According to Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, the Secret Service declined an offer from local law enforcement to provide drone coverage at the Trump rally in Butler, PA on July 13th.
The drone coverage may have been able to detect Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks sooner.
Hawley says the claim was made by a whistleblower in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
According to one whistleblower, the night before the rally, U.S. Secret Service repeatedly denied offers from a local law enforcement partner to utilize drone technology to secure the rally. This means that the technology was both available to USSS and able to be deployed to secure the site. Secret Service said no. The whistleblower further alleges that after the shooting took place, USSS changed course and asked the local partner to deploy the drone technology to surveil the site in the aftermath of the attack.
Read Hawley’s letter below:
🚨🚨 NEW – Whistleblower tells me local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally – but Secret Service declined pic.twitter.com/UM0jfrMc9z
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 25, 2024
From Breitbart News:
The Secret Service has not explained why there was no drone surveillance for the rally — which could have helped the agency see the sniper climbing to the rooftop of a building and positioning himself with a rifle before firing at Trump.
Despite Secret Service allegedly turning down the use of drone technology, the shooter used a drone to surveil the area just hours before Trump took the stage, FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed Wednesday during testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.
This story is developing…
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