Did the shots fired at President Trump and rally attendees by Thomas Matthew Crooks come out of nowhere? No.
We now know that
- Crooks had been spotted on the scene, behaving suspiciously and even on the roof
- The 20-year-old was the subject of law enforcement alerts including those triggered by a call from his parents.
- He had been previously accused of threatening a school shooting.
- He was searching for information about the rally and event dates
So it’s not as if there wasn’t plenty of material to work with and if he had indeed been suspected of threatening a school shooting, he should have been on the radar for federal authorities before a presidential visit.
Federal law enforcement failed to do its job from beginning to end. The Secret Service has offered vapid excuses. Cabinet members are making empty promises about an independent investigation. But the bottom line is that the same failed system cannot and should not be trusted to investigate itself.
Congress should move quickly to secure all documents, especially those involving all communications by the advance team and all teams on the ground at Butler. It’s clear by now that Crooks had been spotted and yet no decision was taken to intervene. As we’ve seen at Uvalde, law enforcement incompetence and inaction, however surreal, can be real, but it’s not at all strange for people to wonder if a handpicked Biden leadership chose to allow weak points because it either did not care or was hoping something would happen.