(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Friday that the FBI told him to leave last week when he visited the site where Donald Trump was nearly assassinated.
“The FBI has got more security on that site now than the night Trump was shot at. They’re trying to control the information. They tried to kick me off of the site. They said get out of here, you should be on the site, we don’t want you here,” Hawley told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Friday.
“I’m there on site, I have permission from local security operator. The FBI said, ‘You have got to leave.’”
Hawley apparently wasn’t totally blocked from examining the crime scene. On Saturday, he posted a video of him speaking in front of the rooftop from where the alleged shooter fired at Trump.
“It’s no wonder people could see him because this roof is low and the building is close in. It’s totally exposed. So it’s no wonder lots of folks saw him. The question is: Why didn’t law enforcement see him get on the roof? Why didn’t they see him on the roof? Why didn’t they confront him before he started shooting?” he said.
Here’s my view of the scene where President Trump was shot. Big question: why wasn’t the building where the shooter fired from included in the security perimeter? It’s incredibly close, with a clear line of sight pic.twitter.com/r1n7cnaH0q
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 20, 2024
While Hawley may not have been totally prevented from examining the scene of the assassination attempt, his story conjured the memory of a time when the FBI did entirely block the site of the Oklahoma City bombing. Specifically, he may have had knowledge about others involved in the bombing, or he may have known about explosives inside the building that was attacked.
In that case, the FBI prevented local cop and first responder Terry Yeakey from returning to the scene in the days after the April 19, 1995, domestic terrorist attack. CNN reported on this event last year.
“We did go down there, probably between 9:30, 10:00, and he said that we were going to go look underneath where the daycare had been. There was something he wanted to see over there and get a picture, if possible,” said Yeakey’s widow, Tonia Rivera Yeakey, as quoted by CNN.
“As we went down there, we were stopped and I can’t remember which personnel it was, but I know definitely it was either ATF or FBI … And Terry had attempted to badge his way through, and the guy told him no … And he said something a little more specific, like, you know, ‘You’re not supposed to be back down here,’” she said.
“(It) made me realize the two of them recognized each other and the interaction was very antagonistic. I think had I not been with Terry, he would have said a little more to the man and maybe been a little more forceful about getting through. But it seemed like he thought better about it since I was with him. And we left.”
Yeakey would be found dead in a field under highly suspicious circumstances in May 1996. His widow and others believe he was murdered for what he knew about the Oklahoma City bombing.
His widow recounted the time he was blocked from the OKC bomb scene again when hearing Hawley’s similar story.
"When I went to the site, FBI told me to leave," says Josh Hawley. This echoes what I said about going to the OKC bombing site with Terry and the hostility that was displayed towards him by the FBI/ATF. This man had just saved lives out of the building but was a loathed… https://t.co/In9NT8y1YF
— Tonia Rivera Yeakey (@ToniaYeakey) July 20, 2024
“This echoes what I said about going to the OKC bombing site with Terry and the hostility that was displayed towards him by the FBI/ATF. This man had just saved lives out of the building but was a loathed figure hours later,” she said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
