Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Hearing-Secret Service-FBI

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a joint hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday that featured testimony from the Secret Service’s acting director, Ronald L. Rowe.

Rowe, previously deputy director, took over for Kimberly Cheatle after she stepped down as Secret Service director July 23,

FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, who also testified.

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Testimony-Rowe-2024-07-30-REVISED.pdf

This is a quick summary after watching it

The official story according to Abbate is something like this (paraphrasing)

At 5.56 the shooter was seen walking from his car to ARG buildings with a  backpack.  The bicycle and backpack reported near a tree was not Crooks. Video from a nearby business caught Crooks climbing onto roof at 6:06 p.m. without a ladder. Two minutes later, at 6:08 p.m. officers saw him on the roof.  At 6:11 p.m., law enforcement radioed that this suspicious person had a gun. He fired about 30 seconds after

Rowe pointed out the the local counter snipers on the 2/F had a clear view of Crooks if they looked to the left.  He is unsure if any were still at his post when Crooks was on the roof, despite 17 days having passed , but he thought one was still at his post

This appears to be the view out the window if you put your head up to or out the window and looked.  Assuming you knew there was a suspicious person who they were looking for wouldn’t you do so?

Rowe also points out that one of the SS Counter Sniper teams view of Crooks was blocked by a tree. He said Crooks was not seen by the other until Crooks shot. He showed the view he would have had with and without a scope

With scope

Looks pretty good view to me.

But we are told he did not see Crooks because this is the view w/o a scope

Of course, the Counter Snipers would have seen the activity of police outside the building minutes before the shooting so probably are taking a close look at the roof with binoculars or scope

In any event, lets get back to the Local Cops at the AGR Building. 3 minutes before the shooting they know someone is on the roof. They dont know there is a gun at that point but they can see him. This raised the threat level for 0 to Medium.  Why wouldn’t the officers ask for help from the Counter Sniper Team on the 2/F and ask them to take a look? Did they even know they had anyone on the 2/F?

The Beacon County Counter Sniper who left his post to look for Crooks surely could have radioed his Butler County partner once it was known someone was on the roof.

After one of the officers got a peak at Crooks on the roof with a gun with a boost from his partner , he now knew the threat was high and imminent. Apparently he radioed there was a guy with a gun on the roof. Who received  that communication? Did the Counter Sniper on the 2/F receive it?  The Command Center with SS and Butler County Officers?

Did the officer consider firing his gun in air as warning?

It came out during the hearing that all radio communications were captured. Thats good. We need transcripts

17 days after the fact Rowe does not know if anybody was supposed to be on the roof or if the Secret Service approved leaving the roof unoccupied with Counter Snipers on 2/F

FBI found a social media account “believed to be associated with the shooter” where he posted 700 comments in 2019 and 2020. 

Some of these comments, reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes. How convenient. He cant verify the accounts belong to Crooks, suggesting they were not linked to any of his devices they obtained. He did not say which Social Media Platform and was not asked

Rowe said its drones would not work in the area due to lack of bandwidth. Sen. John Cornyn asked: “You had a drone system but you had bandwidth problems. The bandwidth was adequate, apparently, for the shooter’s drone, but not for the Secret Service. Can you explain that?” Rowe replied, “I have no explanation for it, sir.” 

Several Senators wondered how someone could be deemed suspicious and not a single officer walks up to him and question him (in a nice way of course), and let him know he is being watched

Its not clear how many officers were covering the AGR grounds before the shooting. According to Rowe there were 155 personnel, 70’s secret service, Homeland security (????), 70’s Pennsylvania state and local.

We know from Butlers plan that Butler/Beaver/Washington County ESU/Swat had 35, but most seemed assigned within the security perimeter

Rowe reported that the decision maker to leave the AGR building outside the SS Security Perimeter has not been relieved of duty. Name is not provided.

Rowe had no suitable explanation as to how the Secret Service excluded the AGR from the security perimeter, saying you always want to secure the high areas, but seemed upset the the Butler/Beaver County Counter Snipers could not have secured the roof from their 2/F vantage point

According to the Butler County DA the Secret Service never asked them to secure the roof.

There was no mention of anyone being assigned to secure the front AGR building with Windows facing Trump. I am more skeptical of a 1/F shooter because of the fence and people milling about, especially police who were aware of Crooks on the roof. So I am letting that hypothesis go

There are still a lot of unanswered questions.  I am growing more skeptical of a 2nd shooter regardless of location if for no other reason that if you wanted a sharp shooter to make a kill shot , he would not miss with 3 shots.

Its possible a 2nd shooter was on the roof with Crooks, and he took the first 3 shots and then left, leaving Crooks to take the last 5.  Just throwing it out there but it could explain the bike and second car (apparently there was a car and van according to some reports) and Crooks not being seen with a gun.

Abbate said its possible that Crooks broke down his gun to fit in backpack and then reassembled it on roof, and his technicians were working on if that was possible. How long would it take to figure out if it were possible?. If it were that easy to do they could verify it quick. If it wasn’t easy then its unlikely .

The 3 local Counter Snipers (1 of whom left at 4 pm), and Secret Service Agent in charge are persons of interest and need to be questioned closely. If this was an inside job, even just a Let it Happen OP (LIHOP), one or more of them may be involved.

Of course, it could also just be a major Fuck Up. Too many COVID jabs blowing up too many neurons. But I am not yet ready to concede that

One last point, one of the Senators (Cruz) lambasted both the Secret Service and FBI for not holding daily briefings and creating an information vacuum that breeds speculation (conspiracy theories). Much of the information presented was known early on.

End