As more time passes since a 20-year-old gunman nearly assassinated former President Donald Trump earlier this month, an avalanche of shocking information has become available that will surely lead most reasonable adults to assume the worst.
On Thursday, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) disclosed that a whistleblower has claimed the U.S. Secret Service turned down requests from local law enforcement to use drone technology before a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Thomas Crooks nearly killed the former president. One rallygoer was killed, while two others were severely wounded. Crooks was killed by a counter-sniper team, but it remains unclear if that team belonged to local police or the Secret Service.
The senator’s office was told that the night before the rally, local law enforcement partners offered the Secret Service repeated opportunities to use drones for rally surveillance. In a detailed letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Hawley called for detailed answers and increased transparency following a significant failure in security preparations.
The letter was sent a day after FBI Director Christopher Wray confirmed in his testimony that Crooks utilized a drone to survey the rally site hours before the attack. “This technology was not only available but was also capable of being deployed to secure the site,” wrote Hawley in his letter to the DHS chief. Despite this, the offers were declined, only for the Secret Service to request the deployment of drone technology in the aftermath of the shooting.
“This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the sight,” Hawley wrote. “The failure to deploy drone technology is all the more concerning since, according to the whistleblower, the drones offered had the capability not only to identify active shooters but also to help neutralize them.”
“Why was the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) not using its own drones?” the senator asked, pointing out the dire consequences of the agency’s decision to refuse external help. In his plea for accountability and answers, Hawley asked that the Department of Homeland Security provide “all records and communications concerning the availability or use of drones at the July 13, 2024 rally in Butler, PA.” Furthermore, he demanded that Mayorkas testify before Congress to address these “staggering security failures.”
New legislation would require the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Secretary of Homeland Security to declassify vital information related to the assassination attempt and the shooter’s motives. Hawley on Thursday introduced the “Trump Assassination Attempt Transparency Act,” a bill aimed at compelling the federal government to declassify all details concerning the incident.
“We need the truth about the assassination attempt against President Trump,” Hawley told Fox News in a statement today. “We can’t let the federal government hide behind the ‘classified’ label. “This investigation must be done out in the open for the American people to see – no more stonewalling, no more evading questions. Time for accountability.”