The Secret Service and the FBI are being tight-lipped about a video that appears to show a figure moving across a building at the July 13 rally minutes before former President Donald Trump was shot.
The video was shot by James Copenhaver, who was wounded that day. The video showed what looked to be the head of someone moving across an American Glass Research building.
The quality of the video is such that it is not possible to identify the figure as would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, but no law enforcement agency has said it had personnel in that location at that time, which was three minutes before Trump was shot.
New video just dropped highlighting more questions about the attempted assassination of Trump.
Showing a man running across the roof, being clearly seen by everyone as the SS said officially that they could not see the shooter over the roofline….. pic.twitter.com/46PTo7RoF9
— Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) July 31, 2024
“The Secret Service is committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI and other relevant investigations,” the Secret Service said in a statement, according to Fox News.
The FBI’s response to Fox News consisted of acknowledging that the video existed, but no other comment.
FBI officials have said that Crooks climbed HVAC equipment and piping to reach a roof of the AGR buildings, then made his way along adjoining rooftops to take his position.
According to a report in The New York Times, moments before Trump was shot, a local police officer called out “long gun,” after spotting Crooks on the roof.
Do more people within the Secret Service need to lose their jobs?
However, the message, which the Times noted would have come in time to shield Trump, was sent out through a local law enforcement radio network and was never heard by the Secret Service.
The Times noted that due to technology failures at the rally “a 20-year-old gunman had a technological advantage over a $3 billion federal agency.”
“Local law enforcement in Butler told my staff that — that they had no way of communicating directly with the Secret Service,” Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan said during a congressional hearing this week. He said the federal and local agencies were each on separate radio systems.
Although the Secret Service planned to use a command center as a communications hub where information from one network could be shared on another, that failed to work as expected.
“It appears that that information was stuck or siloed in that state and local channel,” acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said.
“Nothing about man on the roof, nothing about man with a gun. None of that information ever made it over our net,” he said.
The Times report noted that technology issues stalked the Secret Service that day, including the failure of equipment designed to detect drone use.
“We are living in 2024,” said Mike Matranga, a former Secret Service officer who now runs a security company. “Why is the government the last one to be able to develop and deliver technology to their advantage?”
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service representative, said the agency is “not able to comment on specific technologies used to conduct our protective operations.”
Noting that Crooks flew a drone to scout the area in the hours before Trump was shot, Rowe told Congress that the system to detect unauthorized drones was set to be deployed on the afternoon of the rally, but did not work because the communications network it needed to operate was overwhelmed by traffic from those attending the rally.
“We could have maybe stopped him, maybe, on that particular day,” Rowe said at the hearing. “He would have decided: ‘This isn’t the day to do it because law enforcement just found me flying my drone.’”
Further, the Secret Service rejected an offer from local law enforcement to borrow a drone because the Secret Service did not bring one.
“We probably should have taken them up on it,” Rowe said.
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri voiced his frustration as the attempt to find out what took place has devolved into a blame game, according to The Washington Times.
“So there’s a lot of blaming each other,” he said.
“What I heard yesterday was a lot of wanting to litigate who’s really to blame, ‘It’s really not us; it really wasn’t that bad.’ Oh my gosh, an American is dead. I mean, it doesn’t get a lot worse. I get the president could be dead. That’d be really, really bad. But a private citizen is dead,” he said.
