Local police alerted the Secret Service before former president Donald Trump’s rally Saturday that they lacked the resources to station a patrol car outside a key building where a gunman later positioned himself and shot at Trump, according to local and federal law enforcement.
Richard Goldinger, the district attorney in Butler County, Pa., where the Trump rally took place, said the Secret Service “was informed that the local police department did not have manpower to assist with securing that building.”
Goldinger’s account was confirmed by a Secret Service official briefed on the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about a sensitive, ongoing investigation.
The Secret Service official confirmed that positioning an officer outside the building was considered one of the ways to protect against the risk that the agency prepares for at all public events — that a shooter on high ground has a clear line of sight on the president or other senior officials being protected. The building, owned by Agr International, was just outside the security perimeter for Saturday’s rally.
Authorities from a number of jurisdictions were on the ground Saturday, and officials are still determining how the building was guarded — and how the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, reached the roof. But the warning from local law enforcement of insufficient manpower adds to questions about whether there was adequate security for the high-stakes presidential campaign visit.
Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pa., used an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally by his father in 2013. Authorities have confirmed his father purchased more than a dozen guns over the years, but it was not immediately clear how many of those he still owned at the time of the shooting, two officials said.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, also said a remote trigger device was found on the roof with Crooks after he was shot. The FBI has previously said that “rudimentary” suspicious devices were found in Crooks’s vehicle, near the shooting site, and at the home where he lived with his parents. Authorities are still trying to determine why Crooks launched the attack. So far, they believe he acted alone.
The proposal to station a patrol car and officer outside the Agr International building complex had been part of the Secret Service’s advance planning for securing this prominent structure, which had a expansive roof with an unobstructed view of the rally stage less than 150 yards away, where Trump would later stand, the Secret Service official told The Washington Post.
Federal authorities have launched a growing number of investigations into the shooting at Saturday’s rally, which left Trump wounded, one rallygoer dead and two others critically injured. It is considered the most serious security failure by the Secret Service since the attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
The FBI is leading the criminal investigation, Congress is planning to hold hearings, and President Biden has called for an independent probe of the shooting and the security situation. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has announced it is investigating the actions of the Secret Service before and during the attempted assassination.
On Wednesday afternoon, officials from the Secret Service, the Department of Justice and the FBI will provide an update to the Senate on the incident, according to the office of Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). A briefing for members of the House will follow.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena Wednesday to U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, demanding her testimony at a hearing next week, according to a copy of the subpoena provided to The Post. U.S. Secret Service officials initially indicated that Cheatle was committed to appearing before the Oversight Committee. But in a letter accompanying the subpoena, Comer claimed that DHS officials “appear to have intervened,” calling Cheatle’s attendance into question.
“The lack of transparency and failure to cooperate with the committee on this pressing matter by both DHS and the Secret Service further calls into question your ability to lead the Secret Service and necessitates the attached subpoena compelling your appearance before the Oversight Committee,” the letter said.
Cheatle took responsibility for the security failures that led to the shooting in an interview with ABC News. But the first attack on a U.S. leader under the agency’s protection since the 1981 shooting that wounded Reagan has raised broad questions about the elite protective agency’s planning, strategy and response to the attack.
Crooks climbed onto the roof of the Agr International building and fired shots at Trump before a Secret Service sniper killed Crooks. The Post has reported that local police snipers were inside the building complex as the gunman opened fire, and that bystanders at the rally alerted local police that they had spotted a man climbing onto the roof.
The Secret Service was responsible for the overall security plan, but Cheatle said in an interview that the agency relied on local law enforcement in areas outside the security perimeter, including the building where the shooter was. She also said they made the decision to keep officers off the sloped roof because the incline presented a safety issue.
“The decision was made to secure the building from inside,” Cheatle said.
Secret Service countersniper teams may have initially been unable to spot the shooter as he crawled up the roof because of its slanted sides, as well as trees in the area, The Post has reported.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
Jacqueline Alemany, Devlin Barrett, Shawn Boburg, Lisa Rein, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Aaron Schaffer, Perry Stein and Jon Swaine contributed to this report.
