OAN Staff James Meyers
2:20 PM – Monday, August 26, 2024
Members of the task force on the attempted assassination of 45th President Donald Trump were in Butler County assessing the Butler Farm Show grounds on Monday.
The task force will also be joined by several members of Congress, including Representative Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) of Butler and Representative Jason Crow of Colorado (D-Colo.), who are speaking at the Butler Farm Show grounds regarding the findings of Monday’s tour.
In the meantime, five people from the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) have been put on leave as a disciplinary action after the USSS’ investigation into the attempted assassination during a campaign rally on July 13th.
Those put on leave include the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office, three other officials from the Pittsburgh office, and one agent within Trump’s detail.
“We are examining the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure. The U.S. Secret Service holds our personnel to the highest professional standards, and any identified and substantiated violations of policy will be investigated,” a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson told KDKA.
Meanwhile, a new report was filed on August 12th by Republican Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana detailing the events that took place after the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, took shots at the former president during the rally.
As the FBI, USSS, and Department of Homeland Security conduct their investigations into the massive security failure, Republican Representative Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) and 12 other lawmakers on a House task force are also looking into the attempted assassination.
“I don’t understand, and I don’t have any answers yet to help me understand how the [Secret] Service and DHS came out so quickly and said – and I think the FBI as well, but I’ll have to check that – and said, he operated alone,’ Waltz said when speaking with the DailyMail at Trump Tower in Chicago on Wednesday. “How do you know that mere days into your investigation?”
The Florida congressman added: “You can’t tell us his motive, but you could tell us he operated alone? You can’t get into these encrypted overseas accounts, but you can tell us he acted alone? So, I don’t buy that yet.”
Meanwhile, Crooks’s parents have now hired attorneys as the FBI continues to investigate just how much they knew ahead of their son’s assassination attempt.
A family member shared with the DailyMail that the FBI “still very much has questions” regarding how much Crooks’ parents knew.
On that fatal day, Crooks killed one rally-goer and critically injured two others before he was taken out by counter snipers.
Additionally, the FBI also found explosives in Crooks’s car, which was parked near the rally site. After raiding his parents’ house, where he resided, they discovered more bombs.
“I don’t know of many 19-year-old kids who could make multiple IEDs with a remote detonator on their own,’ Waltz told the DailyMail. “Why didn’t that get picked up if he’s searching that online or buying literature on how to do that?”
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