Staff Reports
Investigators scrambled for answers Thursday, backtracking on their initial claim that a threatening internet post came from the man who attempted to assassinate Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The account turned out to be a fake, but the damage was done.
Federal authorities, who spoke with CBS News, initially believed gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks had posted a foreboding message on the gaming platform Steam, predicting “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.” Treated as genuine, this post had provided a strategic insight into Crooks’ planning of his heinous act during Trump’s Pennsylvania rally.
Ominous internet post tied to would-be Trump assassin is fake, investigators sayhttps://t.co/RiaRMvXzYc pic.twitter.com/z4luAc4WSe
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) July 19, 2024
This is just the latest twist in a case riddled with security lapses and missed red flags. Crooks managed to wreak havoc, killing a bystander, injuring two others, and even grazing Mr. Trump’s ear with one of his eight shots before Secret Service snipers neutralized him.
Despite this atrocity, evidence suggests Crooks wasn’t driven by ideological hatred solely for Republicans. Authorities uncovered that he searched for President Biden’s speaking dates, as well as information about Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Clearly, this man aimed to be an equal opportunity threat.
As if it couldn’t get any worse, it turns out Crooks’ suspicious behavior was noticed long before the rally-turned-battlefield erupted in chaos. Local law enforcement observed Crooks acting strangely about an hour before he fired his first shot. Yet, their attempts to alert the Secret Service apparently fell on deaf ears—or perhaps they were too busy with the latest woke training session.
To add insult to injury, it was revealed that Secret Service snipers had multiple chances to act. They saw him on the roof, they saw him carrying a bag, and they did absolutely nothing, supposedly because the roof was a “safety hazard.” House Speaker Mike Johnson isn’t buying it and has initiated a bipartisan task force to dig into these epic security failures.
In an embarrassing display of bureaucratic tug-of-war, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas are playing schedule ping-pong with Congressional committees, delaying their testimonies on these security lapses. Maybe they need as much time preparing their excuses as they do practicing their virtue-signaling speeches.
In the end, while Democrats will likely downplay this as another isolated incident, conservatives know better. This was a brutal assault not just on a presidential candidate, but on the confidence of American voters in their government’s ability to keep them safe.
