Showing posts with label Butler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Butler. Show all posts

Friday, March 27, 2026

Secret Service Agent on Jill Biden Detail, Shoots Himself in the Leg



A Secret Service agent was injured Friday morning after negligently discharging his firearm and shooting himself in the leg while escorting former first lady Jill Biden through the Philadelphia International Airport, according to a report by The Daily Wire. 

The agent fired the weapon just after 8:30 a.m. while on a protective assignment. He was transported to a local hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. No one else was injured and the former First Lady, a doctor, was unable to render aid because she isn't that kind of doctor in spite of Joy Behar having suggested that she would make a fantastic Surgeon General at the time her husband was an “Autopen POTUS”.

“The Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility will be reviewing the facts and circumstances of this incident. We are grateful for our law enforcement and public safety partners who provided medical assistance,” the Secret Service said. 


After the shooting, a large police presence was reported in Terminal C of the airport, according to CBS affiliate KYW-TV. A medic unit responded to the scene and then left the area, followed by a Philadelphia police car.

The Secret Service has faced intense scrutiny from the public and from Congress after the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, which was one of the agency’s most serious security failures in modern history. Many believe that had it not been for D.E.I., a taller agent would have been assigned to protect Trump's upper body. Unfortunately, a rather short woman was one agent with that assignment.

Last year, more scandals hit the Secret Service after a uniformed division officer allegedly fell asleep while on duty at the United Nations General Assembly, and an armed individual bypassed security screening at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. 

Despite those incidents, the Secret Service has also been praised for recent operations. In September, Secret Service personnel took down a network of electronic devices in New York that had been used to target senior federal officials with telecommunications threats.

Dr, Biden in a signature dress with Joe Biden with his signature look of confusion

In February, agents shot and killed an armed man who attempted to break into Mar-a-Lago with a shotgun.

So it's a 'hit-or-miss' situation, and unfortunately, in this current case, it was a hit right in the leg.

Let's hope he makes a full recovery.

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Sunday, February 22, 2026

UPDATE: Man armed with shotgun and gas can killed at Mar-a-Lago IDENTIFIED



A man in his early 20s unlawfully entered Mar-a-Lago armed with a shotgun and a gas can at around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, U.S. Secret Service announced. 

UPDATE: The armed intruder has been identified after being reported missing by his family.

Austin Tucker Martin, who was reported missing by his family on Saturday, was identified as the man armed with a shotgun and a gas can attempting to breach Mar-a-Lago, law enforcement sources told the New York Post.


The FBI, Secret Service, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, are investigating the incident and potential motive, which seems somewhat obvious.

The individual was observed near the north gate carrying a shotgun and a fuel can and was ordered to put the items down by police. In response, he lowered the gas can to the ground and then aimed the shotgun at the officers who immediately shot him dead.

No Secret Service or PBSO personnel were injured, and no Secret Service protectees, including President Trump, were present at the location during the time of the incident, officials said.

The FBI, Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office are investigating, including the man’s background, actions and potential motive, as well as the use of force.

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This third incident of the same type, appears to be the results of a media-fed public hating the administration and attempting to assassinate the President of the United States. The first incident was in Butler, PA in which President Trump was shot in the ear. The second was at Trump's golf course where the person was confronted and eventually taken into custody and is now serving life in prison.

This should be reminder of the difficulty that exists protecting the President, particularly at Mar-a-Lago.

Sunday, November 23, 2025

FBI’s Bongino and Patel Go Nuclear on the Crooks Conspiracy Peddlers: ‘We Are Very Confident This Kid Acted Alone



Look, I get it, everybody is livid. A 20-year-old scumcrumpet almost blows President Trump's head off in broad daylight on live television, and we're supposed to believe it was just one depressed gamer with a drone and daddy's AR? The skepticism is healthy, but at some point, the "second shooter / deep-state / Antifa super-cell" crowd needs to take the 'L,' because the person who's now running the FBI just dropped a thermonuclear truth bomb on the entire grift.

"Many people make a lot of money on social media pushing conspiracy theories for clicks. That is a fact," FBI Director Kash Patel said, and he isn't wrong.

Deputy Director Dan Bongino  went on Fox and basically told the tinfoil brigade to pound sand.

"It is the FBI’s conclusion that Crooks acted alone," Bongino said flat-out.

They cracked every single one of Crooks' 35 accounts,  social media, banking, the works. Even the sketchy foreign email addresses out of Germany and Belgium? Fully accessed within days.

"The FBI has been able to access all of the accounts," a senior official told Fox. "There has been reporting to inappropriately and incorrectly state that there was encryption that the FBI was not able to get into, that is not true. We have been able to get into every single account."

"There is no foreign connection in this case," the official added. "There is no individual that is outside U.S. borders or inside U.S. borders that had any role in directing him, inspiring him or assisting him in any way, and that includes foreign governments."

They swept the shooter's house top to bottom. Every phone, every laptop, every thumb drive, all imaged, all cracked.

"Every device in the home was collected and accessed fully," Patel said. "Reports say that we didn't get into certain devices? That's false. We got into all of the devices."

That whole "Antifa super-soldier William Tepes" thing had the timeline in a frenzy. It turns out the Norwegian neo-Nazi just replied to one of Crooks' public YouTube comments. That's it. No secret Discord, no encrypted Signal chats, no "hey bro, here's the exfil plan."

"Crooks posted on YouTube. Tepes is a Norwegian, nordic resistance member. He simply responded to content Crooks posted," Patel explained, basically rolling his eyes through the television screen.

The investigation? Over 1,000 interviews, 2,000 tips, a dozen search warrants, 100+ subpoenas. No manifesto, no accomplices, no shadowy handlers.

And then Bongino went full "A Few Good Men" on the angry mob:

"No one is interested in guilt or innocence, they’re interested in someone to blame," Bongino said. "The public is pissed off. We get it. We sympathize with you. It couldn’t have just been this guy, it couldn't have just been this guy,  it is. There is no reason I would tell you otherwise." He even addressed the "why would you cover for the deep state" crowd directly:

"I would ask the public: What motivation would Kash Patel and Dan Bongino possibly have to hide from their personal friend, not just their boss, the president,  information about a crime where he was the victim?" Bongino asked. "I don’t understand what the motivation would be."

Exactly. The same Kash and Dan who’ve spent years torching the FBI for Russia-gate and Crossfire Hurricane are now the ones running the joint — and they’re telling you, on the record, there’s nothing there.

Yet the same accounts that cried "trust the plan" for four years ago are now calling these guys deep-state shills because the story doesn’t have enough James Bond villains in it.

"We are very confident in the outcomes of this investigation," Bongino said. "We have pulled on every threat. We are absolutely confident, and if information surfaces, please, immediately get it over to us for instant action."

In other words: Put up or shut up.

The only people making bank off this tragedy are the ones Patel called out — the professional conspiracy influencers who know a juicy "what really happened at Butler" thread gets more clicks than "FBI says lone nut, case closed."

"As to why people keep coming back to this on social media, the reality is, many people make a lot of money on social media pushing conspiracy theories for clicks," he said. "That is a fact." 

The truth might be boring, folks, but sometimes the 20-year-old incel with a rifle really is just a 20-year-old incel with a rifle. And no amount of Substack subscriptions is going to conjure a second shooter onto that roof.

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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Secret Service suspends 6 agents who failed at protecting President Trump last July


Photo: Getty Images
The Secret Service is in hot water, and they’re not skating by easy on this one. Six agents tasked with keeping President Donald Trump safe during that wild July 2024 assassination attempt in Pennsylvania have been suspended with no pay, no benefits, nada. We’re talking 10 to 42 days of eating ramen and staring at the wall, according to Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn, who spilled the beans to CBS News. “We weren’t going to fire [our] way out of this,” Quinn said, but they’re “laser focused on fixing the root cause of the problem.” 

They screwed up, and they know it.

Those agents are back on duty, but they’ve been demoted to glorified desk jockeys with "restricted roles" and less responsibility. Quinn called it a "federally mandated process," which sounds like bureaucratic speak for "we followed the rulebook, now let’s move on."

Let’s rewind to July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. A gunman, Thomas Crooks, somehow got the drop on the Secret Service, climbing onto a nearby roof and unloading toward Trump’s rally stage. 

Absolute chaos. Trump’s ear got grazed, two other guys were hit, and Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, dad, and husband, was killed. Absolutely heartbreaking. A Secret Service sniper took Crooks out, but the damage was done. Quinn didn’t mince words: “Secret Service is totally accountable for Butler,” he told CBS. “Butler was an operational failure and we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again.” 

Thank you, Sergeant Obvious.

The agency’s been under a microscope since, and deservedly so. They’re scrambling to fix what Quinn called the "root cause" of this disaster, rolling out fancy new toys like military-grade drones and mobile command posts to tighten up comms with local cops. But the hits kept coming. 

Photo: Getty Images

Weeks later, another assassination attempt on Trump went down in West Palm Beach, Florida. It got stopped, thank God, but the heat was too much for then-Director Kimberly Cheatle, who bailed after the backlash. Congressional hearings and investigations piled on, and a bipartisan House task force dropped a 180-page bombshell in December, calling Butler "preventable." They ripped into the Secret Service for leadership screw-ups and training gaps that "created an environment" where this kind of failure could happen. Oh, and they didn’t exactly play nice with local law enforcement either. Shocker.

Meanwhile, Corey Comperatore’s widow, Helen, sat down with Fox News’ Alexis McAdams to talk about her loss. That’s the human cost is something the Secret Service can’t just drone their way out of.

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Tuesday, January 28, 2025

The Secret Service is a hot mess



The U.S. Secret Service used to be considered an elite agency. However, the recent scandals show just how it has become a dysfunctional, bureaucratic hot mess that hampers its ability to carry out its main mission of protecting the President of the United States.

Janet Napolitano and Frances Fragos Townsend were part of an Independent Review Panel that looked into the Secret Service's mishaps in Butler, Pa., last July, along with other issues affecting their work.

"The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved," the panel wrote to DHS Secretary Mayorkas in October. The investigation "uncovered not only numerous mistakes that led to the events of July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, but also deeper, systemic issues that must be addressed with urgency."

Reading through the report, I was surprised by how many suggestions there were for better security. I couldn't help but wonder why these obvious improvements needed a panel to point them out to the supposed experts in protection.

The president can lead the way in fixing these problems. The U.S. Secret Service director's role is crucial for our democracy and its leaders. Our independent panel discovered that the service has become too inward-looking, not making good use of new technology, and often sticking to old methods for protection. We need new leadership with lots of security experience.

Trump picked Sean Curran, an experienced Secret Service agent, as the new director. Curran was in charge of Trump's protection in Butler and has been with the Secret Service for 24 years.

He has a huge challenge ahead. One of the first things he could do is modernize how the Secret Service communicates.

Congress can also help right at the start of Trump's term. They can make it a requirement for the Secret Service to have better communication systems with federal, state, and local partners during protective events, including real-time management and tracking. It's ridiculous that our government's protection team has worse communication tools than many sports teams. On July 13 in Butler, the agents used a messy mix of radios, cellphones, texts, and emails. Snipers shouldn't be messing with phones when they need to watch for dangers.

The Secret Service is taking on too much. Originally known as "Treasury Agents," they were supposed to guard the U.S. money supply and protect people. Now, with new counterfeiting methods, they also look into cybercrimes like identity theft and ransomware. The panel suggests giving these extra jobs to other agencies so the Secret Service can focus solely on protection.

The panel pointed out that the Secret Service has a $3.1 billion budget and around 3,200 special agents. No matter what else they do, their main job is to protect key figures like the president, vice president, and presidential candidates. This job doesn't allow for any mistakes. All resources should go to this task before anything else, like dealing with financial crimes.

Other suggestions include better leadership, "Evaluation of Methodology for Protectee Resourcing," and "Leadership Training, and Training with State and Local Partners."

Unfortunately, not many of these suggestions are being looked at right now. Director Curran should start putting some of these practical recommendations into action as soon as possible.


Wednesday, September 18, 2024

USSS said they would 'take care of' slanted roof building Crooks used to shoot Trump


According to an investigation by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Secret Service agents assured Butler County, PA law enforcement that they would secure the AGR building with the scary slanted roof that would-be assassin Thomas Crooks used to shoot former President Donald Trump and others on July 13, Fox News reported.

"Butler County law enforcement officials stated that at separate times during the walkthrough, when they reiterated their concerns to the agents and counter sniper about securing the AGR complex buildings, the agents responded: ‘we will take care of it,’" Grassley's office revealed in a Tuesday letter to Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe.

So who's lying? Butler County PD or the Secret Service whose job it is to protect the President, presidential candidates and others and who ultimately has the responsibility to that end in spite of having assistance from outside agencies?

Trump came within millimeters of being struck in the head during the outdoor rally, and three others in the massive crowd were struck and critically injured, one of whom, Corey Comperatore, was killed by the gunman who was perched merely 130 yards from the Republican presidential nominee.

The shooter was known to law enforcement and he was observed ahead of the event with a range finder but did not call attention to himself because his shirt was not labeled 'Assassin.'

Grassley questioned Rowe whether the Butler County law enforcement officials' claim is true and, if so, what the Secret Service did to secure the area with the AGR complex buildings. He also noted weeks prior to the first assassination attempt that Rowe told his fellow senators during a hearing that "what was communicated is that the locals had a plan and that they had been there before," regarding the roof the AGR building.

Sen. Grassley's staff interviewed law enforcement officials and said that this was disputed by them.

During a walkthrough on July 11, while preparing for the rally, Secret Service agents allegedly promised to secure the AGR complex area. The law enforcement officials said they had already warned the agents about their safety concerns several times during the visit.

The Republican again mentioned his many requests for information to the Secret Service, and noted that at least two of his requests resulted in claims "that it would not provide responses to my requests due to other ongoing investigations and reviews."

"That’s unacceptable and fails to take into consideration Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct independent oversight. It also flies in the face of your congressional testimony about responding to Congress," Grassley charged.

Senator Grassley's ongoing independent investigation is delving into several critical incidents, such as the assassination attempt on July 13. Additionally, he is examining the recently uncovered plot by Asif Merchant, an alleged Iranian agent, who intended to assassinate a politician or a U.S. official, potentially former President Trump. Another focus of Grassley's probe is the second assassination attempt on Trump, which occurred in Florida on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Biden and Harris are supposedly running the country.

Friday, August 9, 2024

Pakistani national tied to Iran tried to have Trump and other US politicians killed: feds



A Pakistani immigrant with Iranian ties plotted to hire hitmen to assassinate former President and current GOP candidate for President, Donald J. Trump along with other US politicians, sources and a federal criminal complaint state.

Asif Merchant, 46, [no relation known of Judge Juan Merchan] is accused of planning political assassinations in New York City in August or early September. He allegedly paid men who he thought were contract killers advance money of $5,000, according to US for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace.

Donald Trump was one of several current and former US government officials who are thought to be the targets of the plot, a source familiar with the investigation to the New York Post. 

It is not known whether Merchant was working for the Secret Service, but nothing seems far-fetched anymore.

Anyway, Asif Merchant had been charged in connection with a failed assassination plot against former president Trump.

Merchant traveled to New York in June ostensibly to meet with the "hitmen" who were actually undercover law enforcement officers. He told them he was arranging the money with an overseas contact, the US Attorney's office said.

Several days later, he came up with the advanced payment and allegedly told the undercover agents that they were to go forward with the assassination plot, prosecutors said.

On July 12, as he was preparing to leave the United States, he was arrested. He revealed that his lovely wife and beautiful children live in Iran, and his other lovely wife and other beautiful children live in Pakistan, prosecutors reported.

One of Merchant’s homes is in the Iranian capital of Tehran, where he and one of his beautiful wives live. 

Merchant’s alleged Iran-backed plot played a role in the Secret Service agreeing to bolster former president Donald Trump’s security detail before the July assassination attempt, sources told The Post, otherwise they would have allowed other dangerously slanted rooftops to go unprotected.

Authorities claim that the Iranian-tied plot is unrelated to the attempt on Trump’s life by Thomas Crooks, who opened fire from a roof top in Butler, Pennsylvania, hitting Trump in his right ear but killing Corey Competoratore and wounding two other men. 

Where is Alex Jones when you want to hear from him?

Monday, August 5, 2024

The Secret Service secrets surface and boy are there secrets


What is slowly becoming more obvious is that the US Secret Service (USSS) isn't as competent as a small Pennsylvania PD with fewer than 20 cops after what we are seeing post-Trump assassination attempt. [Oh, by the way, Google has put Trump on the list of assassination attempts on US Presidents, but it took the public outcry to get them to do it. All you would get at first was Truman and a bunch of others, but not Trump.]

USSS's new Director keeps slowly leaking more details at the speed of molasses strained through a coffee filter. And the so called 'news' coverage is a joke. The details we get, however, seems to paint the Secret Service as a less innocent player in the event.

In their traditional "bury the news" strategy, Interim Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, along with his bizarre buzzcut, held a late Friday news conference. He said "we accept full responsibility" but really took no responsibility and told us little of what the $3 billion agency did at Trump's rally to protect him and other high-value targets.

We learned, however, that the Secret Service had NO RADIO COMMUNICATION with local POLICE and NO RADIO COMMUNICATION with the ANTI-SNIPERS. The vital communications were made via texts over an overloaded cell phone network.

There were NO SECRET SERVICE recordings of communications but THERE ARE OF THE LOCAL POLICE.

The responsibilities of the local snipers was made up by the USSS and if it weren't for the locals, we would know much less.

The Secret Service COMMAND CENTER was NOT CO-LOCATED with the local POLICE.

The investigators have YET to talk to the local police who were assisting the USSS, including the snipers (after three weeks!)

Butler, PA was the VERY FIRST TIME that the USSS PROVIDED SNIPERS FOR a TRUMP rally this election cycle.

The normal complement of Secret Service intelligence officers had been pulled from the rally!

If this is not the definition of a clusterfrack [misspelled on purpose] I don't know what is. They weren't even attempting to work with local law enforcement.

At a news conference Friday, acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe Jr. acknowledged that there were separate communications hubs that did not effectively share information in vital moments. “There might have been radio traffic that we missed. We have to be better on that,” he said.

No kidding, Sherlock.


Rowe repeatedly emphasized that the rally shooting was a failure by the Secret Service, not local law enforcement. “If the large majority of our partners are in a unified command post or in a different location, we need to probably be there, too,” Captain Obvious said.

“We’re certainly going to examine the communication aspect very closely,” Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said in response to questions from The New York Post.

At the time of the attempted assassination on the former President's life, Rowe was the deputy director in charge of ensuring that the protection resources and plans were in place to ensure this didn't happen. He was appointed to replace the execrable Kimberly Cheatle as the director by the indescribably corrupt Secretary of Homeland Security, who has been on an anti-Trump crusade for years.


It's not just the media who are memory-holing the assassination attempt, it is the Secret Service as well.

Let's not forget, the shooter was able to get off EIGHT SHOTS before they got him. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. 

Bang.


Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Trump campaign security failure in Butler, PA



On Saturday, July 13, 2024, a 20-year-old man Thomas Matthew Crooks, with no military training and a school shooting team reject, came within a hummingbird's breath of assassinating former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, PA. 

Crooks was spotted at least twice by police, just 26 minutes before firing on the Trump crowd and hitting President Trump in the right ear when he miraculously turned his head. Sadly, one person in the crowd, a retired volunteer fire chief, was killed as he put his body in front of his daughters. His name was Corey Comperatore. In addition, two other individuals, David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, were critically injured but at last report their condition has been upgraded from critical to stable condition.

The Beaver County Emergency Services Unit traveled to the Trump rally from a nearby Pittsburgh suburb and saw Crooks on the roof, took a photo of him, and reported it around 5:45 p.m. WPXI reported.

And while Crooks stood out like a huge zit on Biden's nose, he was able to maintain his cover on the rooftop, right under the noses of a local police sniper team WHO WERE STATIONED INSIDE THE BUILDING UPON WHOSE ROOF HE LAY! I guess hiding in plain sight has its merits.

The AGR International Inc. factory building is next to the Butler County Farm Fair grounds. It was being used by local cops as a “watch post”[no pun intended] for snipers to scan for threats as the former president spoke onstage a mere 130 yards away, according to sources.

Cops were inside, but not on the roof during the shooting, sources said. So they saw nothing and heard nothing, a la Sergeant Schultz of Hogan's Heroes.

Crooks had scaled the building unnoticed, before getting off eight rounds with an AR-style rifle, bought by his father in 2020. One bullet grazed former Trump's right ear, killing Compatore and wounding the other two men. 

Law enforcement sources said it was not clear as of Monday night whether any of the local officers — who were tasked with securing the perimeter outside location of the rally — were able to warn Secret Service agents about the gunman, but if that was the case, the question is, why didn't they get Trump off the stage immediately?

In fact, there was about two-minutes of video that paints the Secret Service as the Keystone Kops, [older followers of Brain Flushings will know this reference] and their lowest point of their century protecting U.S. presidents. 

A multi-feed video montage put together by MilkBarTV, has been viewed over 3.5 million times on X, shows the attempted assassination play out in real time using clips from several different vantage points. People from the crowd were pointing the gunman out, yelling that he has a rifle, and nothing happened for several minutes until he began firing the rifle. 

A local cop had made his way up to the roof but Crooks pointed his weapon at him and the officer ducked and fell to the ground, at which point he began shooting at Trump. 

Fortunately, Crooks displayed the marksmanship of Stevie Wonder but sadly, he killed a Trump supporter anyway, and seriously injured the two others.

The Director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, must resign.

Comment if you will.


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