America just learned the Secret Service missed 102 police radio warnings about Trump’s would‑be assassin, and still never told his protective detail a “suspicious person” was closing in.
Story Snapshot
- A Department of Homeland Security watchdog says the Secret Service missed 102 local radio calls about gunman Thomas Crooks before the 2024 Butler shooting.
- Agents received only five phone calls and three text messages instead, and never warned Trump’s detail about a suspicious person near the rally.
- The agency failed to set up a joint communications room with local police, leaving critical information trapped on local radios.
- A counter‑drone system was down and manned by a single under‑trained operator, letting Crooks fly a drone over the area hours before the attack.
Watchdog Report Exposes Stunning Security Breakdowns
The Department of Homeland Security inspector general now confirms what many patriots feared: the United States Secret Service did not receive 102 local radio transmissions about the gunman who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally on July 13, 2024. Local officers were calling out a suspicious person later identified as Thomas Crooks, but federal agents never heard those calls. That silence left Trump’s team blind to a growing threat until bullets were flying.
The watchdog explains why those warnings never reached Trump’s protectors: the Secret Service failed to set up a joint communications room with local law enforcement for the event. Police on the ground were talking to each other on their own radios as they searched for Crooks, yet there was no shared command center linking their traffic directly to Trump’s detail. Instead, agents relied on scattered messages passed through intermediaries, an approach that broke down exactly when it mattered most.
Only Eight Messages Reached Agents While 102 Warnings Went Unheard
The report states that, in place of the 102 missed radio calls, the Secret Service received only five phone calls and three text messages mentioning Crooks. That trickle of information was nowhere near enough to paint a clear picture of the danger. As a direct result, Secret Service members did not alert President Trump’s protective detail about concerns over a suspicious person near the rally site. Those agents, whose job is to anticipate threats, were instead left reacting to gunfire from an unsecured rooftop.
CNN reporting backs up this picture of communication chaos, describing how local officers had even set aside radios intended for Secret Service counterparts before the event, but those radios were never picked up. Just minutes before shots were fired, local police reported a man on a nearby rooftop, yet that vital warning never reached federal snipers. This is not a single missed call; it is a full‑scale breakdown of basic coordination between local patriots and the very agency tasked with guarding the president.
Dead Counter‑Drone System and Deeper System Failures
The inspector general also found that Crooks flew a drone over the rally area hours before the shooting, and the Secret Service never detected it because their counter‑drone system was inoperable. That system was staffed by a single under‑trained operator who did not test it before the event. In plain language, a key high‑tech defense tool was left idle on the day a sitting president faced an assassination attempt, while an attacker freely gathered overhead surveillance.
Other investigations match this pattern of failure. A Mission Assurance inquiry inside the Secret Service documented major problems in communication, command and control, and coordination with outside agencies during the Butler event. A bipartisan Senate report concluded agents chose not to retrieve radios from local and state officers, sharply limiting coordination at the worst possible moment. Taken together, these findings show a system failure, not just a bad day: threat information sat in silos while the commander‑in‑chief stood exposed.
Why This Matters for Patriots and the Rule of Law
For conservatives who respect law enforcement and the Constitution, these facts raise hard questions about accountability. Multiple reports say senior Secret Service officials received classified threat intelligence about Trump’s safety days before Butler, yet there was no reliable process to share that information with local partners. Then, when local officers were frantically calling out a suspicious man near the rally, their warnings died on radios federal agents never heard. That is not how a serious nation treats the security of its elected leaders.
🚨Two years ago today, Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at Trump’s Butler rally. He was a registered Republican whose neighbor Kelly Little told WTAE there were “MAGA-supporting signs” in his family’s yard “for a while.” Classmate Max Smith told the Philadelphia Inquirer that in… pic.twitter.com/2kFOadnqdd
— Reich-Wing Watch (@ReichWingWatch) July 13, 2026
Bipartisan Senate findings note that despite these failures, the agency fired no one over Butler and formally disciplined only a handful of personnel, some with reduced punishment. Meanwhile, groups like Judicial Watch say the Secret Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation are still withholding key records two years later, limiting the public’s ability to see exactly what went wrong. Americans who believe in limited, accountable government are right to insist on full transparency and real reforms, so that no president—Republican or Democrat—is ever left this vulnerable again.
Sources:
townhall.com, ap.org, nytimes.com, hsgac.senate.gov, pbs.org, secretservice.gov
