(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe said Friday that the July 13 deadly campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania was the first time his agency had snipers assigned to a 2024 campaign event for Donald Trump.
“It was the first time Secret Service counter snipers were deployed to support the former President’s detail,” Rowe said at a press conference, which only admitted mainstream media reporters.
Say what now? SS Director says July 13 was the first time SS snipers were at a 2024 Trump rally. pic.twitter.com/g0tkdOapB6
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 2, 2024
“This was the first time Secret Service counter snipers were deployed, but the former President has been getting state and local resources at previous campaign rallies,” he later said.
When questioned why July 13 was the first time Secret Service snipers were deployed to assist Trump, Rowe said: “We evaluate our threat landscape every day and calibrate based on that … Looking back, it was very fortunate that we did, but the former President will have counter sniper coverage moving forward.”
Those Secret Service snipers didn’t seem to do much to protect Trump. In fact, their inaction nearly got the presidential frontrunner killed.
As has been widely documented, the Secret Service knew that a suspicious person—alleged shooter Thomas Crooks—was roaming the event sight with a range finder by at least 5:45 p.m., if not earlier. Despite that, the agency allowed Trump to take the stage at 6:03 p.m.
The shooting occurred at 6:11 p.m., and the Secret Service still insists that agents never knew there was a gunman on the nearby roof.
Perhaps just as egregiously, the Secret Service counter sniper waited 15 seconds after Crooks began shooting before returning fire. It was a local cop—not the Secret Service—who shot Crooks first, stopping his mass shooting spree.
Rowe also acknowledged that the Secret Service waited for 15 seconds at the Friday press conference.
He admitted it! And reporters didn’t ask him a single follow-up question! Why is no one talking about this? https://t.co/uUadnBRBoF pic.twitter.com/nU4ebfQEOP
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 2, 2024
Even though the Secret Service waited so long, and even though it was the local cop who stopped Crooks’s spree, Rowe insisted that the agency “saved lives” on July 13.
Reporters did not question Rowe about why the SS waited 15 seconds to return fire, or how Rowe could possibly say that his agency saved lives at the event.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
