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Sen. Ron Johnson has issued a subpoena to FBI Director Kash Patel for the agency’s records on the shooter and the shooting.
One year after a gunman came within a fraction of an inch of assassinating the 45th president of the United States, the American public remains in the dark on one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history. The senator leading the investigation into the bizarre sequence of events surrounding the murder plot in Butler, Penn., said his committee is “not an inch closer” to knowing why killer and would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks did what he did.
“We had earlier reports about the geolocation of his cellphone, bopping all over Washington, D.C. We have not gotten any more information. Again, it’s incredibly frustrating,” Sen. Ron Johnson told me Friday in an interview on the Dan O’Donnell Show on NewsTalk 1130 WISN in Milwaukee.
The Wisconsin Republican, who leads the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, issued a subpoena on Friday to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel for records relating to the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt of then-GOP presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump. Johnson calls it a “friendly, not an adversarial subpoena,” but it’s clear, the FBI has not been forthcoming with the subcommittee’s many requests for information.
Trump’s Federal Bureau of Investigation, it seems, has been no better than Biden’s FBI, in cooperating with congressional investigators.
“Things just slowed down after our initial report. We were not getting access to [U.S.] Secret Service personnel,” Johnson said. “When President Trump won, I think my assumption was that his FBI, his Department of Justice, would certainly hop on this, investigate it, and produce the result. That hasn’t happened.”
‘Shocking, Unacceptable and Preventable’
Johnson was ranking member of the subcommittee in late September when it released a bipartisan interim report on the assassination attempt. Crooks, according to law enforcement officials, was able to climb up on the roof of a building adjacent to the grounds where Trump held his campaign rally. The gunman got off several shots, one hitting the president’s ear, another striking and mortally wounding Corey Comperatore, a firefighter who shielded family members from the gunfire. Two others were seriously injured. Several seconds into the attack, a Secret Service sniper fatally shot Crooks.
The report, produced in partnership with the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, looked into the U.S. Secret Service’s disastrous security planning, communications, and coordination failures that contributed to the assassination attempt.
“From planning missteps, to the siloed and flawed communication to the lack of effective coordination between law enforcement, to the breakdowns in technology, the Secret Service’s failures that allowed an assassination attempt on former President Trump at his July 13 rally were shocking, unacceptable, and preventable – and they led to tragic consequences,” wrote Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., chairman of the Homeland Security committee, in a press release on the interim report. --->READ MORE HERE
Sunday marks the first anniversary of the July 13 assassination attempt on President Trump, but the public and lawmakers who investigated the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, are still searching for answers about the gunman and his motive.
The FBI never determined why shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks wanted to kill Mr. Trump, who at the time was a former president running for a second term.
The bureau has not publicly shared information on its investigation in more than 10 months. Congress has also struggled to get details from the federal law enforcement agency.
“It’s a year now, and the American people don’t have answers,” Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the lawmakers investigating the assassination attempt, told The Washington Times. “Who is this Crooks guy?”
Little is known about Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service countersniper after he fired eight rounds at Mr. Trump. The assassination attempt failed because Mr. Trump suddenly turned his head as the shooter fired; the bullet grazed Mr. Trump’s ear instead.
Other bullets fired in Mr. Trump’s direction hit his supporters. Corey Comperatore, a firefighter, was killed and two other rallygoers, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were seriously injured.
That there is still no clarity around Crooks’ motive is “bizarre,” Mr. Johnson said.
The chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, or PSI, an oversight panel under the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he is trying to get answers to that question and others as he continues to investigate what happened in Butler.
“We’re cranking this up,” Mr. Johnson said. “I’ve not been happy with the slow response we’ve gotten to our requests for information. There’s still many unanswered questions here.”
As part of that ramp-up, Mr. Johnson issued a subpoena a couple weeks ago to the Pennsylvania State Police for their witness interviews and body camera footage.
On Wednesday night, he approved subpoenas for the FBI and the agency’s overseer, the Department of Justice. Those subpoenas cover various outstanding requests for information, including the FBI’s ballistics reports from the shooting and transcripts of interviews with witnesses and people who knew Crooks.
“There is bodycam video footage that’s not being provided to us or the public. I’ve seen some we’re not ready to release that nobody else has seen,” Mr. Johnson said. “There’s definitely information that we need to assemble, and the public does deserve to see.”
As to the need for the subpoenas when Mr. Trump, the subject of the assassination attempt, and his allies are now in charge of the FBI and DOJ, Mr. Johnson blamed it on “partisan actors” who don’t want to cooperate with their new leaders “who are dedicated to radical transparency.” --->READ MORE HEREFollow link below to a related story:
+++++Assassinations and assassination attempts involving U.S. presidents and presidential candidates+++++
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