More details to add to our investigation
Senate Hearing on Trump Rally Shooting
Aug 5, 2024
USSS Director Abbate, can you just talk a little bit about how did Mr. Crooks… How was he able to get an AR-15 onto the roof of that building? Does your investigation illuminate anything that we have learned to help to make that point more clear?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:19:19):
We don’t have definitive evidence yet as to how he got the rifle up there. Based on everything that’s been collected thus far, photos, video, eyewitness accounts, we do believe he likely had it in the backpack.
Sen. Butler (01:19:33):
Broken down in the backpack?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:19:34):
We’re still assessing that. Our laboratory has looked at the rifle itself and measured that against the backpack itself. And if placed in this backpack, it would extend outside. It would’ve been visible. But we don’t have anyone who observed him with the backpack with a rifle barrel or other part of it sticking out of the backpack. But the rifle would not have fit fully into this backpack to be concealed in whole. We have video that was recently found of the shooter walking in a distance from his car just before 6:00 PM, about 5:56, I believe.
(01:20:17)
And based on everything we have, we assessed that he returned to his vehicle at that time, got the backpack, and then proceeded back to the area, into the AGR building. And then he’s observed, of course, on the roof just minutes later holding the backpack in front of him. In fact, there’s dashcam footage from a police vehicle that shows him briefly traversing the roof with the backpack in front of him. And then it’s just minutes after that that he’s actually seen by the officer, who I described, with the rifle on the roof. It’s possible that he broke the rifle down, but we don’t have conclusive evidence of that and took it out of the bag on the roof in those moments before and reassembled there. That’s one of the theories we’re looking at and working on right now.
Mike Lee (01:56:54):
Yes. So did the assailant get out eight shots or were those shell casings left from the day before or where did they come from?
Deputy Director Abbate (01:56:59):
The shooter, Senator, we believe fired eight rounds. We had the shooting reconstruction team go out there for a period of days and collect all that. So we have bullet holes, bullet fragmentation, all taken back and we’re still putting together the trajectory and ballistic analysis, although we do have fragments of the bullets and bullets have been collected in the distance from the shooter as well.
Mike Lee (01:57:21):
Gotcha. It’s my understanding there was a sniper team assigned to a window with complete overlook, complete view of the roof, the same sloped rooftop where the shots were fired. It’s also my understanding, according to some whistleblower accounts, that that post was abandoned. What can you tell me about that? Why was it abandoned?
Acting Director Rowe (01:57:43):
So I saw that from the colonel’s testimony, sir, and it’s something that I’ve asked and our mission assurance is getting to the bottom of. There were two two-man counter sniper teams from the locals that were in that AGR building.
Senator Marshall (02:19:00):
So there’s no protocol that says anything within 300, 500 yards, direct line of the President should be in or out of the security zone? There’s not a protocol that describes that?
Acting Director Rowe (02:19:11):
So Senator, what we try to do is we try to either control the high ground or mitigate line of sight concerns.
Mike Lee (01:57:58):
And so at some point they just left?
Acting Director Rowe (01:58:02):
I don’t have an answer for you on that, Senator, but it seems to me that if even one of them left, there should have been remaining some additional eyes left in that building.
Acting Director Rowe (33:50):
So we’re actually putting out targeted recruitment opportunities. So we’ve just recently put it out within our uniform division for our counter sniper unit, our hazardous agent, medical emergency response unit, our counter assault team on the special agent side. So we’re actually trying to gather the best and the brightest. And I will tell you that we are having great success with a lot of these vacancies. But what I want to reiterate is that, for example, on the counter assault vacancy, we had 700 applicants that applied for this. Really, what we will glean after they make it through the process, and they have to be able to hold a top secret SCI clearance, will be, if we realize 15 out of that tranche, that’s a 2% pass rate. So it is very competitive and we are trying to make sure that we are getting the best and the brightest without dropping standards.
In this year alone, we are going to end the year on the positive of 200+ agents. …But what I want to re-emphasize is that we have not dropped standards. Only 2% of every applicant actually makes it through the hiring process.