One year after the attempted assassination of President Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the shooter’s motive is still unclear. It may stay that way, said Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who also chairs the Senate committee that released its final report Sunday detailing what it characterized as failures by the U.S. Secret Service that allowed the attempt to happen.
“I think we aren’t going to know the motive, and I take that at face value,” Paul told “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, adding that despite his own personal doubts over government transparency in other scenarios, he believes “they’ve tried their best” in this case.
“I don’t think there’s an answer that they’re not revealing to us,” the senator said. “I think they just don’t know.”
A 20-year-old gunman opened fire on Mr. Trump during his Butler rally on July 13, 2024, shooting into the crowd of attendees from the rooftop of a nearby building. A bullet grazed Mr. Trump’s ear, but he was otherwise not harmed. Two attendees were critically wounded, and one, Corey Comperatore, died from his injuries.
The gunman, Thomas Crooks, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper stationed at the event. Afterward, the agency faced a litany of criticisms and multiple formal investigations into its practices as many questioned how Crooks could come so close to carrying out the assassination successfully and ultimately charged the Secret Service with enabling the attack.
In its latest report on the matter, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, of which Paul serves as chairman, accused the Secret Service of “inexcusable negligence, communication breakdowns, systemic weaknesses, and limited accountability.”
The report found that the Secret Service “denied or left unfulfilled at least 10 requests” from Mr. Trump’s security detail to provide additional resources for his protection during his 2024 presidential campaign. Some of the requests included a stronger counter drone system, counter assault team and counter snipers on the premises, according to the report.
Paul cited the results of several investigations, including the one conducted by his committee, which found that the gunman was seen more than 90 minutes before the shooting and operated a drone, undetected, hours earlier.
“Three minutes before the shooting, the crowd is chanting, man on a roof, man on a roof,” Paul said. The senator noted that additional time passed as Crooks assembled his gun, yet Mr. Trump was not advised to move from the stage where he was giving a campaign speech, something Paul called “inexcusable, terrible security.”
Although little direct evidence exists as to why Crooks wanted to shoot Mr. Trump, who was the Republican presidential candidate at the time, documents reviewed by CBS News in May offered some insights into the gunman’s mind.
The documents included emails, personal essays and other academic records, which showed Crooks to be a conscientious and intelligent college student with an interest in engineering as well as a clear skepticism of the federal government and corporations.
In one essay, Crooks praised George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” widely considered a metaphor for western colonialism, as “a powerful allegory warning against adopting imperialistic policies.”
He wrote about Mr. Trump in his coursework at least once, criticizing a decision made during his first term in another essay that touched on the spread of nuclear weapons. Crooks also wrote at least once about former President Joe Biden, reviewing a 2021 opinion piece in the Washington Post, which he said persuasively argued against Biden’s position on free tuition for community college.
Cara Tabachnick and
contributed to this report.
Emily Mae Czachor is a news editor at CBSNews.com. She typically covers breaking news, extreme weather and issues involving social and criminal justice. Emily Mae previously wrote for outlets like the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
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