Former President Donald Trump blamed the Secret Service for failing to warn him about shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks before the assassination attempt, despite having advance information.
Trump asked: ‘And why wasn’t it reported, because people saw that he was on that roof?’
Pennsylvania: Former US President Donald TriumphHe said on Sunday that the Secret Service The team did not warn him about the shooter, Thomas Matthias Crooks Before the assassination attempt, even after having prior information about the attacker, Trump said in an interview with Jesse Watters on Fox News: “Nobody mentioned it.”
“Nobody told me there was a problem. And I would have waited 15 or 20 minutes.”
Trump has also expressed concern about how Crooks was able to position himself on a roof just 130 yards from a rally site without Secret Service intervention. “I think it was a mistake. How could someone get on that roof and why was it not reported?” he added. The incident, which resulted in injuries to Trump and others as well as the death of firefighter Corey Comperatore, has drawn significant scrutiny.
On July 13, police spotted Crooks in the building 26 minutes before the shooting but took no action, despite alerts from witnesses, according to reports. Secret Service snipers only neutralized Crooks after he had already caused damage.
“How could someone get on that roof?” Trump asked. “And why wasn’t it reported, if people saw him on that roof?”
An agent reportedly saw Crooks using a rangefinder and looking at his phone nearly an hour before Trump appeared on stage in Pennsylvania. Trump expressed frustration at the lack of response: “When you have Trump supporters yelling, the woman in the red shirt, ‘There’s a man on the roof,’ and other people, ‘There’s a man on the roof and who’s got a gun’… that was well before I got on stage. And I would have thought someone would have done something about it.”
According to the New York Post, the Secret Service repeatedly rejected Trump’s requests for additional security in the two years that allegedly led up to the attack. The former president had asked for more agents, magnetometers at large public events and additional snipers for outdoor locations. However, senior officials reportedly refused these requests, citing resource constraints.
