by Grant Baker, American Thinker:
Prior to their respective assassination attempts targeting Trump, Ryan Routh and Thomas Crooks had extraordinary proximity to U.S. Intelligence, demonstrated foreknowledge of Trump’s schedule and security, and acquired skills that intelligence agencies have a history of sharing with assets.
Routh and Crooks had forehand knowledge of security, other federal intelligence
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Routh staked out Trump’s golf club for twelve hours, lying in wait behind bushes to ambush him during an unscheduled game of golf. Unfamiliar with the locale, Routh managed to give security the slip, bringing an AK-47-style rifle onto Trump’s golf course. Routh managed to give a U.S. Secret Service agent the slip again after being fired upon, losing his pursuer despite initially being only ten feet away from the agent (whose gunfire somehow missed Routh), escaping in his vehicle only to be caught later thanks to a witness who snapped a picture of his license plate. For the second time, it was not the Secret Service, but locals who caught the gunman.
Crooks’s plan also suggests that he was tipped off, specifically regarding the AGR building he would make his sniper nest. Cell phone data put Crooks near the Butler fairgrounds on July 7 for 20 minutes — likely recon on AGR. Crooks scoped out AGR for 70 minutes on July 13 at 11 A.M. He went home to buy a ladder and ammunition and to retrieve his gun. Crooks returned at 3:45 to the AGR building, carrying the ladder receipt in his pocket but lacking the ladder. Crooks clearly planned to scale the roof with the ladder, but the fact that he left it suggests that he had learned the local snipers’ positions at AGR and would have no trouble secretly scaling the roof using an unguarded roof access point.
Another slice of security Swiss cheese serendipitously set up for Crooks was surveillance. After returning to AGR, Crooks flew a surveillance drone at 3:51 P.M., overlapping the USSS scheduled deployment of a “counter unmanned aerial system operator” at 3 P.M. Crooks would have been immediately caught, but the system did not go operational until 5:20 P.M. due to “cellular bandwidth problems” — problems not experienced by Crooks.
USSS was told that local officials were leaving their posts to look for Crooks, but it is unclear if they specifically knew when Butler ESU left AGR 6 overwatch from their second-story window. Crooks timed his move to rooftop AGR 6 perfectly to avoid Butler ESU. It is still unknown if anyone ordered Butler ESU to leave their post to look for Crooks. Was this information passed to Crooks?
Crooks knew from the start where to position himself, but how? He was on the eastern side of AGR 6, lying prone and out of view from Hercules 1 and 2 thanks to a tree and the sloped roof. Had local officers not flushed him westward from behind a tree, Hercules 1 would not have had a shot.
Crooks’s plan depended on a flawed USSS threat protocol, which failed to designate him as an active threat until seen with a weapon. Carrying an unassembled weapon hidden in a large backpack, Crooks openly traversed rooftops on AGR 6 and 7, traveling west to east in full view of Hercules snipers, President Trump, and even audience members. He ran to his position out of sight and assembled the gun from his backpack. How did Crooks learn and take advantage of this threat protocol?
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