Text messages between law enforcement before the assassination attempt against Donald Trump earlier this month suggest that some officers raised the shooter’s presence at the rally more than 90 minutes before he climbed onto a roof and fired eight rounds at the former president.
In text messages obtained by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and reported by The New York Times on Sunday, a local countersniper first raised with his colleagues that he saw someone park near their vehicles and sit on a nearby picnic table at 4.26pm (local time).
According to the messages, local law enforcement later took a picture of the same man, who turned out to be the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, and sent it to other officers in a group chat nearly 30 minutes before Crooks would shoot at Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.
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“Kid learning around building we are in,” one text reads, according to The Times.
“I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS [Secret Service] snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.”
CNN has reached out to Grassley’s office.
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Questions remain over how local law enforcement failed, after spotting Crooks previously, to stop the shooter from climbing up the side of a nearby building and coming so close to killing a former president and current Republican nominee.
It’s also unclear how the Secret Service designated security that day and who managed the communication between local and federal law enforcement.
Members of the Beaver County SWAT team, which assisted in security, said in an interview with ABC News that they were supposed to have a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service when the agents arrived in Butler but that no such meeting took place.
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“We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” Jason Woods, a sniper on the team, told ABC News.
CNN has reached out to the Secret Service for comment.
It’s also unclear, based on congressional testimony and reporting, what time local law enforcement told the Secret Service directly about Crooks and sent the pictures one of their members took of the soon-to-be shooter before he accessed the roof.
In the wake of the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, acting Director Ronald Rowe, along with FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, will testify before two Senate committees Tuesday about the assassination attempt, as lawmakers hope to get more answers around the failures that day.
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