Trump assassination attempt: Task force to visit Pennsylvania shooting site as Secret Service agents on leave

BUTLER, Pa. — A group of bipartisan U.S. lawmakers on a task force looking into the assassination attempt against former President Trump are expected to visit the shooting scene in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Monday – some for the second time since the July 13 incident.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Aug. 4 announced the establishment of the task force on the assassination attempt against Trump and tapped Republican Pennsylvania Sen. Mike Kelly to lead the committee.

“We have the utmost confidence in this bipartisan group of steady, highly qualified, and capable Members of Congress to move quickly to find the facts, ensure accountability, and help make certain such failures never happen again,” Johnson and Jeffries said in a statement at the time.

The task force’s goal is to “understand what went wrong on the day of the attempted assassination,” “ensure accountability” and “prevent such an agency failure from ever happening again,” according to its website.

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Republican members of the task force include Kelly, Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, David Joyce of Ohio, Laurel Lee of Florida, Michael Waltz of Florida, Clay Higgins of Louisiana and Pat Fallon of Texas. 

The Democrat members include Jason Crow of Colorado, J. Luis Correa of California, Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Glenn Ivey of Maryland and Jared Moskowitz of Florida.

The visit comes days after Fox News confirmed that at least five members of the U.S. Secret Service had been placed on administrative leave more than a month after the assassination attempt at a Trump campaign rally on July 13. One man in the audience was killed, and two others were severely wounded when the shooter opened fire on Trump, grazing his ear.

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The task force wants to hear from tipsters and whistleblowers to determine how 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks was able to climb HVAC equipment and piping to get to the roof of the nearby American Glass Research (AGR) building and hide there until he began shooting around 6:11 p.m.

The FBI said during a July press call that Crooks had a DPMS AR-15-style firearm with a collapsible stock when he entered the area of the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds where Trump’s campaign rally took place.

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The Trump campaign announced the Butler rally on July 3. Three days later, July 6, Crooks signed up for the event. That same day, he researched how far Lee Harvey Oswald was from President Kennedy when Oswald assassinated him in 1963. On July 7, Crooks traveled to the rally site and spent approximately 20 minutes in the area, according to the FBI.

Crooks’ interest in firearms began around 2023, when he began taking shooting lessons. He made 25 online firearms purchases using an alias in the spring of 2023.

Crooks’ father legally purchased the AR-15-style rifle Crooks used at the rally, and he legally transferred it to his son. Crooks also legally purchased 50 rounds of ammunition from a local gun store on the morning of the rally.

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On the day of the rally, July 13, Crooks parked his vehicle and flew a drone between about 3:50 p.m. and 4 p.m. about 200 yards from where the former president would be speaking. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified during a July 17 congressional hearing that Crooks had been at the rally site for about 70 minutes on the morning of the assassination attempt.

It is still unclear how Crooks evaded security even after being noticed by law enforcement more than an hour before shots rang out, but the FBI said more than 300 agents and staff are working “round the clock” to gather facts and put together a clearer timeline of Crooks’ actions.

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Investigators located eight rounds on the roof where Crooks fired from, the agency said during the call.

Law enforcement first reported seeing a suspicious person near the rally site around 5:10 p.m. on July 13, an hour and one minute before Crooks began shooting. Local law enforcement notified command about the suspicious person and received confirmation that the Secret Service was aware of his presence.

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Over the next hour, law enforcement identified a person of interest, and snipers took photos of Crooks and his bicycle left near the rally grounds. Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who was briefed on the assassination attempt, previously told Fox News Digital that a sniper “had eyes on” the suspicious person about 20 minutes before Crooks began firing.

Trump took the podium around 6 p.m., an hour after he was scheduled to speak. Eleven minutes later, Crooks fired multiple rounds, killing 50-year-old Corey Comperatore and seriously wounding 57-year-old David Dutch and 74-year-old James Copenhaver. Both men were hospitalized and have since been released.

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Green, Kelly, Higgins and Correa previously visited the site of the assassination attempt on July 24 with the House Homeland Security Committee.

Kelly, who is from the area, previously told Fox News Digital that it is unclear why the former president was allowed to get on the stage even though authorities knew of a suspicious person hours in advance.

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“If there was an idea that there was somebody here that was suspect, why even allow President Trump to even go up to the podium … and why did we go ahead and continue with the program?” he said during his July 24 visit. “I can tell you that being there … watching the president go down, watching Corey right over my left shoulder go down, it was a horrible day for the American people. And then a couple other gentlemen sitting across from the president also getting struck by bullets, it was a bad day for America.”

FBI officials are trying to determine Crooks’ motive behind the assassination attempt and whether he had any co-conspirators, though the agency has said there are no signs to indicate there were others involved.