A former Navy SEAL sniper and Republican congressman publicly warned former President Donald Trump on Thursday not to return to a campaign rally next month because of a “threatening situation” in Butler, Pennsylvania, the city where a July 13 assassination attempt took place.
Rep. Eli Klain (R-Ariz.), who joined the Navy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and served three tours as a Navy SEAL, told members of a bipartisan task force investigating the assassination attempt that Trump should stay away from the Butler Farm Show given the Secret Service's inability to provide adequate security.
“While we appreciate the former president's courage and desire to rally his supporters, we strongly encourage him and his campaign to avoid this location on October 5th and going forward,” Klain warned.
“My suggestion to the former president and his campaign is to bolster his private security force with individuals who are loyal to the president and who are not bound by the bureaucracy and culture of an organization that many of us once held in high regard,” he said, criticizing the federal security agency.
House Task Force Chairman Mike Kelly (R-Pennsylvania) listened intently to Klain and Rep. Corey Mills (R-Fla.), an Army veteran and former sniper.
Neither Crane nor Mills are members of the task force but were asked to make a statement.
In response, Kerry told Klain that people shouldn't expect the 45th president to change his mind and cancel the Oct. 5 rally.
“The president has decided to come back here. We know him well, but there is no logic to his response when he says, 'Mr. President, we are concerned about your safety.' And his answer is always the same: 'I am committed to serving the people of this country.'”
Klain visited the scene with Mills shortly after the shooting and both said it was a “terrible place” to hold a rally and that the Secret Service “should have taken every step to prevent the campaign from holding a rally there.”
“It is clear that many basic security measures were neglected,” Klain added. “It doesn't take a special operations experience to recognize the incompetence and security failures that led to the catastrophic vulnerability surrounding President Trump in the crowd that day.”
Crane noted that within minutes of searching the rally site, counter-snipers should have been posted at the water tower, the tallest structure available, “with a commanding view of the entire site.”
Instead, the gunmen took up positions on two barn roofs behind the main stage, from which they partially obscured the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who climbed unimpeded onto the roof of the American Glass Research building, just 130 yards from where Trump spoke.
“Some of the major challenges facing the Secret Service were completely avoidable,” Crane explained. “There are simply no excuses.”
Klain also noted that neither Crooks nor Ryan Wesley Routh, who investigators say ambushed Trump for nearly 12 hours on September 15 at a golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, with an SKS rifle, were trained professionals.
“I can say that with certainty based on the weapons and equipment they used and the fact that Thomas Crooks shot himself in the head,” the Arizona native said. “And when you look at where Ryan Routh last shot himself along the fence at the golf course, you can tell he's not a professional either.”
Crane added that snipers are trained to aim at the “center” of a target rather than the head, which moves more quickly and is less likely to cause bulletproof plates or the barrel of a rifle to protrude from a concealed position.
Crooks was shot and killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper, firing eight shots, killing Corey Comperatore, 50, severely wounding David Duch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, and striking President Trump in the right ear.
Before Routh, 58, began shooting, another Secret Service agent opened fire on Routh from the sniper's nest on the sixth hole at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.
Routh fled the scene and was later arrested and charged with five counts, including attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, which could result in life in prison if convicted.
“Mr. Chairman, what happens if the presidents of Iran, China, Russia or any other country or group that doesn't want President Trump back send in their experts?” Klain asked Kelly.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), another member of the task force, told reporters that a federal investigation had thwarted a suspected Iranian agent plotting to assassinate Trump and he was arrested on July 12, the day before the rally, but the Secret Service was not notified.
“What would happen if the next time a 10-man Hezbollah unit, a sniper, an assassin and a drone pilot, attempted a coordinated, overlapping assassination attempt on a former president? I think we all know by now that their assassination attempt would have a very high chance of succeeding.”
