By Josh Christenson – New York Post
A SWAT counter-sniper who was working the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated last month agreed with Republican lawmakers Monday that an “odd” pattern of evidence-handling had occurred following the deadly shooting.
Washington Regional SWAT counter-sniper Ben Shaffer said it was “absolutely” concerning that the roof of the AGR International building had been quickly scrubbed and gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’ body disposed of before an official autopsy report could be released.
Five House Republicans — Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas — hosted the panel discussion with Shaffer and other witnesses at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Do you find it odd that literally only days after the attempted assassination on President Donald J. Trump, while the roof was too sloped to place individuals for counter-sniper operations, that it wasn’t too sloped of a roof for the FBI to go ahead and tamper, in my opinion, with evidence by washing the roof off that may have had significant evidence on it?” Mills asked Shaffer, referring to the chain of events following the July 13 shooting at the Butler, Pa., campaign event which left one audience member dead and three others, including Trump, injured.
“Yes, absolutely,” Shaffer said.
“It sounds like destruction of evidence,” replied Erik Prince, a former US Navy SEAL who founded the private military contractor Blackwater in the late 1990s.
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned over her disastrous testimony to Congress in the wake of the near-assassination of the 45th president, infamously said in her first interview since the attack that counter-sniper teams had not been placed on the AGR International building where Crooks later perched because of the “sloped roof.”
Mills also accused the FBI of a lack of transparency about Crooks’ purported “online” research into explosives and encrypted overseas messaging accounts.
Earlier, Shaffer told Biggs that Crooks being seen walking the grounds of the Butler Farm Show with a rangefinder scope should have elevated him from a “suspicious person” to a “person of interest” in law enforcement’s eyes.
“That would warrant some type of either investigatory detention or stop-and-question,” he said.
Crooks was first photographed by local counter-snipers at 5:10 p.m. and observed with the rangefinder “shortly after 5:38 p.m.,” according to Shaffer — 33 minutes before he targeted Trump at 6:11 p.m.
The gunman fired eight shots, striking Trump in the right ear and killing rallygoer Corey Comperatore, 50, and critically wounding David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74.
Counter-sniper teams fired two shots in response, but it is unknown whether just one of those shots or both killed Crooks, Shaffer noted in his testimony.
The 20-year-old shooter’s death was ruled a “homicide” by a “gunshot wound to the head,” according to an Aug. 2 report by Butler County Coroner William Young.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a former police officer and member of the House select task force probing the Butler shooting, revealed in a preliminary investigative report to the panel’s chairman, Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), that “the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after” the attack.
Crooks’ motivations remain a mystery for many lawmakers in the House and Senate — including Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), another member of the select task force whose members traveled to Butler on Monday to examine the rally scene.
At one point, lawmakers were spotted on the roof of the building where Crooks took up his position, about 150 feet from the stage where Trump was speaking.
Waltz said last week that FBI briefings had revealed Crooks’ use of messaging accounts on platforms located in Belgium, Germany and New Zealand.
“Why does a 19-year-old kid who is a health care aide need encrypted platforms not even based in the United States, but based abroad — where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to get into?” Waltz said at a press conference last week.
“How did he learn to build those IEDs? How did he learn to install remote detonators? How did he conduct those searches and not get popped?” he told The Post the following day. “I still have a lot of questions.”
“We’ve heard both the Secret Service and the FBI kind of phrase it in different ways — that everything they’ve seen [points to] he acted alone and that they have yet to find any co-conspirator,” Waltz added. “I find that hard to believe, and I want to see, where’s the proof?”
“Any suggestion the FBI is interfering with congressional efforts to look into the attempted assassination which took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, is inaccurate and unfounded,” the bureau said in a statement Monday evening. “The FBI has been working closely with our law enforcement partners to conduct a thorough investigation into the shooting, and we have followed normal procedures in the handling of the crime scene and evidence.
“The FBI continues its painstaking work on the investigation to develop as complete a picture as possible of what led to the shooting, and we remain committed to maximum transparency as we continue to share information with Congress, which includes participating in open hearings and conducting multiple direct briefings and publish information for the public regarding the ongoing investigation.
“The crime scene was released to the property owners in phases as we completed our work at the AGR building, its surroundings, and at the Butler Farm Show grounds. Nothing was rushed and everything was documented as part of the investigation,” the statement added. “The FBI arranged for the cleaning of the location where the perpetrator died, which is in keeping with normal procedures. The shooter’s body was released to his family after coordination with the coroner’s office and our state and local law enforcement partners. This is also in keeping with normal procedures.”
The Butler County Coroner’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.