Pennsylvania officers not allowed in Secret Service command center at Trump rally, lawmakers say on site
Pennsylvania officers were apparently not allowed into a Secret Service control room on the day of former President Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Rep. Mark Green said.
Local Pennsylvania police officers told members of Congress that they were not allowed into a Secret Service command center at former President Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, according to Republican Tennessee Rep. Mark Green.
The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, along with other bipartisan members of the committee, on Monday morning toured the Butler Farm Show grounds area where 20-year-old Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump over a week ago.
"Normally, according to the local sheriff, they have done these events in the past with Secret Service and always had one of their people in that Secret Service control room. Apparently, that was not allowed this time for some reason," Green told Fox News Digital after his tour of the crime scene Monday, which has been closed to the public since July 13.
Green, an Army veteran, said that is one example of miscommunication between local and federal law enforcement, adding that lawmakers are also working to get more information on radios that law enforcement used to communicate on the day of the rally.
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Paul Mauro, a Fox News legal and criminal analyst and former NYPD commanding officer, told Fox News Digital that a command center is typically a place for representatives of all law enforcement involved with securing an event to convene and streamline communication between agencies.
Generally, Mauro said, the highest-ranking members of specific agencies are posted at the command center "because you have to make decisions, and sometimes they're hard decisions," he explained. It is typically the Secret Service boss who "is going to have the final say on everything," Mauro explained.
During Trump's rally in Butler, the command center was set up under a tent.
The Secret Service, Butler County Sheriff's Office and Butler Police Department did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital. The Pennsylvania State Police declined comment due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.
The Republican Tennessee legislator said the committee's next steps are to "synthesize all the members' questions from" Monday's tour of the rally site "and prepare for our interviews in the committee."
During a media availability after the Homeland Security Committee tour, Green said some members of Congress were able to climb onto the roof that Crooks shot from without any kind of equipment. He also said a water tower that overlooks the rally site was never utilized by law enforcement for security purposes.
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Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Kelly, who is from the area, commented on reports lawmakers are hearing that law enforcement was aware of a suspicious person about an hour before Trump took the stage on July 13.
"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 told Fox News Digital. "I can tell you that being there for watching the president go down, watching Corey right over my left shoulder go down — it was a horrible day for 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."
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Green and other lawmakers are calling for Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign after Crooks opened fire at the rally, nicking Trump's ear and killing 50-year-old attendee Corey Comperatore — a husband, father and former fire chief at the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department. The shooting also left 57-year-old David Dutch and 74-year-old James Copenhaver with critical wounds, though they are currently in stable condition.
Cheatle took questions from members of the House Oversight Committee on Monday. At one point, Democratic Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz asked if Cheatle will be "prepared to fire people on the ground who made poor decisions" following the Monday hearing.
The Secret Service director responded that she did not have the answer to Moskowitz's question.
Federal law enforcement is still working to determine Crooks' motivation for shooting the former president.