Police should have arrested would-be killer Thomas Matthew Crooks before he shot at former President Donald J. Trump at a campaign event in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Former first lady Melania Trump wants to know why they didn’t.
In a film available on X on September 10, the former first lady said, “The attempt to end my husband’s life was a horrible, upsetting event. The silence now feels heavy.”
“I can’t help but wonder why the shooter wasn’t arrested before the speech?” Mrs. Trump went on. “This story has to have more to it, and we need to find out what it is.”
It’s been almost two months since the Butler shooting, but the attempted murder hasn’t been in the news much because of the many ongoing federal and state probes.
According to records from city and state governments, the U.S. House-appointed Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump is collecting information. A Secret Service shooter killed Crooks after he fired eight shots into the crowd, and the task force recently asked the coroners in Butler County and Allegheny County for copies of the autopsy reports.
It has also asked for transcripts of conversations with local police and a lot of security planning papers for the July 13 event from the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and local officials.
Investigators from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs have been interviewing people who were involved in the Butler protest and transcribing what they say.
Based on the FBI’s new timeline, Crooks, 20, got onto the roof of the American Glass Research complex at 6:05 p.m. and then walked south across several buildings in the complex to find a place to shoot. At 6:11:32 p.m., he fired.
At 6:08 p.m., a Pennsylvania state trooper located under a nearby water tower saw Crooks and sent out a radio message saying, “There’s someone on the roof.” The Secret Service didn’t hear that message because it didn’t share a way to talk with state and local cops.
The Secret Service had radios set up with special programming, but local police and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) say that Secret Service agents never used them and never even picked them up.
