Local officers highlight miscommunication around Trump’s first assassination attempt at hearing tainted by politics

Washington (CNN) — The House task force charged with investigating the near assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, heard from local law enforcement and a medical examiner about what happened on July 13, when the former president was shot and one rallygoer was killed.

During Thursday’s hearing, local officers testified to the convoluted communication set up that day, where multiple different groups of officers were on different radios, all separate from the Secret Service’s own channel.

But those findings were overshadowed by a second panel consisting of two GOP representatives who put forward blatant conspiracy theories around the shooting.

Democrats on the task force did not attend the second part of the hearing, which included testimony from Reps. Eli Crane of Arizona and Cory Mills of Florida.

Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, the task force’s top Democrat, told reporters that members of his party left because they were not informed that Crane and Mills would be joining the hearing until Wednesday.

“We did not receive notice of this panel until late yesterday,” Crow said, adding that they didn’t have time to add their own experts to the panel or know what those members were going to say.

Crow added that he hoped the task force could “return to the consensus-based approach going forward” with Republicans at the task force. “We don’t see a reason to participate in this panel for the reasons I described,” Crow said.

“Panel one was a very productive panel,” Crow added when asked about the second part of the hearing, which included Mills and Crane.

The chairman of the committee, GOP Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, told reporters that the presentation from Mills and Crane doesn’t change the bipartisan spirit of the panel and shared that he invited the lawmakers because of their combat experience.

“It’s not going to shatter my feeling that it’s bipartisan. If somebody has another opinion, that’s their opinion,” Kelly said.

Asked whether the work of Crane and Mills undermines his task force, Kelly added, “You know at this point in my life, I’m not that fragile.  We were tasked to get to an answer. If we have assets out there that we’re ignoring because we think somehow that’s overstepping our chance to be in the spotlight that day, then you should go home. I’m not here as a Republican. I’m here as an American”

The appearance of Crane and Mills at Thursday’s hearing, where they urged Republican task force members to investigate all conspiracy theories related to the July 13 assassination attempt – including the idea of a second shooter, which has been flatly denied by federal investigators – represents a public blending of the two investigative efforts at a time when Trump has increasingly blamed Democrats for the threats against him while on the campaign trail.

Kelly said, “I think that’s something we are going to seriously consider” when asked if his task force would investigate the prospect of there being a second shooter.

Some Republican members of the task force defended the decision to allow Crane and Mills to speak at the hearing despite the fact that their appearance seemed to undermine the task force’s authority as the House’s primary investigative body when it comes to probing the first Trump assassination attempt.

“We must investigate every potential theory,” said GOP Rep. Clay Higgins, who used his time earlier in the hearing to press the medical examiner on whether gunman Thomas Crooks could have been shot twice, in the same bullet wound hole, adding he doesn’t believe in the concept of conspiracy theories.

By removing themselves from the hearing room, Democrats clearly signaled they viewed the appearance by Crane and Mills as partisan – marking the first public sign of discontent within the task force, which has pledged to remain apolitical, to date.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries have called for members to put politics aside on the investigation, Crane, Mills and other ardent Trump allies on Capitol Hill continued to publicize their own supposed findings and lambast federal officials for over the security failures at Trump’s Butler rally – calling for quick and strong accountability.

When members of the bipartisan task force visited the Butler rally site in August, the group of conservative congressmen held a counterprogramming event on their separate efforts to investigate the assassination attempt, despite not having any significant investigative power and not being affiliated with the task force.

Local officers describe convoluted communication

During the first part of the hearing, local officers testified to the communication issues, where multiple different groups of officers were on different radios, all separate from the Secret Service’s own channel.

The hearing came the day after a bipartisan committee in the Senate released a damning report highlighting key failures by the Secret Service that day, including the lack of decision-making and leadership structure.

Those failures, the report said, led to significant lapses in security measures, including a denial of resources and lack of decision-making around who was responsible for what area of the rally, including the cluster of buildings the shooter climbed.

The first part of the House task force hearing, instead, focused on local law enforcement and their actions around that day, marking the conclusion of the first phase of the task force’s investigation. Witnesses include a local police patrolman and sergeant as well as a Pennsylvania State Police officer and medical examiner.

In the minutes before Crooks opened fire on Trump, reports of a man on the roof went out to different channels, all set up to go through two different communication posts, according to testimony Thursday. Those calls never made it to the Secret Service agents on Trump’s detail.

Members also highlighted how cell systems established in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were operating well while normal cell phone connection was spotty and became an issue for local officers as they tried to share early pictures of Crooks.

Those systems, such as FirstNet – built for emergency responders to communicate with each other in moments of crisis – worked that day, Edward Lenz, the commander of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, told the task force.

“They worked the entire time,” Lenz said.

Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida noted that 45 minutes before the shooting, some officers were unable to receive photos taken of Crooks that day, while others, who were on FirstNet, could.

“We created a solution, and yet it’s 2024, and we’re still not implementing that solution at the highest levels of our security agencies” to keep Trump safe, Moskowitz said.

Local officers also testified to the lack of meetings with Secret Service and no direction on certain areas of coverage, including the buildings Crooks climbed.

The task force, which was recently expanded by the House to include in its investigation the second attempted assassination of Trump in Florida this month, has previously visited the rally site in Pennsylvania and has met with and interviewed local and federal officers involved in the security and subsequent investigations into that day.

The Secret Service, despite initially blaming local law enforcement for the catastrophe in Butler, has repeatedly said the agency is fully to blame for the failures that day. Questions remain, however, why local officers were not able to stop Crooks from climbing on top of a group of nearby buildings with a rifle, despite prior warnings about Crooks both on the ground and on the rooftop minutes before he began firing. Crooks was killed by Secret Service agents at the scene moments after the shooting.

Crow added that the Trump campaign, and its coordination with Secret Service and local law enforcement is also an element the task force will have to investigate to better understand where communication breakdowns occurred. The panel has already requested the interviews Trump campaign officials did with federal law enforcement agencies in the wake of the first assassination attempt.

“We think that’s a critical piece of the puzzle here that we have to look at,” Crow said Thursday.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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