Pittsburgh – Sen. Josh Hawley, citing a new whistleblower account, said local police repeatedly offered to use drones to monitor former President Donald Trump’s July 13 campaign rally (where he survived an assassination attempt) but were rebuffed by the U.S. Secret Service.
“According to a whistleblower, on the eve of the rally, the U.S. Secret Service repeatedly rejected proposals from local law enforcement agencies to use drone technology to provide security for the rally,” Hawley, a Missouri Republican and member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
“This means the technology was available to the USSS and could have been deployed to secure the facility. The Secret Service denied this.”
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Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FBI Director Christopher Wray, who is leading the investigation, acknowledged at a congressional hearing this week that the suspect in the assassination plot, Thomas Matthew Crooks (20), personally flew a drone over Trump before he spoke.
“This raises the obvious question: why didn’t the US Secret Service (USSS) use its own drones?” Hawley wrote.
An aerial view of Butler Farms, where former President Donald Trump held a campaign rally on July 13, shows a gunman opening fire from a rooftop about 150 yards from the stage in an attempted assassination. The incident has sparked multiple investigations into significant security lapses that allowed the man to get close to the stage. (Fox News)
According to the whistleblower, the USSS did not ask its local partners to fly drones until after the shooting had ended and counter-snipers had taken down the gunman.
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A blurry cellphone video shows, from a rally-goer’s perspective, Thomas Matthew Crooks crawling across a rooftop moments before attempting to assassinate former President Donald Trump. (DJ Lafley)
“The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting, the USSS changed course and asked its local partners to deploy drone technology to monitor the scene after the attack,” Hawley wrote.
Senators have called on Secretary Mayorkas to turn over all Department of Homeland Security communications regarding drone surveillance of the rally as part of a congressional investigation into security failings that allowed an armed man to come within 150 yards of the former president.
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“Given the fact that the USSS authorized the shooter to fly a drone over the rally area just hours before the event, it is difficult to understand why they rejected the use of drones when offered,” he wrote. “The failure to deploy drone technology is all the more concerning because, according to the whistleblower, the drones provided to the USSS had the capacity to not only identify but also help neutralize the shooter.”
Authorities approached the spot where the suspected gunman fell after the U.S. Secret Service returned fire during the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. (Source: Fox News Digital)
Exclusive footage from Trump rally shows chaos after gunman opens fire
Crooks shot at least four people with an AR-15 from the rooftop, killing 50-year-old father-of-two Corey Comperatore and severely wounding David Duch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74. Trump later said he was shot in the right ear, and photos from the scene showed him crouching and rising from a bed with blood running down the right side of his head.
Crooks is believed to have scouted the rally before the attack and arrived at the scene with several explosives, which authorities recovered from his vehicle.
Bill Gage, a former Secret Service agent and consultant with Safe Haven Security Group, said he wasn’t surprised local authorities were turned down regarding drones.
Blood spills in the auditorium after a gunman opened fire on Republican candidate Donald Trump at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. The shooter and one bystander were killed. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
“The whistleblower is a local law enforcement agency, and the USSS would never allow a non-USSS drone there,” the expert said. About the shooting a respondent told Fox News Digital.
He said there were “too many issues” to consider, including drone specifications, federal flight regulations and training for both pilots and observers.
“We need to seriously rethink the protection model that the USSS employs,” he said. “The model is sound and proven, but we need to reassess how our local assets fit into it.”
Then-Director of the U.S. Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee at a hearing held on July 22, 2024, in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
A previous whistleblower also provided details of the incident to Hawley’s office, including an explanation for why no one was on the roof where the gunmen entered before opening fire.
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The police officers who were posted on the roof are said to have abandoned the roof due to high fever.
Following congressional testimony on the matter, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned.
