A SWAT counter-sniper who was on duty at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last month agreed with Republican lawmakers on Monday, noting that there was an "unusual" pattern in how evidence was handled after the fatal shooting.
Ben Shaffer, a counter-sniper with the Washington Regional SWAT, expressed serious concern that the roof of the AGR International building was quickly cleaned and the body of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was removed before an official autopsy report could be issued. This has raised questions on the role of Secret Services in hiding the details following the assassination attempt to cover up its failures.
Questions Raised on Evidence Handling
Five House Republicans—Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas—organized a panel discussion with Shaffer and other witnesses at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
"Do you find it odd that literally only days after the attempted assassination on President Donald J. Trump, while the roof was too sloped to place individuals for counter-sniper operations, that it wasn't too sloped of a roof for the FBI to go ahead and tamper, in my opinion, with evidence by washing the roof off that may have had significant evidence on it?" Mills questioned Shaffer about the sequence of events after the July 13 shooting at the Butler, Pa. campaign event, which resulted in one audience member's death and injuries to three others, including Trump.
"Yes, I do," Shaffer replied.
"Do you also find it odd ... that the body of Matthew Crooks had not only been released and cremated — but that the coroner who's responsible for releasing the body had no knowledge of it?" Mills asked again.
"Yes, absolutely," Shaffer said.
Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL and founder of the private military contractor Blackwater, responded by saying, "It sounds like destruction of evidence."
Kimberly Cheatle, the former Secret Service Director who resigned following her disastrous testimony to Congress after the near-assassination of the 45th president, controversially claimed in her first interview since the attack that counter-sniper teams were not positioned on the AGR International building where Crooks later took his position due to the "sloped roof."
Mills also slammed the FBI for not being transparent about Crooks' alleged "online" research into explosives and encrypted communication accounts from abroad.
Details About Killer Still Not Shared
Earlier, Shaffer told Biggs that seeing Crooks on the Butler Farm Show grounds with a rangefinder scope should have elevated his status from a "suspicious person" to a "person of interest" in the eyes of law enforcement.
"That would warrant some type of either investigatory detention or stop and question," he said.
According to Shaffer, Crooks was first captured in photographs by local counter-snipers at 5:10 p.m. and was seen with the rangefinder "shortly after 5:38 p.m.," which was 33 minutes before he aimed at Trump at 6:11 p.m.
The shooter fired eight rounds, hitting Trump in the right ear, killing rally attendee Corey Comperatore, 50, and critically injuring David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74.
Shaffer testified that counter-sniper teams fired two shots in response, but it is unclear whether one or both of these shots resulted in Crooks' death.
According to an August 2 report by Butler County Coroner William Young, the 20-year-old shooter's death was classified as a "homicide" due to a "gunshot wound to the head."
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a former police officer and member of the House select task force investigating the Butler shooting, revealed in a preliminary report to Chairman Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) that the FBI permitted Crooks' body to be cremated just ten days after the attack.
The motivations behind Crooks' actions remain a mystery to many lawmakers in both the House and Senate, including Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), another member of the select task force who visited Butler on Monday to review the scene of the rally.
At one point, lawmakers were seen on the roof of the building where Crooks had positioned himself, around150 feet from the stage where Trump was addressing the crowd.
Last week, Waltz stated that FBI briefings had revealed Crooks' use of messaging accounts on platforms based in Belgium, Germany, and New Zealand.
"Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms not even based in the United States, but based abroad — where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?" Waltz said at a press conference last week.
