By Steve Neavling
The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a July rally in Pennsylvania was “preventable and should not have happened,” according to a bipartisan House panel investigating the shooting and the “stunning security failures” at the event.
A report released Monday by the House task force is the latest examination of the widespread law enforcement failures that led up to the July 13 shooting at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally, where Trump was grazed by a bullet to the ear. One rallygoer was killed, and two others were wounded in the attack.
Lawmakers from both the House and Senate have repeatedly questioned why the Secret Service, tasked with protecting the nation’s leaders, failed to communicate effectively with local authorities, especially concerning the security of the building. The location had been flagged as a security risk but was left so vulnerable that gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to position himself and open fire.
The report focuses on “fragmented lines of communication and unclear chains of command” between the Secret Service and Pennsylvania state and local police, placing the bulk of the responsibility on the Secret Service for the security failures, the Associated Press reports.
“Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers could have engaged Thomas Matthew Crooks at several pivotal moments,” the report stated.
It added that throughout the afternoon, “as Crooks’s behavior became increasingly suspicious, fragmented lines of communication allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement” and climb onto an unsecured roof, from which he later opened fire.
“Put simply, the evidence obtained by the Task Force to date shows the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened,” the report concluded.
The task force’s preliminary findings are based on thousands of pages of documents, nearly two dozen transcribed interviews with state and local officials, and a series of classified and non-classified briefings from senior officials at the Secret Service and the FBI.
