It may be months before we know the full story behind the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. It may be years. Maybe we’ll never know. (Sadly, I’m betting on the latter.) There are times when the “public’s right to know” just seems to slip through our fingers, and this may well be one of those moments. We can’t hope — but there are now rumors of evidence tampering. The latter is a substantial, stern claim — but on Monday, a SWAT sniper who was on the scene testified at a panel of five Republican members of Congress about a “strange pattern” of evidence handling.
A SWAT sniper who was deployed at the rally in Pennsylvania where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated last month agreed with Republican lawmakers on Monday that a “strange” pattern in the handling of evidence had emerged following the fatal shooting.
Ben Shaffer, the sniper of the SWAT team in Washington, said it was “absolutely” worrying that the roof of the AGR International Building was quickly scrubbed and Shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’ The body was disposed of before an official autopsy report could be released.
Five House Republicans — Representatives Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas — moderated the panel discussion with Shaffer and other witnesses at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
See also: Investigation or cover-up? Five Secret Service field agents suspended after Trump assassination attempt
BREAKING NEWS: Audio recordings from Butler police body cameras show frustration over Secret Service mistakes
Incredible: Higgins’ report reveals FBI released shooter’s body for cremation just 10 days after J13
This seems really odd. As for the autopsy, well, Thomas Crooks was subjected to a lobotomy at a speed of 3,500 feet per second; no matter what else was going on, releasing the autopsy report is pretty much the definition of “stating the obvious.”
So, a “strange” pattern in the handling of evidence. What happened, apart from the unusually quick disposal of Thomas Crooks’ body?
“Do you find it strange that literally just days after the attempted assassination of President Donald J. Trump, while the The roof was too sloped to accommodate people for counter-sniper operationsthat the roof, in my opinion, was not too steep for the FBI to have been able to tamper with evidence by washing down the roof that might have had important evidence on it?” Mills asked Shaffer, referring to the chain of events following the July 13 shooting at the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that left one bystander dead and three others, including Trump, injured.
“Yes, I do,” Shaffer replied.
I’m not a cop or a forensic scientist, but it seems like this was all done awfully quickly — and Ben Shaffer has forgotten more about this kind of police work than I’ll ever know, and he’s concerned about what was done — or not done — and how quickly things seem to have been done. And one more thing: Is it usually the FBI’s job to tidy up crime scenes? Several companies in Pennsylvania specialize in this Removal of hazardous substances and cleaning of crime scenes — aren’t these types of contractors the usual people who tidy up the consequences in such a place?
But that’s not all: the examination of Crooks’ personal belongings also raises some fascinating questions.
(Rep. Michael) Waltz said last week that FBI briefings revealed that crooks were using messaging accounts on platforms in Belgium, Germany and New Zealand.
“Why does a 19-year-old boy who works as a nursing assistant need encrypted platforms that are not even located in the United States, but rather overseas – where, as most terrorist organizations know, it is harder for our law enforcement agencies to get in?” Waltz said at a press conference last week.
“How did he learn to build these IEDs? How did he learn to install remote detonators? How did he conduct these searches without getting caught?” he said The publisher the next day. “I still have a lot of questions.”
Encrypted communications seem to be the biggest question. If you know where to look, you can probably find instructions for explosive devices on the internet, although I must admit that the detonators are a bit more hard. But encrypted communications platforms? Based in Belgium, Germany and New Zealand? Which platforms? Which Type of platforms? What was being sent and received by Crooks? Was he looking for information? Was he waiting for instructions? And if so, from whom?
These are the questions we need to answer. The answers to these questions will tell us whether Crooks was, as we suspect, a lone madman looking to get his name into the history books, or whether he was part of something bigger. The answers to these questions will also tell us who might be compromised – or just plain corrupt – in our law enforcement system.
As citizens, we have a right to know these things. Unfortunately, we will probably never know the answers.
