The U.S. Secret Service allowed former President Donald J. Trump to take the stage at a large rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, despite the fact that a local police sniper had said the eventual shooter was acting suspiciously and had distributed photos of the suspect nearly an hour before the shooting, a U.S. senator said on July 21.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) released a preliminary report on the attempted assassination, questioning how the U.S. Secret Service could allow Trump onstage while local police were actively searching for a “suspect” — later identified as would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks — minutes before Crooks opened fire on Trump and the crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Information gathered by Johnson’s office “raises further questions about what the Secret Service did with this information, why the Secret Service did not immediately send agents to the AGR (shooting) building and — perhaps most importantly — why former President Trump was allowed on stage,” the report said. Johnson serves on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which oversees the U.S. Secret Service.

The near-assassination of President Trump has ignited a firestorm on Capitol Hill. The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has issued a subpoena for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle for a hearing at 10 a.m. ET on July 22 in Washington, D.C. Pressure is mounting for him to resign or be fired by President Joe Biden.

Crooks, sitting on the gently sloping roof of Building 6 of the American Glass Research complex, about 500 feet from the podium where Trump was speaking, opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle just after 6:10 p.m. ET on July 13. A bullet sliced ​​through Trump’s right ear, just milliseconds after the former president tilted his head to the right to look at a large graph on video screens. Trump credited the head tilt with saving his life.

Trump’s former presidential physician, Ronny L. Jackson, examined Trump late July 13 at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, compound. Jackson said the bullet “came less than a quarter inch from his head.”

The Secret Service was alerted to the local police reports and asked for more information on the suspect’s location 12 minutes before the shots were fired.

Johnson called on government whistleblowers and witnesses to the shooting to contact his office by email.

“Everyone who attended the rally, including law enforcement, should carefully record, document, back up, and store all potentially relevant information, including, but not limited to, security data, video and audio of the rally, evidence of rally attendance, and eyewitness testimony,” the report said. “It is critical in the early days of this investigation that all potential evidence be preserved and secured.”

Some of the security lapses noted in the report include the Secret Service skipping a 9 a.m. security briefing for local police on the day of the rally. Butler County officials distributed a map of the security perimeter that did not include the American Glass Research complex just north of the Butler Farm Show Inc. fairgrounds.

The Secret Service initially did not plan to send anti-sniper teams to the meeting, the report said, so “local law enforcement would have to deploy ‘sniper heavy’ to ensure adequate cover. Local law enforcement learned at least a day before the meeting that the Secret Service was changing course and decided to send two sniper teams.”

The security briefing was about drones flying over the rally, though the report did not specify what was said. Media reports on July 20 said that Crooks flew a small drone over the fairgrounds in preparation for his attack on Trump.

The report said that police radio communications were “fragmented” on multiple channels, making coordination between local police and the Secret Service difficult. Information had to be relayed in a tag-team manner between local police and the command center.

Former President Donald J. Trump raises his fist in defiance after he was shot at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, shouting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Photo by Trump Campaign Office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images

Butler County was responsible for assigning locations for the two local counter-sniper teams. There were fewer than 40 local SWAT members and counter-snipers assigned to the rally, the report said. Two counter-snipers were trapped in a two-story AGR building at 10:30 a.m. on Jan. 6.

A local police sniper, who was located in an AGR building just north of the protest site, first saw Crooks at 5:10 p.m. and reported him acting suspiciously, the report said.

Four minutes later, the police sniper snapped two photos of Crooks outside the one-story building he eventually used as a launchpad to shoot Trump. In one of the photos, Crooks appeared to be reading news articles on his phone, the report said. The photos were distributed to local police.

At 5:28 p.m., the counter-sniper took photos of a bicycle and a backpack near the AGR building. It’s unclear whether those items were related to Crooks, Johnson’s report said.

At 17:32, the sniper spotted Crooks again near the AGR building. He was holding a rangefinder, which can be used to estimate the distance to a target.

Six minutes later, he sent a message about Crooks to the counter-sniper group. Police said there were four counter-sniper teams active on July 13: two local, one from the Pennsylvania State Police and one from the Secret Service.

At 5:41 p.m., the police sniper called the command center to report Crooks’ appearance and that the suspect had a rangefinder. At 5:45 p.m., the police sniper texted information about Crooks to the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit and asked that it be passed on to the command center.

A local police sniper took photos of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks near a retaining wall along the building he used as a base to shoot former President Donald J. Trump on July 13.U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin)

At 5:49 p.m., photos of Crooks were sent to the Butler County ESU command center. Six minutes later, Butler’s command center acknowledged receipt of the photos “and stated they had been forwarded,” the report said.

At 5:59 p.m., 12 minutes before the shooting began, a Beaver County police officer was notified that the command center, which operates the Secret Service, “had been notified of the messages and had requested more information regarding the suspect’s location,” the report said.

At 6:05 p.m., Butler asked ESU command center what direction Crooks was traveling. The counter-sniper said the suspect was headed northeast with a backpack.

The sniper moved to the ground floor of the AGR building, where he was stationed at 6:06 p.m., to alert local police on the scene about the suspect.

‘ATF would use Crooks’ photos to perform facial recognition.’

Shortly after, bystanders saw Crooks crawl onto the roof of AGR’s Building 6 with a rifle. Crooks fired his first shot at President Trump just after 6:11 p.m. After a series of gunfire, Crooks was struck by a sniper’s shot in the head.

The report states that members of the Beaver County SWAT team went to the roof at 6:23 p.m. and confirmed that Crooks was dead. He was searched by police at 6:43 p.m., who found his cell phone, a transceiver that could be used to trigger explosives and the rangefinder.

The report questioned why an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stood on the roof near Crooks’ body and asked for photos of Crooks to be sent to a phone number in the 215 area code in the Philadelphia area.

“ATF would use Crooks’ photos to conduct facial recognition,” the report said.

The report states that Crooks purchased a 5.5-foot dual aluminum ladder at the Home Depot store in his hometown of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. It does not appear that Crooks used the ladder to reach the roof of Building 6.

The day after the shooting, Johnson sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, asking them to answer 16 questions about the attempted assassination.

Johnson’s July 21 report raises 41 more questions, including how many shell casings were found near Crooks, what was in the backpack he was carrying before the shooting and why the Secret Service had no direct contact with the anti-sniper teams.

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