The district attorney for Butler County, Pennsylvania, told Fox News on Wednesday that it was not a local sniper who was standing guard on the rooftop where a gunman attempted to assassinate former President Trump.
Richard Goldinger has become the latest official to dispute the testimony of Interim Director of the U.S. Secret Service Ronald Rowe during a Senate hearing into the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting.
Goldinger, who coordinated the local snipers who operated at the July 13 rally, said they were manned at a different vantage window than the one Lowe pointed to in his testimony Tuesday.
Goldinger said it was not the local sniper’s job to keep watch on the roof of the AGR building where suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks stood and opened fire.
Trump shooting: A timeline of the assassination attempt
The illustration shows a bird’s-eye view of former President Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the perspective of an alleged assassination plotter. (Fox News)
“Butler and the Beaver ESU team snipers were positioned on the second floor, next to the building where the shooter was located, in two windows toward the end of the building,” Goldinger said. “From their position and vantage point, they could not see the shooter on the roof of the other building.”
“They weren’t stationed in a position that overlooked the roof,” he continued. “It wasn’t their role to watch the roof.”
Pennsylvania officials dispute Rowe’s account of the incident, which blamed local police for not deploying personnel on the roof.
In his testimony Tuesday, Rowe appeared to blame local police for not seeing Crooks on the roof, pointing to evidence from the scene to the roof from which Crooks fired and suggesting that local snipers had a better view of where Crooks was firing than Secret Service snipers.
“I don’t and I don’t understand why there wasn’t better coverage or at least someone didn’t look at the roof line when it was positioned there,” Rowe said.
Pennsylvania SWAT officer says team had no contact with Secret Service before Trump rally shooting
Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate former President Trump on Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Fox News Digital Law Enforcement Source)
In response to Goldinger’s comments, a Secret Service spokesman pointed to Rowe’s testimony and said the agency was working with Butler County Emergency Services, the “tactical leader” on the scene.
Beaver County Emergency Services Commander Patrick Young told Fox News on Tuesday that his unit received instructions on where to go from Butler County Emergency Services and that he suspected the instructions came from the Secret Service.
On July 13, 2024, Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump was photographed being escorted off stage at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, with blood running down his face and surrounded by Secret Service agents. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
There were two snipers in the AGR building where Crooks jumped, one from the Butler County ESU and one from the Beaver County ESU.
“They were deployed by Butler County ESU, which I believe was approved by the Secret Service. Their duties on the day were clearly defined and left no room for ambiguity,” Young said. “Their areas of responsibility included the entry control points, the areas before and after the Magneton monitors, and the area in front of the stage, all within the interior secure perimeter defined by Secret Service. That was where they were deployed and that was their priority.”
Previously, Beaver County ESU sniper Jason Woods said a scheduled in-person briefing with Secret Service agents “never happened.”
“I guess that was the tipping point. Nothing was happening so I started to think things were wrong,” he said. ABC News. “I couldn’t get in touch with him.”
Officials responding to the attempted assassination of former President Trump exchange information. (Beaver County ESU obtained by Senator Grassley)
Young said that at 5:34 p.m. that day, one of his subordinates saw Crooks with a rangefinder, contacted a “sniper text group” and took a photo, and that the Secret Service had previously discussed not communicating by text, but that he couldn’t think of another way to share the photo over radio.
The Beaver County sniper eventually saw Crooks pick up his backpack and disappear behind the edge of the building. The sniper then went to the first floor to search for Crooks, contacted the patrol and told them the suspect was in the back before returning to his post. At the same time, the Butler County sniper remained by the window, Young said.
Fox News contributor Paul Mauro questioned whether U.S. Secret Service agents stationed in the building could have adequately monitored the rally through small, low-set windows that may not have opened. (Fox News)
Meanwhile, Trump’s Secret Service and top advisers have questioned why they were not informed that local police had spotted a suspicious man who turned out to be the would-be assassin.
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Trump advisers said they thought gunfire was coming from a large white tent behind the stage. The Washington Post.
“Nobody mentioned it. Nobody said there was a problem,” the former president said in an interview. Jesse Watters of Fox News“They could have said, ‘Let’s wait 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes.’ Nobody said that. I think that was a mistake.”
Fox News’ Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
