Staff Reports
A House task force recently held its inaugural public hearing to sift through the chaos surrounding attempts on former President Donald Trump’s life. During this spectacle, local Pennsylvania officials laid heavy blame on the Secret Service, painting a picture that could rival any bad sitcom plot—where the stars are tasked with protecting the president but somehow forget about a key rooftop shooter scenario.
The heroes in this drama? State and local law enforcement officials had the unfortunate job of securing a Trump rally on July 13, where the first assassination attempt unfolded. They vehemently defended their actions and claimed to have stuck to the Secret Service’s playbook—complete with diagrams, protocol manuals, and probably an excessively long PowerPoint presentation—but such devotion didn’t thwart the actions of a determined gunman. In a classic case of “you had one job,” a 20-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks apparently found it easy to scale a nearby building, popping off shots like it was an impromptu Fourth of July fireworks show.
Jesse Watters says testimony today at the first assassination task force hearing revealed that SWAT leaders weren’t told about Iran's plot to kill President Trump on July 13. If they'd known, it would have changed everything. pic.twitter.com/ZwxQ5g1K1Q
— D. Scott @eclipsethis2003 (@eclipsethis2003) September 27, 2024
Crooks managed to shoot eight times from his lofty perch about 200 yards away, claiming one life and injuring two others while narrowly missing Trump’s head. The audacity! It’s one thing to have a rally; it’s another to have a sniper with a better view than the event’s security team. As if the Secret Service didn’t have enough on their plate to protect a former president, they were handed the delicious news that their security measures would leave them facing a mountain of critique. After their internal review, they fessed up that they were solely responsible for dropping the ball and securing the event.
Witness testimonies at the hearing revealed a different dimension to the story. Apparently, Sgt. Ed Lenz, commanding bravely from Butler County’s tactical unit, expressed that his team had never been consulted about securing the American Glass Research building. Instead, they were instructed to provide manpower at the rally without a single mention of rooftop concerns that could have made a cameo in a “Mission Impossible” film. It seems the Secret Service didn’t bother to request even the most elementary security measures for a building where a sniper could easily take target practice on a crowd of supporters.
As the narrative unfolded, it became clear that the Secret Service’s oversight was more catastrophic than an identity crisis in a sitcom character. With no one stationed to monitor the AGR building’s roof, Crooks climbed onto an air conditioning unit and found himself in a position that made a practical joke out of safety protocols. Further complicating the story were the details of how a local sniper inside the building had no line of sight on the roof where the actual threat resided. So much for having an ace in the hole.
The hearing took an oddly entertaining turn as it revealed the partisan divide, with Democrats sheepishly packing up and leaving before the event concluded, claiming they weren’t notified about the second half of the hearing, which involved remarks from Reps. Eli Crane and Cory Mills got their chance to showcase their military backgrounds. One can’t help but wonder if they were secretly hoping for some popcorn as the circus unfolded while the Democrats sulked at the missed opportunities and last-minute surprises. In the end, the hearing brought to light not just the failure of security measures but the humorous theater of politics when protecting a former president becomes a punchline rather than a serious mission.
