Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., a former Navy SEAL, on Thursday urged Donald Trump to ditch his return to Butler, Pennsylvania, for a rally on Oct. 5.
“Though I appreciate the former president’s courage and strong desire to rally his supporters, I strongly suggest that he and his campaign avoid this site on Oct. 5 and in the future,” Crane told members of the House bipartisan task force investigating the assassination attempt that took place July 13 in Butler, according to the New York Post.
“My suggestion to the former president and to his campaign is that he beef up his private security details with individuals who are loyal to him and not burdened by the bureaucracy and culture of an organization that many of us used to hold in high esteem.”
Trump’s campaign on Wednesday said the Republican presidential nominee plans to return to Butler “to hold a rally on the very same ground where he came within a quarter of an inch of losing his life less than three months ago.”
A bipartisan Senate investigation released a report Wednesday that found multiple Secret Service failures ahead of the July 13 rally were “foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.”
Similar to the agency’s own internal investigation and the ongoing bipartisan House task force’s investigation, the interim report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee found multiple failures on almost every level ahead of the Butler rally, including in planning, communications, security and allocation of resources.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to climb atop a building about 130 yards away from where Trump was speaking and fired a shot that hit Trump in the right ear. Crooks killed a spectator and seriously injured two others before a Secret Service sniper gunned him down.
