret Service employees have every right to anonymously contact the DHS OIG without informing their supervisor,” Leavitt said. “While this email is purportedly aimed at employees contacted directly by the OIG, it will undoubtedly discourage employees who may have information about wrongdoing from contacting the OIG or Congress.”
The Secret Service acknowledged receipt of Grassley’s letter but declined to respond to RCP’s questions about how many supervisors sent the email and whether there were other attempts to pressure employees from independently discussing problems they’ve experienced in the Secret Service with DHS OIG or congressional investigators.
“The U.S. Secret Service is in receipt of the letter sent by Senator Grassley,” an agency spokesman said in a statement. “The Secret Service has been and will continue to examine the events of the July 13 assassination attempt and will fully cooperate with Congress and other relevant investigations. We respect the Senator’s role of oversight within the Senate Judiciary Committee and will respond through official channels.”
In the hectic waning hours before Election Day, Secret Service agents are also complaining about security shortcuts that agency leaders are allowing, sometimes requiring, to handle last-minute venue changes and adjustments to Trump’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s break-neck campaign schedule.
The Secret Service still has not provided Trump’s campaign with a military aircraft three weeks after it was requested, even though President Biden said earlier this month that he had authorized the Department of Homeland Security to “give him every single thing he needs.”
Sources in the Secret Service community tell RCP that Trump’s campaign staff have made significant changes to his schedule less than 12 hours before arrivals, hamstringing the advance team’s ability to plan, coordinate, and obtain manpower and resources properly. The last-minute changes, which are typical in the final weeks of a presidential campaign, have posed significant challenges to providing security for Trump, who is still facing known threats from foreign and domestic actors.
After a second attempt on Trump’s life, the Secret Service started using ballistic glass to provide extra security for the Republican presidential nominee at outdoor and other venues. But at times, late schedule changes have prevented the glass from being in place when it should have been and has led to a shortage of security manpower, these sources assert.
Secret Service agents also complain that the agency’s managers devoted to Harris’ security have instructed advance personnel to submit manpower and resource requests without knowing any of the sites in Harris’ schedule. They also complain that Harris’ staff are “disorganized” in determining sites and are dictating what resources the vice president should have against the Secret Service advance team’s strong recommendations without any pushback from agency leaders.
“This is not new, just a continuation of poor USSS leadership,” a source tells RCP. “It puts the entire Secret Service into a cross-your-fingers-and-hope-nothing-happens situation. Sound familiar?”
The Secret Service also has come up short in securing Harris’ communications with her advance team, so they don’t share vital movements and logistics with the public or unwanted parties, according to several sources. The White House Communications Agency provides secure communications services for only the president and vice president but does not extend those to Trump because of a lack of resources.
However, even Harris’ campaign staff and her Secret Service advance teams have been using unauthorized communications because of a dearth of WHCA manpower and resources coupled with last-minute changes to the vice president’s campaign schedule, the sources contend.
Secret Service sources argue that the security procedures have not only failed to improve since July 13 but have further deteriorated.
The USSS workforce is “aggressively communicating” to their supervisors that they are providing inadequate security that fails to meet agency standards, while the agency’s leaders, ensconced in their Washington offices, are assuring everyone that “they’ll be fine and to keep up the good work,” one source argues.
“It’s those on the front lines, who do the long hours and impossible tasks, who get thrown under the bus when everything does go wrong while leaders simply retire and move on,” the source told RCP. “No accountability.”
The agency did not respond to questions about these alleged deviations from agency security protocols.
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/10/31/secret_service_brass_interfered_ig_assassination_probe_151872.html
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https://headlineusa.com/electronic-device-linked-to-trump-shooter-is-still-active-new-book-says/
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https://steelcutter.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-thomas-crooks-and-the
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1880314289946567153
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq8gPnRc5DU
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https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2025/02/28/the-fbi-is-also-reportedly-interfering-in-another-investigation-n2652984?utm_source=twdailyam&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&bcid=a1714aba6c197395707aecde9ada65a65090b7be5f45291f6611e9cf3bd6bace&lctg=2677215