The question of why the rooftop from where Thomas Crooks fired on Donald Trump was not covered is dominating the discussion about the massive security failure at the Butler, Pennsylvania event—as it should. According to unnamed sources cited by NBC News, that rooftop had been identified as a potential vulnerability, days before the rally. “Someone should have been on the roof or securing the building so no one could get on the roof,” said one of the sources, a former senior Secret Service agent who was familiar with the planning. Understanding how the gunman got onto the roof—despite those concerns—is a central question for investigators scrutinizing how a lone attacker managed to shoot at Trump during the July 13 campaign event, and come within a whisker of assassinating him.
In full-blown CYA mode, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told NBC News that the Secret Service has determined that the rooftop was under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement, because it was outside the perimeter of the event. But Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger said the Secret Service agents were in charge of security outside the venue. “They had meetings in the week prior. The Secret Service ran the show. They were the ones who designated who did what,” Goldinger said. “In the command hierarchy, they were top, they were No. 1.”
The former senior Secret Service agent also said that even if local law enforcement “did drop the ball,” it’s still the agency’s responsibility “to ensure that they are following through either beforehand or in the moment.” A second source added: “Just because it is outside of the perimeter, it doesn’t take it out of play for a vulnerability, and you’ve got to mitigate it in some fashion.”
Another explanation that has arisen is that Trump’s Secret Service detail was understaffed for the job that it had to do. “Trump’s usual protective Secret Service detail was worked so hard (working 7 days a week with no days off) that many of the agents assigned on Saturday [July 13] were temporary replacements from different field offices. This is not the usual protocol for sitting presidents and vice presidents but ‘typical’ for former presidents, (although no former presidents have run again in modern history),” RealClearPolitics correspondent Susan Crabtree reported on X, citing sources within the Secret Service community. “‘Trump has a permanent detail, however it’s much smaller in the amount of bodies,’ the source said. ‘His detail has been worked so hard with all the travel that they’re working 7 days a week with shift changes. So HQ sends in temp agents to supplement—not a good scenario. Mission Failure, IMHO.’”
Until all of these questions are credibly answered, there will continue to be persistent questions about whether an intentional security-stripping operation occurred, and whether there was an actual intent to assassinate Trump coming from higher up.