THE TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Taken from the July 19, 2024 release of The World Affairs Brief

On Saturday July 13th, a young man with a rifle attempted to kill former President Trump shortly after he started speaking to supporters at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. We now know the 20 year-old shooter, Thomas Crooks, had become a “suspicious person” to the security almost an hour before he climbed onto the roof of a building just outside the venue grounds where he ultimately fired his shots. Crooks initially went in to the venue where he was screened by a metal detector and was found in possession of a handheld laser rangefinder, but was not detained. He later went back out of the rally venue to retrieve a backpack from his van. He then began to survey the police presence outside of the venue, and spied on the counter-sniper teams on the roof with his rangefinder. The secret service snipers saw this and radioed to keep an eye on him around 20 minutes before. All of this leads to the obvious question of “why he wasn’t apprehended or at least questioned before the attempt on Trump?” A host of theories are circulating online from both sides of the political divide about who could have been behind this. This week I’ll discuss the relevant details including the early encounters between police and Crooks, and specifically address whether or not all this points to government collusion and a coverup or if it could have happened without a deep-state conspiracy.

Trump’s popularity was boosted by the surge of sympathy about the attack. Joe Biden, however, tried to take advantage of the incident by calling for a another ban on assault-style rifles, including the AR-15 used by the shooter. Had the assassination been successful, the ban might have passed, but it’s not likely to now. How could a ban on new weapons sales affect the millions of these rifles already out there that could never all be confiscated even if the government were foolish enough to try.

Background on the Shooter

The media has been quick to state that Crooks has been a registered Republican even though he donated to a progressive cause aligned with Joe Biden awhile back. While his social media posts have been shut down, federal authorities have access to them and are combing through them. Whether or not they will ever reveal what is in them to the public is doubtful, judging from the way they have suppressed all of the writings and weird manifestos of the transgender shooter at the Nashville school, and others.

Some of Crook’s classmates described him as an “outcast” who failed to get on the school rifle team because he was a “bad shooter.” In an interview with Fox News Digital, a former classmate of Crooks described him as holding extreme anti-Trump views, according to Infowars.com.

The ex-schoolmate, Vincent Taormina, explained Crooks was passionate about politics and didn’t like any of the presidential options in the 2016 race. One former classmate says Crooks was a known Trump hater and was a “know it all.”

Hispanic classmate Vincent Taormina recalled a political disagreement he had with Crooks after he told him that… I’m Hispanic and I’m for Trump and he [Crooks] said, ‘Well, you’re Hispanic so shouldn’t you hate Trump?’ And, I was like, ‘No, he’s a great president.’ And, he called me stupid or insinuated I was stupid.”

The shooter’s former classmate went on to describe Crooks as a “know-it-all” when it came to politics, explaining, “He would just say it in a tone that was like I’m better than you in a type of way.” Later, Taormina talked about Crooks’ friend group and claimed one of them, potentially the Trump shooter himself, had threatened to shoot up the school.

Regarding reports that the shooter was hazed at school, the classmate said it may have been over exaggerated as he didn’t see any examples that Crooks was “severely bullied.”

Taormina also questioned why Crooks’ parents and others in his circle didn’t see any signs of mental issues leading up to the shooting, saying, “He was not a loner. And, both of his parents being counselors, how do you not see that warning sign?”

Senators briefed about the event told the Daily Mail that the FBI found one of Crook’s telling posts on the gaming platform “Steam,” where he posted “July 13 will be my premiere, watch it as it unfolds.”

Other reporters found out that Crook’s mother is a Democrat and the father is a Libertarian. Being counselors, apparently they did see warning signs because according Fox News the parents called police on the day of the shooting because he “didn’t return from what he thought was a Saturday trip to the local gun range.”

I think they knew more than they are telling about their son’s hatred for Trump, and the fact that his father’s AR-15 rifle was missing. That’s probably what really had them worried enough to call police. But such a missing person’s police report wouldn’t necessarily have gotten to the secret service, especially if the parents neglected to mention the rifle or that he was likely targeting Trump. Nor would it help without a picture of their son, since the local security detail assigned to the rally didn’t even have a name to place with the picture they took of the suspect scoping out the grounds.

But there are no reports of anyone seeing Crooks with his rifle, sufficient to know he was a direct threat, until he retrieved it from a van. There are conflicting reports of whether Crooks used the ladder he purchased earlier that morning at Home Depot to assist him in getting onto the roof.

CNN’s John Miller Revealed New Details About the Gunman

– Earlier in the day, Crooks went through the Secret Service security line WITH his rangefinder and scoped out the snipers, who spotted him and said they needed to keep an eye on him.

– Detonators for the explosives in his car were found on him on the roof with three, fully loaded magazines of nearly 100 rounds and a bulletproof vest.

If his van had explosives inside it raises my suspicion that he had guidance from some agent provocateur, in addition to his intent to assassinate the president. Building improvised explosives wasn’t one of Crook’s known skills.

Secret Service Staffing Shortages for Trump

When Trump was president, he would typically have half a dozen sniper teams or more surrounding any major rally. According to a witness present at the Butler rally, there was a vast difference in security between what he saw 4 years ago at a local airport where then-president Trump appeared, compared to the Butler rally. He said every hanger in the airport surrounding Trump had a sniper team.

That said, I understand the difference between protecting a sitting president and a former president, especially with limited resources. But Trump was clearly less protected at this event, which is the main reason the Secret Service tasked the local county authorities to cover the buildings outside the security perimeter of the rally itself. As Breitbart noted,

A local police counter-sniper team was stationed inside the building that Thomas Crooks crawled on top of to fire at and nearly kill former President Donald Trump, but not on the roof.. The building was a “watch post” for local police snipers to scan for threats, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Washington Post the agency had two of its counterassault agents on the scene, and filled out the rest of the typical platoon with at least six members of Butler County tactical units. He also said two Secret Service counter-sniper teams were on the scene, but that two additional teams that had been recommended for adequate protection at the rally were staffed by local units.

Ironically, one of those teams was reportedly watching the rally from inside the same building that Thomas Crooks climbed up to the roof to take aim and shoot at Trump. A lot of good they did!

There were a variety of reasons given for Trump’s Secret Service team being short handed. 1) There have been many requests from the Trump staff for more protection that went unheeded by the Biden administration. 2) Some of Trump SS agents were reassigned to Jill Biden, who had a function in Pittsburgh the same day. And, 3) Biden appointed Kimberly Cheatle, a woke, diversity activist, to head the Secret Service, who was obsessed with putting a higher quota of women into the Secret Service, regardless of merit.

There were 3 women on Trump’s team that day as body guards, who some have analyzed as acting less than competently during the shooting. One SS agent, in Denver, Kerry O’Grady claimed she “wouldn’t take a bullet for Donald Trump” (which is the precise job of a bodyguard)! Many have called for her to be fired.

There have also been numerous calls for Cheatle to resign, but so far she has refused. Still, it was obvious that changes were made to Trump’s security at the Republican National Convention—notably, the absence of women bodyguards among the beefed up lineup of male guards. US Senators, angered by Cheatle’s incompetency tried to engage with her in Milwaukee at the RNC but she kept herself shielded by her own entourage of agents.

Trump has even joined in calling for the Biden administration to provide Secret Service protection to independent candidate RFK, jr, who has been paying for his own private security at rallies and speeches. I saw this firsthand at FreedomFest in Vegas.

As an aside, Kennedy is evading taking a stance on 9/11 or other important conspiracies, even though he has been very vocal about the Deep State killing his father (RFK) and uncle (JFK). No future president can be effective without learning about all these illegal operations of government and their coverups. That’s the only way to know who is Deep State and who isn’t.

What Started all the Conspiracy Claims

It began with a red-haired, MAGA cap witness who observed Crooks “bear-crawling up the shallow roof of the AGR building cradling a rifle in his arms,” wildly waving his arms and pointing to the threat to nearby local police patrolling the outside of the venue. His interview by the BBC quickly went viral, and then several other similar videos of the shooter on the roof followed.

To these were added several posts documenting the timelines of his interaction with the Secret Service and police who took at least one photo of Crooks outside the venue surveilling the police and sniper presence—obviously planning his move. Still, they failed to detain or question him, and thus didn’t even know his name (which many find suspicious). All of these claims led to the big question of WHY the seeming inaction?

In fact, the county police did respond to this and another witnesses to the shooter on the roof. The county manager in this video interview recounts how they responded: that his officers did a search on the sides of the building, but missed the area where the shooter may have gotten up on the roof with a ladder.

Finally one officer boosted another up so that he could pull himself up far enough above the roof eave to see the shooter, but Crooks reportedly pointed his rifle at the officer, causing the officer to drop away for cover and was hurt in the fall. Both officers are said to have called in “shooter on the roof” on the tactical radio frequency.

However, the local police manager was unable to say how much time elapsed between the radio report of the shooting threat and when Crooks opened fire. But it couldn’t have been long as Crooks knew his presence was known to police, and this likely caused him to turn back and fire quickly, likely with less accuracy. It is also not known if the snipers were on the tactical frequency or whether it had to be relayed to them by the Sec. Service tactical commanders who would have been listening to all transmissions. I suspect the snipers would not be listening to all the chatter so as to not be distracted.

But what leads everyone to wild conclusions of negligence on the part of the sniper team is when the video surfaced of the two FBI snipers in the northernmost roof above where Trump was speaking, and aiming their rifles in the direction of the area where the shooter is, even as the first shots ring out. Everyone assumes they must be seeing the shooter on the shallow sloping roof.

A fraction of a second before the 3 shots are heard aimed at Trump, both snipers duck or appear surprised. Then the lead sniper raises his head above his rifle to get a wider view. This is important, because looking through a scope limits your view to about 10 feet or less, depending on the distance and magnification. We don’t know what he was looking at before the shots, and it may likely have been all the witness and police excitement around the AGR building if the shooter wasn’t visible to them.

Then they go back to their scope, and as the camera moves away from them and zooms in on Trump, before you hear the report of 4 or 5 additional shots. It’s unclear whether those were additional shots from Crooks or the response from the sniper teams.

The day after the attempted shooting, former FBI informant on the conservative movement, Hal Turner, posted a screenshot from social media of someone claiming to be “Jonathan Willis” one of the SS snipers, claiming that he had the shooter in his sights for 3 minutes but was refused permission to fire. But that was suspicious because it was posted anonymously. Conveniently, it was impossible to determine if the name was real because the SS doesn’t give out the names of its agents. Later a spokesman for the Secret Service said “…nobody by the name Jonathan Willis is employed by the agency.” I think the post was a fake because why would someone post it anonymously, yet give their full name in the post?

The Definitive Answer that Solves the Crucial Question

It was only Wednesday when I found a conclusive analysis that solved the crucial question of why the snipers who were watching Crooks with their scopes failed to shoot him first. According to an analysis by history professor Arn Grimr on his substack channel, the counter-snipers couldn’t have had a clear view of the shooter. In Grimr’s article he presents a bird’s eye view of the shooter and counter-snipers locations and shows that there is a large tree blocking both the northern and the southern sniper team’s view of Crook’s position on the AGR roof. They couldn’t see Crooks crawling up the roof, even as the police below are sounding the alarm.

Crooks must have carefully determined that he could position himself just outside both the north and south sniper teams’ field of view and still see Trump at the podium, just over the bleachers full of supporters. That’s where he takes his first 3 rapid fire shots, winging Trump in the ear and killing one of the bystanders in those bleachers between the shooter and Trump with two errant low shots.

When Trump drops down and is pounced on by his bodyguards, he is now partially hidden by a large black speaker box between the shooter’s view of Trump. So, Crooks tries to shifts his position to the right to see if he can see around that box enough to get another shot off on Trump, and that puts him (finally) in view of the far sniper team, which kills him. The first sniper team visible in the former video still can’t see anything and probably does not fire at all.

The Aftermath and Shifting Blame

The Secret Service blamed the Butler County police for not securing the roof of the building they were in charge of. The Fraternal Order of Police defended the local police and blamed the Secret Service since they were in charge of overall security. Clearly there were lapses and some heads will roll, but probably not at the top levels. I agree that the Secret Service was denied sufficient manpower to cover the AGR building, and also that the Butler County tactical team failed in several ways to secure the roof.

1) In their initial check around the building after being alerted to the shooter on the roof, they failed to find the way Crooks climbed up onto the roof that would have avoided the fiasco of boosting one officer up to see the shooter on the roof. In fact, just walking backward far enough to the rear would have allowed them to both see and even fire upon the shooter lying on the roof.

2) BlackRock pulled down an ad they did years ago of a teacher talking to high schools students at an AP class at Bethel Park High School, where Crooks was seen as one of the students. No one could reasonably suspect Blackrock Investments of knowing what Crooks would do later on.

3) Blame continues to be cast on Kimberly Cheatle for shorting Trump’s SS staff, and for prioritizing diversity hires at the agency, which valid. She needs to go.

Other Wild Conspiracy Claims

There were other conspiracy claims, including the bizarre ones like Trump planning and faking this assassination in order to boost his popularity. Several others claimed there was a second shooter in the far distant town water tower, but Professor Arn Grimr successfully pointed out the errors of those claims here—namely that the shooters view from the tower would have been mostly obstructed by trees, and that for the shots to come from that direction, the shooter would have had to have missed trump by 50 feet on the right and 75 feet on the left, and the angle of the shot that hit Trump would have killed him!

The post about the photographic anomalies making the shooter appear closer to the edge of the roof he was climbing on than he really was, can be explained by the use of telescopic lenses by photo-journalists, which make things appear closer.

There Could Still be One Valid Conspiracy Remaining

Even though it appears possible that Crooks could have gotten in position and fired at Trump without the collusion of the police and Secret Service, it is still possible that Crooks was induced by Deep State agent provocateurs to do this act, notwithstanding the presence of the Security force and local police. I don’t have any information that points to this specifically, such as a history of psychological counseling or hypnosis.

But no one does horrendously evil acts like this without either provocation by conspiratorial forces or the direct influence of Satan, such as was admitted by the perpetrator of the Parkland high school shooting, who told of hearing a voice telling him how to commit the crime. It doesn’t even have to be that direct. Problem people like this who listen to the promptings of Satan often enough on a variety of dark of evil subjects, and learn to like it, are fair game for this type of manipulation.