If it is true that, as reported at CNN, the United States Secret Service had Thomas Matthew Crooks on their radar as a potential threat THREE hours before he eventually took a number of shots at President Trump, there will be even more hell to pay than there already is. 

Secret Service spotted Thomas Crooks at Trump rally THREE HOURS before shooting https://t.co/Zlkfs92Ow5 pic.twitter.com/Ixe9MFz1rf

— Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) July 17, 2024

How could this possibly be?

Already, we know that the entire operation to protect Donald Trump at the rally was botched in many ways, but it boggles the mind that an assassin who came so close to being successful got so close to the former president after he had already been identified as a potential threat to the president. 

You know that photo of the would-be assassin that’s been circulating since Saturday?

It was taken by the Secret Service.

And yet somehow he was allowed to roam the complex, with a gun and a range finder, climb the roof of the closest and most obvious building with a clear shot… pic.twitter.com/SXdVU3SfQo

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 17, 2024

A threat to Trump was not an abstract, distant possibility. The Secret Service had already been warned that Iran was actively plotting to kill President Trump, supposedly triggering enhanced security measures that somehow didn't include securing an obvious site from which a sniper could take potshots at him. 

CNN — The shooter who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday normally would have been at work that day, but he told his boss he needed that the day off because he had “something to do,” according to multiple law enforcement officials.

Thomas Matthew Crooks told his coworkers he would be back to work on Sunday.

While investigators have not been able to identify a motive for Crooks’ attack at the rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, they are piecing together more of his activities.

By 3 p.m. on Saturday, roughly three hours before the shooting, Crooks was at the security screening area for the rally. He first aroused suspicion when he passed through the magnetometers carrying a rangefinder, which looks similar to a small pair of binoculars and is used by hunters and target shooters to measure distances when setting up a long-range shot, according to a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

A rangefinder by itself would be suspicious but is not inherently dangerous of course. One would have expected binoculars instead of a rangefinder, but people are weird and unpredictable. Still, it was suspicious enough that the Secret Service began keeping track of him. 

Until they didn't.

Investigators are unsure of where Crooks went after he left the screening area but the working theory is that he went to his car to retrieve the rifle.

Around the same time witnesses alerted police that Crooks was crawling on the roof of the American Glass Research building, one of the four counter-sniper teams observed Crooks looking at their position through the rangefinder, according to the senior law enforcement official.

“They were looking at him while he was looking at them,” the official said.

Crooks gained access to the rooftop by climbing on top of the building’s air conditioning system and hoisting himself up, according to a senior federal law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

My God. I'm sorry, but the level of incompetence will unsurprisingly bolster every conspiracy theory being floated. 

How could it not? We expect so much better from the Secret Service. Instead, we get the most gross incompetence imaginable. 

You know what sounds like a conspiracy theory?

That this 20 year old with zero bomb or special forces experience was able to build a bomb with a remote detonator, sneak a rifle past Secret Service, gain access to a rooftop across from the president and shoot him with ZERO help. pic.twitter.com/58L9XDw54Z

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) July 17, 2024

I am skeptical that the Secret Service was involved in any plot to kill the former president; it beggars belief that trained agents whose whole reason for being would be recruited to be involved--the risk of exposure prior to the shooting would be astronomical. And given the level of scrutiny that the Secret Service would get, it would be nearly impossible to ensure that nothing leaked. 

They wouldn’t want to put a Secret Service agent on a sloped roof. Because that would be a security concern.

So they secured it from the inside.

Which means that Secret Service was in the building from which a sniper was shooting the President from the unsecured sloped roof.… pic.twitter.com/xXlRthVV3E

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) July 17, 2024

And, as many have pointed out, if you are going to assassinate a high-profile target, you wouldn't pick Crooks in a million years to do it. 

But even given that, it's clear that the Service didn't just fail; it failed so spectacularly that many people involved will have to be fired and even investigated personally. 

BREAKING: Thomas Matthew Crooks' parents called law enforcement *before* the rally, telling them that their son was missing and they were "worried."

They knew something was up.

"[The parents] called law enforcement to report that Crooks was missing and they were… pic.twitter.com/N9dd7uHSwn

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 17, 2024

I am gobsmacked.