Important Takeaways:
- Lawmakers repeatedly questioned why the agency tasked with protecting the country’s top leaders didn’t do a better job communicating with local authorities during the July 13 rally, particularly when it came to securing the building that was widely agreed to be a security threat but that ultimately was left so unprotected that gunman Thomas Michael Crooks was able to climb up and open fire on Trump.
- The panel — comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats — has spent the last two months analyzing the security failures at the rally, conducting nearly two dozen interviews with law enforcement and receiving more than 2,800 pages of documents from the Secret Service.
- Edward Lenz, commander for the Butler County Emergency Services Unit who was in charge of the local tactical units operating at the Butler rally, said his agency was never asked to put a sniper team on top of the roof and never said that they would. Lenz said the Secret Service knew their shooters were inside the AGR Building and there was no “feedback or guidance” from the Secret Service that they wanted the team anywhere else.
- Lenz also testified that Secret Service officials did not check with him or his team to make sure they were in place before Trump went on stage and that the emergency communication for July 13 had not been worked out in advance.
- Thursday’s session was the fourth congressional hearing about the Butler shooting since July.
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