Higgins is convinced that Crooks, a loner who would sit by himself during school lunch and was a constant victim of bullying in school, acted alone.


and procedural breakdowns that came so close to causing the as- sassination of a former president and major-party presidential nominee on live national TV. When Kimberly Cheatle,


then director of the Secret Ser- vice, was asked why her agency hadn’t positioned personnel on an AGR roof that was only about a football field, from end zone to end zone, away from Trump’s podium, she told ABC News: “That building, in particular,


has a sloped roof at its high- est point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a roof.” But during Cheatle’s July 22


testimony to the House Over- sight Committee, Rep. Pat Fal- lon, R-Texas, disclosed that the roof of the structure where the Secret Service had placed its counter-sniper team had a slope nearly three times as steep as that of the AGR roof. Bestselling author Ronald


Kessler, who’s penned two books that probe into the hidden realm of the Secret Service, calls Chea- tle’s testimony on sniper place-


ment an “outrageous falsehood.” “How,” a fuming Fallon asked


Cheatle, “did a 20-year-old loner with a week’s notice pick the ab- solute best location to assassinate President Trump — when the en- tire Secret Service missed it?” Before Cheatle could even


muster a reply, Fallon declared: “Director Cheatle, under your leadership, your agency got out- smarted and outmaneuvered by a 20-year-old.” Cheatle resigned the next day. Since then, several other


startling facts have emerged concerning the agency’s failure to protect Trump. It turns out the Butler event was the first Trump rally in the 2024 cycle equipped with a Secret Service counter-sniper team. Always before, that was left to local po- lice SWAT teams. A Secret Service spokesper-


son confirmed the lack of sniper coverage prior to Butler to News- max, simply stating, “That infor- mation is correct.” The decision to provide two


Secret Service counter-sniper teams in Butler stemmed from intelligence received of a specific threat to Trump from “a state ac- tor” — specifically Iran, whose ayatollah had pledged revenge for the 2020 operation under Trump that took out Iranian Revolutionary Guard master- mind Qassem Soleimani. No Iranian link to the at-


tempted assassination in But- ler has ever been uncovered, however.


MENTAL HEALTH DECLINE? Higgins is convinced that Crooks, a loner who would sit by himself during school lunch and was a constant victim of bullying in school, acted alone. Crooks’ father reportedly told


investigators that his son had shown signs of declining mental health in the months leading up to the attempted assassination. Unlike other would-be assassins, Crooks had never come under FBI scrutiny, nor did he post


LONE GUNMAN Thomas Matthew Crooks, who grew up in a modest ranch house, planned the events of July 13 that led to him being killed by a Secret Service sniper on his own, says Rep. Clay Higgins. “I’m confident of that.”


60 NEWSMAX | JULY 2025


HOUSE/KYLE MAZZA/ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES


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