(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Last week, Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told Congress that his agents had no idea there was a gunman on the rooftop about to shoot at Donald Trump at his July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Neither the Secret Service counter sniper teams, nor members of the former President’s security detail, had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR building with a firearm,” Rowe told lawmakers. “It is my understanding those personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots.”
But witnesses and call logs suggest that Rowe’s statement to Congress was misleading, and perhaps an outright lie.
According to rallygoer Jon Malis, the Secret Service was monitoring the rooftop used by alleged shooter Thomas Crooks for at least 20 seconds before he opened fire.
Trump shooting witness contradicts SS director's claim that agents didn't see Crooks before the shooting started: "The SS snipers changed their focus from us to the rooftop … Maybe 20 seconds after that is when the first shots rang out." pic.twitter.com/2647azJdjR
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 5, 2024
“My wife was actually filming the area where Donald Trump was speaking, and she could see the Secret Service were talking to each other, and they started moving quickly towards the building. And the Secret Service snipers changed their focus from us to the rooftop,” Malis told News Nation in an interview published Thursday. “Maybe 20 seconds after that is when the first shots rang out.”
Malis’s claim was further supported by a Sunday article in the Washington Post, which reported that the Secret Service’s command post was notified by 6:09 p.m.—two minutes before the shooting—that Crooks was on the rooftop.
According to the Post, a local Butler officer radioed Sgt. Ed Lenz, the tactical commander for the Butler County mobile unit, command at 6:08 p.m.
“Someone’s on the roof,” a local officer radioed at 6:08 p.m., according to the Post, which said it’s obtained a time-stamped transcript of encrypted radio communications. “I have someone on the roof with white shorts.”
Lenz then reportedly relayed that information to a state trooper in the separate Secret Service command center a minute later. Crooks began firing two minutes after that at 6:11 p.m.
As Headline USA has reported, the Secret Service’s failures didn’t stop at the leadup to the shooting. For some reason, Secret Service counter snipers waited a whole 15 seconds to return fire. They allowed Crooks to get off eight shots before a local cop shot him. It was nearly 10 seconds after that when a Secret Service sniper reportedly fired the final shot into Crooks’s neck.
Neither lawmakers nor reporters at a press conference have asked the Secret Service why it waited so long to return fire.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
