Secret Service under intense scrutiny over attempted Trump assassination at Pennsylvania rally

Major questions are being asked of the Secret Service after Donald Trump was targeted by a lone gunman in an assassination attempt at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night.

The former president was shot in the ear around 15 minutes after he took to the stage at the campaign event in Butler.

He dropped to the ground and was swarmed by his security detail who rushed him off stage to a waiting motorcade. He could be seen raising his fist in the air and mouthing the words, “Fight, fight, fight.” He was later discharged from a local hospital and flew to New Jersey.

The former president thanked God for preventing the “unthinkable from happening” and said he would remain “defiant in the face of wickedness”.

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On Sunday morning, the FBI identified the “subject involved” in the attempted assassination as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was shot dead by snipers at the scene.

As the investigation gets underway, serious questions are being asked of the Secret Service, whose job it is to provide former presidents with lifelong protection.

Follow our live blog for updates on the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump

On Sunday, Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, was forced to deny a claim that the Trump team had asked for additional security and were refused.

“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed. This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,” Guglielmi posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent, told The Independent multiple investigations will be launched following the attempt on Trump’s life.

“There will be multiple investigations. First, a criminal investigation being led by the FBI. Because it’s an assassination attempt of a former president, they have primary jurisdiction on that. There will be a state investigation on state-level charges regarding other victims the shooter has impacted,” he said.

“The Secret Service will obviously be a key stakeholder, but these are not their investigations. The Secret Service will primarily be focused on a mission-assurance review to make sure their protective methodology was applied correctly [and] that the site was built out to the standards all agents have been trained on, to understand where any potential lapses occurred within the security plan. There are a lot of issues that are coming into play.

“Those buildings were outside of the primary secure site but still within the area of vulnerabilities, so a lot of questions remain unanswered. The Secret Service needs to act quickly to ensure they don’t need to modify anything, moving forward. Was something amiss? Was there a communications issue? What were the precipitating events that this shooter took to get up onto the roof?

“The next few months are a sprint for the Secret Service. The candidates are going to be doing rallies, [and] multiple events, so the Secret Service has to ensure their methodology and approach doesn’t need to be changed. Or if they do, they need to enact those changes extremely quickly.”

The gunman fired multiple shots with an AR-style rifle at the stage from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue”, the Secret Service said.

Analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos from the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, showed the shooter was able to get close to where Trump was speaking, according to the Associated Press.

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The shooter was less than 500ft from the stage.

After the shooting, an eyewitness told the BBC that he had pointed out the gunman to the Secret Service, minutes before the attack took place.

The man, identified only as Greg, said: “We’re pointing at the guy crawling up the roof. We could clearly see him with a rifle.

“I’m standing there pointing at him for two to three minutes. Secret Service is looking at us from the top of the barn, I’m pointing at the roof... and next thing you know, five shots rang out.”

The man said the shooting came from outside the secured perimeter at the event.

The FBI has taken over the investigation of the attack. At a briefing late on Saturday, FBI officials said it was surprising that the suspect was able to fire multiple shots.

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Members of the Secret Service’s counter-sniper team and counter-assault team were at the rally, according to two law enforcement officials.

The heavily armed counter-assault team, who have the Secret Service code name “Hawkeye”, are responsible for eliminating threats so that other agents can shield and take away the person they are protecting.

The counter-sniper team, known by the code name “Hercules”, use long-range binoculars and are equipped with sniper rifles to deal with long-range threats.

The Oversight Committee in the Republican-led House of Representatives has summoned Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing scheduled for July 22.

“Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump,” the panel said in a statement.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said: “We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms and commend the Secret Service for their swift action.

“We are engaged with President Biden, former President Trump and their campaigns, and are taking every possible measure to ensure their safety and security.”

Trump supporters also blasted the Secret Service. “How was a sniper with a full rifle kit allowed to bear crawl onto the closest roof to a presidential nominee,” asked conservative activist Jack Posobiec on X.