While visiting the scene of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Monday, lawmakers ascended the roof that was used to fire on the gathering. They thereafter voiced serious skepticism over official justifications for the absence of Secret Service agents from the location.
The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, has stated that the agents were not placed on the roof due to the hazardous slope. However, representatives of the House Homeland Security claimed that they were able to navigate the roof on Monday with ease.
During his visit to Butler, Pennsylvania, Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) told reporters, “I can tell you that, just looking at the site, immediately there are things that just hit you, and the fact that those things weren’t covered is unacceptable, completely unacceptable.” That roof, which the director had warned was extremely perilous for Secret Service agents and others, was where I was standing. My age is seventy-five. There is no risk associated with that.
A video that Gimenez, a former member of the SWAT squad, recorded on the now-famous roof, was uploaded to X.
Once he had visited the view point of the gunman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) made it clear: “It’s way too close.” There’s no doubt about it. “You know, it’s pretty close for a sniper to be on the rooftop and look at where the president was in relation to the roof.”
Officials said 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump many times with an AR-15-style weapon, killing one rallygoer and injured multiple others; McCaul questioned the lack of a counter-sniper squad stationed on a nearby water tower, which he claimed had a clear line of sight to the scene.
Concerns regarding the delay in relaying suspect information to local police continue to linger. On Monday, Homeland Security Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) learned that local authorities were not allowed access to the Secret Service command posts for the rally on July 13, despite having been granted such access at previous events of a similar nature.
“Typically, the members of the local police force are granted permission to sit in the Secret Service control room,” revealed Green. We learned today from the locals that it was against the rules to have anyone in there. So, that motivates you to delve a bit more, doesn’t it?”
Visitors from the Democratic Party who went to see Trump’s campaign rally in Butler voiced their worry that the campaign had too much say in choosing the venues and seemed to have the upper hand when it came to security, despite their gripes about the difficulty of the logistics.
So, who’s running things? Could it be the CIA? Maybe it’s the campaign instead. questioned California Democrat Lou Correa.
“I think there are a lot of issues here that probably strongly suggested we should never have had the event here to start with,” added Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.). That in no way absolves the Secret Service of their blunders that day. I believe it is critical that we thoroughly examine those and determine what transpired. … After taking stock of every roof in the area, I estimated that there were twelve or thirteen. “Perhaps this wasn’t the ideal spot to have done this,” I thought to myself.
On Monday, as Republicans and Democrats were in Washington, DC, for a House Oversight Committee hearing, the Democrats who were visiting western Pennsylvania refrained from demanding Cheatle’s resignation.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (MS), the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security committee, remarked, “We [are] not quite through with all of the gathering of information,” in response to a question about whether he would join the efforts to have Cheatle removed from office or fired. “But we aren’t hesitant just once; we collect it so we can make decisions, but we want to be sure we have everything we need.”