HUGE: Secret Service Knew There Was a Credible Threat Against Trump’s Life 10 Days Before Butler Rally Where Trump was Shot and Innocent Supporter was Killed – DID NOT SHARE WITH STAFF ON GROUND
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report reveals that the Secret Service during Biden’s presidency did not alert the team responsible for securing Trump’s July 13, 2024, rally, where an assassination attempt was made, despite being made aware of a threat against Trump’s life ten days prior.
A bullet grazed President Trump’s ear on July 13, 2024, during his Butler, Pennsylvania rally. Corey Comperatore was fatally struck in the head. Two other rally attendees were wounded, one critically.
More questions still remain.
Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks fired the shot on top of a nearby building, where Secret Service counter-snipers had a clear view of the shooter from their position at a higher elevation than the shooter behind Trump, yet they did not act. Crooks accessed the building with a ladder he bought at Home Depot the same day as the shooting.
Additionally, as The Gateway Pundit reported, an eyewitness told the BBC that several people witnessed the shooter crawling on the roof of a local building with a rifle before Trump was shot, but they did not act until Trump was shot. According to later reports, a police officer encountered the shooter on the roof but let him go after he pointed the gun at him and before he shot Trump.
Investigations into the matter left more questions than answers. For example, former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s excuse for leaving the building unmonitored by agents was that the building “has a sloped roof at its highest point” and it wouldn’t be safe.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who ordered the report shared a preview of the report on X.
“NEW GAO REPORT IM RELEASING says Secret Service knew of a threat 2Pres Trump’s life 10 DAYS b4 Butler but didnt share info w staff on the ground so they were unprepared Rpt identifies Sct Service problems+ recommends fixes This info NVR wld hv been made public w/o CONG OVERSIGHT,” Grassley said.
NEW GAO REPORT IM RELEASING says Secret Service knew of a threat 2Pres Trump’s life 10 DAYS b4 Butler but didnt share info w staff on the ground so they were unprepared Rpt identifies Sct Service problems+ recommends fixes This info NVR wld hv been made public w/o CONG OVERSIGHT pic.twitter.com/hf9t87453a
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) July 12, 2025
Per the report:
Prior to the July 13 rally, senior-level Secret Service officials became aware of a threat to then-former President Trump. This information was not specific to the July 13 rally or gunman. Nonetheless, due to the Secret Service’s siloed practice for sharing classified threat information, Secret Service and local law enforcement personnel central to developing site security plans for the rally were unaware of the threat. According to Secret Service officials, this information was not more broadly shared across the Secret Service because in part, the information was highly classified, and the Intelligence Community did not include information at a lower classification level to share. However, the Secret Service’s siloed information sharing practices, such as requesting that only personnel within an individual’s chain of command be briefed on threat information, contributed to members of the advance team not receiving relevant information. Making changes to Secret Service policies to require it to proactively share threat information internally could help ensure its agents and partners will have information needed to provide effective protection
Further, sharing threat and risk information could also help ensure resource decisions are based on identified risks. Secret Service’s resource allocation process is not currently set up to comprehensively consider all known risks. Implementing a process that does so can help ensure security asset decisionsare based on need and not ad hoc actions outside of a formal process.
Per Fox, other key findings from the GAO report include:
- Ten days before the event, high-level Secret Service officials were briefed on a classified threat to Trump. “Once those officials reviewed the intelligence, they could have then requested that personnel within their chain of command be briefed on the specific information.” Officials failed to share this information, leaving federal and local law enforcement entities planning and staffing the event unaware of the active threat, including members of the Donald Trump Protective Division. Local law enforcement officials told the GAO they would have requested additional assets for the Butler rally, had they known.
- The Secret Service agent who was responsible for “identif[ying] site vulnerabilities,” was new to her role. The Butler event was “her first time planning and securing a large outdoor event as the site agent.”
- At the time of the Butler event, the Secret Service lacked a formal policy for communicating a protectee staff’s requests for changes to security plans. A Trump campaign staffer had asked the Secret Service advance team, who was unaware of the active threat to Trump, not to use large farm equipment to address line-of-sight concerns near one of the buildings so as not to interfere with campaign press photos. The advance team complied, a decision which may have given Crooks a clearer shot at the stage from his rooftop perch.
- Secret Service officials denied the Donald Trump Protective Division’s request for enhanced counter Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (cUAS) equipment at the Butler event, as “these resources had already been allocated for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.” Fortunately, senior officials with knowledge of the threat against Trump stepped in to approve counter sniper assets for the rally, a decision which was described as “inconsistent” with agency practices for making resource decisions.” Absent this last-minute decision, Trump “would likely not have received the counter sniper assets that ultimately took out [Crooks],” the GAO wrote.
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Helen Comperatore, the wife of Corey Comperatore, spoke out this morning as the one year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, demanding that the Secret Service “tell me everything that happened that day.” She continued, “I want to know why they failed. I want to know what happened.”
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