'Massive realignment': Ex-Secret Service agents anticipate 'intensive review' of Trump rally shooting

15 July 2024

According to national security experts, the motivations of Thomas Matthew Crooks — the 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13 — remain unclear.

Crooks was a registered Republican but gave a small donation to a progressive group, and he didn't have a strong online presence. Some national security experts have speculated that Crooks, who was killed by U.S. Secret Service agents, may be comparable to John Hinckley Jr. In March 1981, Hinckley's attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan was not motivated by politics, but by a deranged obsession with actress Jodie Foster.

According to The Guardian's Ramon Antonio Vargas, the fact that Crooks came close to ending Trump's life raises security questions about the Butler rally.

Evy Poumpouras, who served Secret Service under President Barack Obama, told NBC News that major rallies like the one in Pennsylvania "are the most anxious you're ever going to be as an agent because you're trying to secure all of it."

"At Saturday's rally," Vargas explains, "a man with a rifle was able to climb atop the roof of a bottle manufacturing plant and fire several shots at the former president at a distance of only about 165 yards. Multiple people who were outside the venue but near that building — listening to Trump campaign for another presidency — reported trying to point out the gunman to police officers stationed there. But Poumpouras said a key question to answer moving forward is to determine whether those people were directly speaking to officers or if they were unsuccessfully trying to get their attention."

Per the Guardian:

Ultimately, Saturday warranted “an intensive review” of Trump’s security along with “a massive realignment”, ex-Secret Service agent Joseph LaSorsa — who protected former presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush — told Reuters.

Jeff James, another former Secret Service agent, told WTAE in Pittsburgh that when the attack occurred, agents took too long to get Trump into an armored vehicle.

James told the station, "There may have been four more gunmen who were going to start opening fire. We always treat that attack as if that is just the precursor, and the real attack is still to come."

Read The Guardian's full article at this link.

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