Media may have forgotten, but we havenât, that President Trump was recently shot in Butler County and narrowly escaped death by miraculously avoiding an assassinâs eight bullets. Many questions have arisen, and few answers. But last week we got a few answers and a few new questions.
Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins (R-La.) is a former law enforcement officer and a member of the House Freedom Caucus. While serving as a public information officer with the St. Landry Parish Sheriffâs office, Captain Higgins published a popular âCrime Stoppersâ YouTube series (for example, here).
Higgins serves on the House Bi-Partisan Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of President Donald Trump. The Task Force assigned Higgins to visit the scene in Butler and provide a preliminary report, which he did last week on August 12th. You can read Congressman Higginsâ full report here.
Rather than summarize the six-page report, letâs look at a few issues of great public interest. Read the whole thing for a full briefing.
The Water Tower. Many people have suspected a second shooter on top of the nearby water tower, which is a natural sniper perch and enjoys a clear line of sight to both Trump and Crooksâ positions.
But after visiting the site and inspecting the tower, Higgins has cooled to the idea of a tower sniper. He noticed the water tower had a retractable safety ladder that, on the day of the shooting, was raised 25 feet off the ground. Higgins opined that, if a sniper did get up on the tower, it must have been some next-level work âbeyond anything Iâve ever actually seen.â
A geared sniper would have had to somehow scale the first 25 feet without a ladder, scurry up the next 75 feet on the ladder, and then clamber up a tiny and precarious dome ladder to the tippy top. Higgins was doubtful.
Still, Higgins plans to return and climb the water tower himself (it wasnât possible on the day he was there) to make sure.
Signs of FBI Cover Up. Higgins is very suspicious about the way the FBI handled the investigation.
Representative Higgins identified several way the FBI deviated from normal procedure, not to mention the procedures they should have followed in a top-level case that would surely receive microscopic scrutiny.
Yet, for still unexplained reasons, the FBI made some inexplicable and unexplained decisions seemingly designed to shut down the investigation:
â On the night of the shooting, the FBI released all the first responders (EMS, cops, and so forth) without taking their statements.
â The FBI released the entire crime scene after only three days. Higgins reported that local law enforcement expressed âeverything from surprise to dismay to suspicionâ at how quickly the feds cleared the crime scene. This meant the evidence was not preserved to allow agencies to do their work.
â On-scene FBI agents âcleaned up biological evidenceâ from the crime scene, instead of following normal protocol and letting a specialized evidence unit handle the cleanup. Higgins said this was unheard of.
â The FBI released Crooksâ body for cremation just ten days after the shooting, surprising all the locals, and even though legally, Butler County had jurisdiction over the body. Now, we are stuck with the initial examination report, whatever it is, which still hadnât been published as of the date of Higginâs report.
Higgins described the FBIâs âpattern of investigative scorched earthâ as reasonably calculated to be âan obstruction to any following investigative effort.â So.
Secret Service Questions. Higgins found even more questions about how the Secret Service responded at the event, including one huge, previously unknown problem.
Representative Higgins found that:
â Butler County had provided radios for the Secret Service, so they could stay connected with local security efforts. But for some reason, Secret Service never picked up the radios.
â It appears the Butler event was the first time Secret Service counter-sniper teams were ever assigned to Trumpâs detail. Why?
â Most astonishingly, the Secret Serviceâs sniper was not the first to shoot back. Crooks was shot twice. A Butler County SWAT officer took the first shot. It was a very difficult shot, taken on the move while clearing cover and putting the officer into the line of fire. He hit and disabled Crooksâ gun, injuring Crooks with shrapnel. Only then, only after Crooksâ weapon was disabled, did the southern Secret Service sniper shoot and kill Crooks (a headshot).
Maybe the oddest fact of all was that, until now, neither the FBI nor the Secret Service ever mentioned the heroic Butler SWAT officer who disabled Crooks, allowing the assassin to be terminated by the Secret Service sniper. Weirdly, local SWAT guys ended the threat before the Secret Service snipers did.
There were several other fascinating and unanswered questions in Higginsâ report. Read the whole thing.
âïž SANCTUARIANISM â Wednesday, August 21, 2024 â C&C NEWS đŠ
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