(Ken Silva, Headline USA) After months of stonewalling, the House Task Force investigating the Trump assassination attempts has issued subpoenas to the ATF agent who responded to the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. The Task Force also subpoenaed an ATF supervisory agent.
The subpoenas were issued Monday, after the ATF ignored two Task Force letters demanding documents about its involvement in the two assassination attempts—the latter being the one on Sept. 15 at Trump’s Florida golf course.
According to the Task Force, the ATF delivered a batch of documents an hour before the subpoenas were issued—the same day that Task Force members also visited the FBI’s headquarters to examine evidence about alleged Trump shooter Thomas Crooks.
Today, the @TFAADJT met with officials from the FBI in Quantico. Here's a quick recap of our stop.⬇️ pic.twitter.com/W687F2nCo6
— Rep. Mike Kelly (@MikeKellyPA) November 19, 2024
With the Task Force’s Dec. 13 deadline looming for completing its investigation, Chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., demanded the ATF agents’ immediate testimony.
“Given your role in the investigation after the attempted assassination on July 13, the Task Force believes you have critical information pertinent to its inquiry. Accordingly, attached is a deposition subpoena,” the Task Force said in a letter to the two ATF agents.
The Task Force didn’t publish the subpoenas, and so the ATF agents’ identities are still not public.
The Task Force’s request may finally yield answers for why an unidentified, plain-clothes ATF agent was at the Butler rally in his “personal capacity”—as the ATF told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
🚨The Task Force has issued subpoenas to the ATF for testimony in regard to our ongoing investigation of the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump. More ⬇️
https://t.co/6H0dFn1tRv— Task Force on Trump Assassination Attempt (@TFAADJT) November 19, 2024
Recently released interview transcripts show that a Secret Service agent encountered that ATF agent before the shooting, but didn’t question his presence or his credentials.
According to the interview transcripts, the Secret Service site agent said the ATF agent approached her before the shooting with concerns about a bike rack that was used as a crowd barrier.
“He was concerned that people, it might fall over, that people might, you know, be able to, to get, you know, get over it. And so then he kind of brought it to my attention. I was like, ‘Well, who are you?’ … He said, ‘ATF,’” the agent told lawmakers, according to her interview transcript.
“He just was acting like part of the plan … And then I just, I didn’t ask any further questions. I mean, at that point I was just like, okay. I don’t know,” she said.
“I still don’t know why ATF was there or who asked them to be there or what their role was,” she added.
According to the Senate’s report on the Trump shooting, the ATF said the agent was there in a “personal capacity.”
“ATF told the Committee that there was an ATF agent present in his personal capacity at the Butler rally on July 13 but that ATF as an agency had no official presence at the rally and did not provide any security assistance before shots were fired. The committee has yet to speak with the ATF agent who was at the rally,” the report said.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
