One of the frustrations of watching the anemic Trump assassination investigations – such as they are – unfold, is watching the wrong people being asked questions.
Kim Cheatle should have been grilled, but only as an initial starting point. Clearly the Special Agent In Charge (SAIC) of that site, a man named Tim Burke, should have been on the stand answering basic questions about the deployment of Secret Service assets and the decisions made that day.
Similarly, we just watched the Congressional inquiry committee ask questions of local SWAT officer Ben Shaffer. Well, that’s fine, but really we need to have questions posed to the two local snipers – Greg Nicol and Mike Murcko – who were (supposedly) in the critical overwatch building and were in the very best position to spot and stop Crooks.
Further, we just found out through Senator Hawley appearing on Jesse Watters’ show that many of the “agents” on Trump’s detail weren’t really SS agents at all, but homeland security agents who had allegedly watched a 2-hour webinar in preparation. No wonder they had zero clue what to do when the shooting happened!
Again, we have questions and we deserve answers. Either we have to assume a critically deficient level of competence in government operations or we have to assume criminal intent. Either way, somebody needs to get in trouble. Not systems. Not protocols…people with actual names.
Investigators being unwilling to name names and hold specific people accountable is itself indicative of the depth of the predicament.
So we’re going to keep the pressure up while we can in hopes of finally getting the right questions asked of the right people.
Those interviews would have to be sworn under oath. We know full well how Greg Nicol will testify not under oath. He’ll lie through his teeth and deflect blame on others.
I’m with you on the outrageous fact that the FIB let everybody go home less than two hours after the shooting. Is that how they normally operate? Very, very hard to believe. In the not-elite-like-the-FIB Philadelphia Police Department, whenever there’s a homicide every single officer or supervisor who had ANYTHING at all to do with the incident (including just being on location) had to report to the Homicide Unit immediately after the incident and stay until being interviewed by a Homicide detective. It doesn’t matter when your shift ends, how hungry you are, what family commitments you have, etc. You go to Homicide and you wait AS LONG AS IT TAKES to be interviewed. You don’t go home, or anywhere else. If you had significant involvement in the case (like you arrested or shot the suspect, you pursued the suspect, you’re a family member of the victim or suspect, you were supposed to be guarding the victim when killed ) then you could expect an intensive grilling and multiple follow-up interviews. At the discretion of the detective, you might have to surrender your firearm and magazines for investigation and have your hands swabbed for gunshot residue BEFORE leaving the interview. Real investigators would be all over Nicol and Mercko, if for nothing else than to rule them OUT as suspects! And if they were innocent, they would WANT to be subjected to the most intensive scrutiny so no questions, allegations or charges would be directed at them later. At the very least, they would want to be able to justify their actions so they wouldn’t get kicked out of SWAT for being such losers.
Someone at the FIB should be questioned about their decision to let ANYBODY (much less everybody) in law enforcement go home until being interviewed. Unbelievable.
The FBI isn’t investigating anything other than Crooks. I heard it from Wray at his first congressional hearing. Absolutely zero investigators are reviewing all evidence with an open mind. It’s an investigation of Crooks, not an investigation of what happened.
One thing I want us to be aware of so we’re ready for it when it comes up: from the beginning, Goldinger has been saying that nobody “left their post”. He’s doing this by saying that the post was the entire building. If they want to play that kind of game for legal reasons, we can just respond OK, he left his position by the window, the view he was supposed to guard.
More generally, these people are trying to defend themselves by playing definitional games, and we should be alert about it. Some examples:
Nicol didn’t “leave his post” because we’ve defined “his post” to be an area that he didn’t leave.
The USSS did a great job of guarding the secure zone, it’s just that there was a big wedge cut out of the secure zone so that it didn’t include a critical roof at the AGR complex.
The FBI is conducting a robust and thorough investigation of this whole thing, except that the actions of the USSS and local LEO have been arbitrarily excluded because it is “not the role” of the FBI to investigate them.
Nothing about this follows the normal procedures and investigatory protocol for an event of this kind. Nuff said. Draw your own conclusions. They seem pretty obvious to me.
The problem with Ben Shaffer and Andy Biggs exchange…
AB…“did they obtain those radios”
BS…“i believe they were offered…but i…(closes eye lids) i … do not believe they were taken”
Well, how does he know this ?, did he read this in the newspaper, did someone tell him after the shooting…IS HE LYING…as we can see from the morning briefing notes there are no radios to be issued to the SS sniper team, or call sign given…
The whole shooting excuse is based around lack of communication, and yet the morning briefing notes doesnt include anything about radios being given to the SS sniper team…which is a pretty bl00dy obvious necessity for counter sniper teams to communicate between themselves, including SS, given the fact that the sniper teams are pointing there guns at each other and only 200 yards apart…FFS…
I don’t have time to dig myself right now, I’ve got three other analysis projects I’m working on. Here is what I would do:
1: Find evidence stating exactly when the radios were offered. It clearly wasn’t during the 09:00 meeting since SS did not attend. It had to be a day or more in advance. .
2. Consider the Detail Plan, dated for July 13, 2024, 0900 hours, as the plans in place on the day of the event plan. Since the SS refused the radio offer, why would they be listed in the Detail Plan?
3. Consider the fact that even if the SS accepted the radios, they were not under the Butler County ESU command, and so they might not have been listed in the Detail Plan anyways.
hI Vegas, there isnt any evidence of when the radios were offered, this rumour first appeared in the newspapers…
2…The detailed plan gives no mention of comms with SS, thats the point, and if SS had refused radio coms earlier i believe that would have bean mentioned in the detail plan…it isnt…and by that there would have been alternative comms detail given…(phone, etc)
3…when you have sniper teams who are less than 200 yards apart, there is going to be radio coms between them, otherwise theres a danger of shooting each other ( i dont know anything about guns, but that 1 is pretty obvious)…
this is the point i am making, this radio no radio is the mistake behind the excuse for how the shooting happened…and Ben Shaffer by closing his eyelids whilst answering that question is the obvious sign he is lying…
good luck with your other project Vegas…i look forward to seeing the results…
I was just sitting here looking at my fancy radio scanner and a thought came to me… Is there a chance that someone in the Butler PA area having a record of the scanner/radio traffic from the July 13 attack? Some of the amateur radio clubs have very nice digital scanners that are capable of storing radio conversations. Many municipalities use encrypted digital radios such as P25 system. Maybe there’s something to be found by contacting local radio clubs in Butler to see if they have any communications stored from that day…
Good to see Chris again make the point that the deployment of the Hercules One and Hercules Two counter-sniper teams was incomprehensibly stupid.
The aerial shots of the venue establish without a doubt that the south-facing team in particular was effectively wasted, covering an arc that presented little to no opportunities for a potential shooter targeting Trump.
The ground to the south of the rally could have been effectively protected by a handful of local uniformed officers, leaving the south-facing Secret Service team to be deployed elsewhere.
In all likelihood, there probably were local law enforcement positioned in the treed area to the south.
It’s ironic that there’s so much mystery surrounding Crooks’ movements between 6:02 and 6:06, when he’s captured on surveillance video climbing onto the roof, while at the same time there’s so much mystery surrounding the movements of the police officer who supposedly used his initiative at 6:02 to go look for Crooks.
On second thought, maybe “ironic” isn’t the best word choice…
In hindsight, I don’t see ant mystery to what Crooks did between 6:02 and 6:05 pm. (Note: the FBI’s latest update corrected their time from 6:06 to 6:05 pm.) He was heading towards the HVAC unit he was planning to climb onto the roof from. From ABC interview with Beaver County SWAT (ESU):
“Just after 6 p.m., Nicol, looking out a window on the northwest side of the building, spotted Crooks again. This time the young man was running and carrying a black backpack.
Instinctively, Nicol left his second-floor post and bounded down the stairs in an attempt to keep eyes on the suspect who seemed to be “coming and going and disappearing.”
When he pushed open the door, the kid was nowhere to be seen. Just then two police officers pulled up outside AGR and Nicol shouted to them about where he’d last seen the suspect. The officers took off on foot in opposite directions around the sprawling AGR complex.” (Source: ABC)
This diagram helps to see where Crooks may have hide from the two cops before they left the rea, and then climbed on the roof as soon as the coast was clear. That would account for the 3 minutes, when he could have been up on the roof in 1 or 2 after being spotted by Nicol from the 2nd story window.
) then you could expect an intensive grilling and multiple follow-up interviews. At the discretion of the detective, you might have to surrender your firearm and magazines for investigation and have your hands swabbed for gunshot residue BEFORE leaving the interview. Real investigators would be all over Nicol and Mercko, if for nothing else than to rule them OUT as suspects! And if they were innocent, they would WANT to be subjected to the most intensive scrutiny so no questions, allegations or charges would be directed at them later. At the very least, they would want to be able to justify their actions so they wouldn’t get kicked out of SWAT for being such losers.
