Americans are expressing significant doubts about the official account of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. A recent TIPP/Daily Mail poll reveals that only a third of respondents believe the gunman acted alone without any broader conspiracy. Meanwhile, 45% suspect a “larger conspiracy,” and 22% remain uncertain. Additionally, over a quarter of those surveyed think there may have been a second shooter involved.
The FBI, leading the official investigation into the shooting, has firmly rejected the second-shooter theory, asserting there is no evidence to suggest that the 20-year-old man who fired eight shots at former President Trump was anything but a lone actor. However, these reassurances have not quelled widespread skepticism, with Republicans in particular expressing more doubt about the official narrative than Democrats, the Washington Times reported.
Among Democrats, some theories suggest that Trump may have “staged” the shooting, orchestrating the event so he was grazed by a bullet while allowing one rallygoer to be killed and two others to be seriously injured. The theory posits that he manipulated a 20-year-old to take the blame and face lethal consequences from countersnipers. Another theory proposes that Trump was not actually hit by a bullet and instead inflicted the injury on himself to create the bloodied ear that has become symbolic of the incident.
Among conservatives, concerns about the shooter’s ability to access a rooftop with a clear line of sight on Trump and fire eight shots have led to theories about a potential conspiracy to leave the Republican presidential nominee unprotected. Some believe there may have been a second shooter stationed on a water tower in addition to the 20-year-old on the rooftop. The survey, conducted this month by TIPP, included 1,488 adults and has a margin of error of ±2.7%, the Times reported.
After a gunman targeted the White House a decade ago, highlighting vulnerabilities at one of America’s most iconic landmarks, lawmakers in Congress received an unexpected second wave of troubling news. “The Secret Service did not identify best practices and lessons learned from the 2011 White House shooting incident,” the Homeland Security Department inspector general noted in a critical 2016 report. The report highlighted that an agency with a zero-failure mission had not learned from one of its significant setbacks, Just the News reported last week.
Eight years later, as the Secret Service grapples with another major failure, the same watchdog office is poised to release a new bombshell that is likely to significantly impact the investigation into the near assassination of former President Donald Trump, the outlet reported. Congress has since been informed that months before the assassination attempt on Trump, Secret Service managers were warned by the Homeland Security inspector general about serious deficiencies. These included issues with communication with local police partners and insufficient training for agents conducting security sweeps at events for protectees, sources told Just the News on Wednesday night.
The report continued:
The concerns flagged by Homeland Security Department Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari were related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but involve issues that have also been raised in the Secret Service’s failures to stop a gunman from wounding Trump at a Butler, Pa., rally on July 13, the congressional aides said.
Some of the concerns could be made public as early as Thursday when Cuffari’s staff is expected to release to Congress a heavily redacted report that was completed in April and titled “USSS Preparation for and Response to the Events of January 6, 2021,” the aides said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they weren’t permitted to talk to news media.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chairman of the House Administration subcommittee on oversight, has been urging Cuffari to release the report and to resist extensive redactions requested by the Secret Service and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He also told the outlet this week that he was prepared to issue subpoenas to obtain the full, unredacted report. “We need to get this … report. We need to see it,” he told the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “And it needs to happen soon because we just created a task force to look at it. And … I think there’s important information there.”
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