A retired U.S. Secret Service agent questioned why former President Trump was cleared to take the stage at Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, despite a “person of interest” being identified beforehand.
“Why the rush? Why push him on stage? Why not delay?” questioned Mike Matranga on “America’s Newsroom” Thursday.
“It would have taken nothing to take a tactical pause, assess the situation, locate him, and potentially prevent what we haven’t seen in 43 years.”
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Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was perceived by the Secret Service as a “person of interest” after law enforcement saw him acting suspiciously and determined he had a golf range finder, according to Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Crooks was only identified as a threat when he “retrieved the weapon” and climbed onto the roof of a building just prior to the shooting, according to Guglielmi, who added that a threat requires, “a different protocol and a different course of action than a person of interest.”
Soon after that, Butler Township police officers confronted Crooks on the roof, and he pointed his weapon at one of them, who then dropped off the roof. Crooks then fired on Trump and was taken out by a Secret Service counter sniper.
Matranga called the situation a “catastrophic failure.”
“Failing to even address the American people or to point the finger solely at the local law enforcement is just not right,” he said. “This is a catastrophic failure of communications. We’ve known this for decades, that we rely too heavily on our local counterparts to do the jobs that we are designed to do, and so this is a catastrophic failure.”
“The former president deserves better,” he continued. “The individuals who were harmed and the individual who succumbed to his injuries deserve better.”
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
In the wake of the incident, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is facing pressure to resign, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., telling FOX Business on Thursday that he is ready to call on President Biden to fire her.
In an interview with ABC News Tuesday, Cheatle said the Secret Service was aware of the security vulnerabilities presented by the building Crooks took a sniper’s position on to aim at Trump. However, a decision was made not to place any personnel on the roof.
Cheatle made the remark hours after Fox News Digital reported that a local law enforcement officer spotted a suspicious man carrying a range-finder just 30 minutes before Saturday’s attempted assassination.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside,” she said.
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Fox News’ Greg Norman, David Spunt, Jake Gibson, Chris Pandolfo, and Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.