While members of the Secret Service in a Butler, Pennsylvania command center were notified that an individual later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting suspiciously before he tried to assassinate Donald Trump, members of the former president’s secret service detail were not informed of the threat, according to the Washington Post.
Members of former president Donald Trump’s Secret Service detail and his top advisers have privately questioned why they were not informed that local police were tracking a suspicious person before that person opened fire on Trump at his July 13 rally in western Pennsylvania, according to people with direct knowledge of the concerns.
Approximately 20 to 25 minutes before Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at the former president, local countersnipers noticed him behaving strangely and sent his photograph to a command center staffed by state troopers and Secret Service agents, the head of Pennsylvania State Police told a congressional committee Tuesday.
According to three sources, members of Trump’s Secret Service detail have complained to confidants and others inside the agency that they were never made aware of the warning, and they had no idea that local countersnipers eventually lost track of Crooks – or that a local police officer who was hoisted onto the roof of the building saw Crooks perched there with a gun.