Polls suggest former president Donald Trump is in a strong position to win back the presidency this November — a development that could have wide-ranging implications for Canada, given how tumultuous his first term was for this country.
Trump leads a united party despite sometimes intense opposition and criticism of his election denial and role in the January 6 insurrection attempt.
Top officials at the U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel sought by Donald Trump’s security detail in the two years leading up to his attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania last Saturday, according to four people familiar with the requests.
Agents charged with protecting the former president requested magnetometers and more agents to screen attendees at sporting events and other large public gatherings Trump attended, as well as additional snipers and specialty teams at other outdoor events, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive security discussions. The requests, which have not been previously reported, were sometimes denied by senior officials at the agency, who cited various reasons, including a lack of resources at an agency that has long struggled with staffing shortages, they said.
h/t XC
In the week since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, details have emerged about sniper positions and Secret Service agents, witnesses and warnings.
But the answer to the biggest question remains elusive: Why?
So far, investigators say, they have found little evidence of an ideology driving the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing home aide who was killed at the scene. The information gleaned from his phone, family and friends doesn’t offer a motive, national security analysts say, and the absence of a quick explanation has left room for the rapid-fire spread of partisan and conspiratorial theories shaping how millions of Americans view the attack.
Look to the self-defeating machinations of Merrick Garland and Jack Smith.
When someone has cheated death by centimeters despite the gunman’s having a clear shot, he’s already had all the luck he could ever hope for. Wholly apart from that, though, Donald Trump has been extraordinarily lucky in his legal enemies.
The Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, will finally present herself on Capitol Hill Monday to be questioned in respect of the assassination attempt on President Trump. She was last seen being pursued through the convention hall at Milwaukee by a group of Republican senators shouting demands for answers. “This was an assassination attempt,” hollered Senator Blackburn. “You owe the people answers.” Herewith some questions compiled by the Sun.
Thomas Crooks was a brainy and quiet young man who built computers and won honors at school, impressing his teachers. Then he became a would-be assassin.
For Thomas Crooks, the suburban Pittsburgh nursing home where he served meals and washed dishes for $16 an hour was another solitary corner of a nearly invisible life. He was polite but distant, a former co-worker said, ate lunch alone in the break room and rarely spoke with anyone.
But as western Pennsylvania geared up last week for the boisterous spectacle of hosting a rally for former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Crooks approached his bosses with a request, law enforcement officials said: He wanted to take Saturday off.
He told them he had something important to do.
It was a week of ridiculing Republicans for the men of late night comedy. From Monday to Thursday, the comedians attacked Republicans as racist, cult-like drones and told more jokes about VP-nominee JD Vance in one week than they have about current VP Kamala Harris all year.
For the purposes of this study, analysts examined 19 episodes of CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, and ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! guest host Anthony Anderson throughout all four nights of the RNC.
No, it is not going to be okay.
With a second Donald Trump presidency seeming more and more likely – as the Democratic campaign implodes, as public opinion in key states rallies, as Trump-friendly judges remove each legal obstacle to his return to power – there has been a corresponding rise in the number of commentary pieces suggesting that the prospect, if not exactly welcome, is nothing to get too worked up about.
Dr. Anthony Fauci downplayed former President Donald Trump’s injuries during last weekend’s assassination attempt, calling the ear wound he received when he was grazed by a bullet “superficial.”
Fauci, the embattled former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who advised both Trump and President Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic, was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about Trump’s injuries.
Hope Trump jails him.
The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the western Pennsylvania fairgrounds shortly before the former president was set to speak there, law-enforcement officials briefed on the matter said, further underscoring the stunning security lapses ahead of Trump’s near assassination.
Thomas Matthew Crooks flew the drone on a programmed flight path earlier in the day on July 13 to scour the Butler Farm Show grounds ahead of Trump’s ill-fated rally, the officials said. The predetermined path, the officials added, suggests Crooks flew the drone more than once as he researched and scoped out the event site.
NEW: Thomas Crooks was able to fly a drone over the Pennsylvania rally location before the event started according to the Wall Street Journal.
So a 20-year-old would be assas*in can use a drone but not the Secret Service?
“The gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump was able to… pic.twitter.com/RiHacRFjdc
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 20, 2024
H/T SweetPea and XC
My jaw is on the floor
This PhD did a scientific analysis of all bullet audio signatures from the Trump assassination footage
CONCLUSION: Raw Audio evidence proves there were *at least* two shooters firing different weapons in two locations to kill Trumppic.twitter.com/SLTpCrjAd9
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) July 19, 2024
Do watch this. h/t Mauser
Federal officials planned former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania with “loose security,” according to whistleblower allegations. A gunman at the rally shot and wounded the former president, injured two attendees, as well as killed firefighter and father Corey Comperatore.
Government whistleblowers have informed U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) that former President Donald J. Trump‘s security detail at his July 13 rally, where a would-be assassin made an attempt on his life, was mostly comprised of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel and not United States Secret Service (USSS). In the days following the attempted assassination, the USSS has attempted to blame local police for the lapse in security.
h/t XC
The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, will appear before lawmakers for the first time on Monday as scrutiny intensifies over the security failures at the Pennsylvania rally where a gunman tried to kill former President Donald J. Trump, the agency announced on Friday.
“The Secret Service is fully accountable for the safety of its protectees. We are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure it never happens again,” Anthony Guglielmi, spokesman for the agency, wrote on social media on Friday.
Within minutes of the July 13 attempted assassination of Donald Trump, observers were asking how the assassin managed to gain a clear shot of Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show Grounds near Butler, Pennsylvania. Since then, the question remains unanswered, but many allegations about the shooting have emerged. For example, multiple sources plausibly contend that both local police and the Secret Service had spotted the armed shooter—on a nearby roof with a rangefinder and a gun—several minutes before the shooting occurred. Law enforcement officers and agents chose to do nothing.
h/t HG
