Secret Service stood in the way of using drone technology to survey the scene of the Butler rally where an assassin tried to shoot former President Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., revealed that one whistleblower had told his office the night before the rally Secret Service ‘repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally.’
The whistleblower alleged that after the shooting Secret Service ‘changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath.’
The drones that were offered ‘had the ability not only to identify active shooters but to neutralize them,’ according to Hawley.
From Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas Hawley demanded all records and communications related to the drone offer.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage during a rally on July 13, 2024
Snippers stand on a roof at Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign rally
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is covered by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally
The new claim adds another layer to the probe of the Secret Service’s biggest security failure since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981.
After a blistering six hours of testimony on Monday Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle handed over her resignation on Tuesday.
She’d spent much of the day evading and giving conflicting answers to questions such as why the roof where gunman Thomas Crooks committed his attack wasn’t included within the security perimeter despite being within rifle range of the stage and why Trump was allowed to take the stage despite Crooks being identified as a suspicious person one hour before he fired any shots.
When asked to explain why there wasn’t an agent on the roof, the director explained it’s because the agency generally ‘prefers sterile rooftops.’
FBI Director Christopher Wray told lawmakers on Wednesday the 20-year-old gunman flew a drone 200 yards from the stage just two hours before he opened fire in Butler, Pennsylvania, and had three explosives in his car.
Crooks shot Trump in the ear just 400 feet away from the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 from the roof of a nearby building just outside the security perimeter of the event.
Wray said Crooks and his family owned a combined 14 guns and Crooks had visited a shooting range one day before the rally. Crooks used an AR-style weapon that had been purchased legally by his father and sold to him in October 2023.
Wray said eight bullet cartridges had been recovered from the roof where Crooks fired off his shots toward the former president.
After a blistering six hours of testimony on Monday Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle handed over her resignation on Tuesday
And he wouldn’t rule out that Crooks did not have any accomplices to the crime, saying it’s still being looked at by law enforcement.
As Wray faced questions about why the president was allowed on stage despite the ‘threat’ being identified 20 minutes before the shots were fired, Wray said, ‘we don’t know the answer to that.’
He said that no one in law enforcement saw Crooks with lying down in a shooting position with a gun in hand until ‘moments before’ he fired, but had seen him on the roof ‘minutes before.’
The FBI and Secret Service revealed to lawmakers last week they spotted Crooks as a person of interest a full 62 minutes before he fired a shot.
He’d been seen with a range finder, which Cheatle said was ‘not a prohibited item’ at Trump rallies. This wasn’t enough to identify him as a threat.
Twenty minutes before Crooks fired a shot, he was spotted on the roof.
A bullet grazed Trump’s ear. One audience member, Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed and two others – David Dutch, 57 and James Copenhaver, 57 – were badly wounded but are in a stable condition.