The FBI’s decision to release a new batch of records related to the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump has reignited a fierce debate over what federal agencies knew in advance and why so many security failures went unaddressed, according to reporting by The Daily Wire. The disclosures arrive as critics argue that the public still has not received a full accounting of the events that unfolded at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.
The attack, carried out by 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, took place at a pivotal moment in the presidential campaign, just before Trump was set to accept the Republican nomination and name his running mate. A cellphone video recorded at 6:08 p.m. — approximately three minutes before the shooting began — shows Crooks running along the roof from which he later opened fire, a detail highlighted by author Gerald Posner in social media posts cited by The Daily Wire.
For many observers, the core question remains straightforward: how did a lone 20-year-old manage to reach a rooftop roughly 150 yards from the podium with a direct line of sight to the former president, despite what appeared to be extensive advance planning by the Secret Service and local law enforcement?
Security Failures Draw Scrutiny
One recurring point of contention involves the counter-drone system that the Secret Service had in place at the rally. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, the system was staffed by a single under-trained operator who did not test it before the morning of the event. When it malfunctioned, that operator spent hours trying to fix it — during which time Crooks completed a drone flight of nearly nine minutes without detection.
Less known, according to The Daily Wire, is that three days before the rally, agents assigned to protect Trump sent an email to the Secret Service’s Technical Security Division formally requesting an experienced drone operator. The message, sent on Wednesday, July 10, warned that Trump would be exposed for the entirety of his remarks and would be vulnerable to drone threats. The inspector general found no evidence that the recipients responded to that request. A second request was reportedly denied by a member of the division, with the explanation that counter-drone operators were occupied with the upcoming Republican National Convention — which was still two days away.
The leader of the counter-drone program told investigators he tries to cover all outdoor venues and likely would have made the trip to Butler had he known about the request. He said he was never made aware of it.
Critics point to this sequence as evidence that the official explanations do not hold together. If protecting Trump from drone threats was a priority — and agents explicitly assessed that he was vulnerable — there is no obvious reason the experienced team could not have been dispatched, they argue.
Questions About the Rooftop and Radio Coordination
Another flashpoint involves the sloped roof of the building from which Crooks fired. Then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said in an interview after the attack that the building had a sloped roof and that there was a safety factor involved in not wanting agents on it. The building was instead “secured from the inside.”
Skeptics note that the counter-sniper team deployed at the rally was stationed on a roof with a steeper slope than the one Crooks used. They also point out that FBI agents were photographed standing on the same roof while hosing it down after the shooting — undercutting the idea that the surface was inherently too dangerous to occupy.
The oddities extend to communications. Local police reportedly spotted Crooks on the rooftop with a rifle early enough that Trump could have been removed from the stage, yet there was no meaningful radio contact between local law enforcement and the Secret Service, according to the account. Local officers also photographed Crooks roaming the rally site with a rangefinder before the shooting; that information did not stop the event.
Body camera footage captured a Butler police officer expressing frustration after the attack, asking why officers had not been posted on the roof despite his warnings.
A Narrative That Never Added Up
The Daily Wire argues that the official storyline has never made coherent sense. If the version of events is taken at face value — that the Secret Service was simply so incompetent that it failed to secure a rooftop with clear sight lines — then the logical conclusion, the outlet contends, would be that the agency should have been dissolved immediately. With far less money, a troop of Boy Scouts with walkie-talkies could have provided better protection, given that members of the crowd noticed Crooks long before the Secret Service did.
The outlet also raises the alternative explanation that has circulated since the shooting: that the Secret Service deliberately allowed Crooks to open fire. That theory, it argues, would explain why the counter-drone system happened to be down during Crooks’ flight, why Crooks chose the one building outside the security perimeter that lacked surveillance, why trained counter-snipers were deployed at this rally when they had not been used at prior Trump events, and why communications with local police were so poor. Complicity, the outlet writes, makes more sense of these facts than the official account.
Those claims remain unproven and have not been substantiated by any official investigation. The Daily Wire frames them as a conspiracy theory that nonetheless fits the observable failures better than the government’s own explanation.
What the outlet presents as beyond dispute is the need for transparency. With Trump’s administration back in office, the article argues, the federal government must disclose everything it knows about Thomas Crooks and the security breakdown at Butler. The deception, it concludes, must end.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-dumps-bizarre-new-details-about-trump-assassination-attempt-what-else-are-they-hiding