A SWAT sniper who worked the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated last month agreed with Republican lawmakers Monday that a “strange” pattern of evidence handling took place after the deadly shooting.
Ben Shaffer, the Washington Regional SWAT sniper, said it was “absolutely” concerning that the roof of the AGR International building was quickly cleared and the body of shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was disposed of before an official autopsy report could be released.
Five House Republicans — Reps. Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, and Chip Roy of Texas — hosted the roundtable with Shaffer and other witnesses at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
“Don’t you find it odd that just days after the attempted assassination of President Donald J. Trump, while the roof was too steep to accommodate individuals for anti-sniper operations, it wasn’t too steep for the FBI to, in my view, tamper with evidence by washing the roof that could have contained important evidence?” Mills asked Shaffer, referring to the chain of events that followed the July 13 shooting at the Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign event that left one audience member dead and three others injured, including Trump.
“Yes, I do,” Shaffer replied.
“Do you not also find it strange… that the body of Matthew Crooks was not only released and cremated, but that the coroner responsible for the release of the body had no knowledge of it?” Mills insisted.
“Yes, absolutely,” Shaffer said.
“It looks like destruction of evidence,” responded Erik Prince, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who founded the private military contractor Blackwater in the late 1990s.
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned after her disastrous testimony before Congress following the impending assassination of the 45th president, said in her first interview since the attack that counter-sniper teams were not deployed to the AGR International building where Crooks later perched because of the “sloping roof.”
Mills also accused the FBI of lacking transparency regarding Crooks’ alleged “online” research into explosives and encrypted email accounts overseas.
Earlier, Shaffer had told Biggs that seeing Crooks walking around the Butler Farm Show grounds with a rangefinder should have elevated him from a “suspicious person” to a “person of interest” in the eyes of law enforcement.
“That would justify some form of pretrial detention or interrogation,” he said.
Crooks was first photographed by local snipers at 5:10 p.m. and observed with the rangefinder “shortly after 5:38 p.m.,” according to Shaffer — 33 minutes before he targeted Trump at 6:11 p.m.
The gunman fired eight shots, hitting Trump in the right ear and killing rally-goer Corey Comperatore, 50, and seriously wounding David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74.
Counter-sniper teams fired two shots in response, but it is unclear whether one or both shots killed Crooks, Shaffer noted in his testimony.
The 20-year-old shooter’s death was ruled a “homicide” by “gunshot wound to the head,” according to an Aug. 2 report from Butler County Coroner William Young.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a former police officer and member of the House task force investigating the Butler shooting, revealed in a preliminary investigation report to panel Chairman Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) that “the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after” the attack.
Crooks’ motives remain a mystery to many lawmakers in the House and Senate — including Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), another member of the task force whose members traveled to Butler on Monday to examine the rally scene.
At one point, lawmakers were spotted on the roof of the building where Crooks took his position, about 150 feet from the stage where Trump was speaking.
Waltz said last week that FBI information revealed Crooks was using email accounts on platforms located in Belgium, Germany and New Zealand.
“Why does a 19-year-old who is a healthcare worker need encrypted platforms that are not even based in the United States, but overseas — where most terrorist organizations know it is harder for our law enforcement to access them?” Waltz said at a news conference last week.
“How did he learn to make these IEDs? How did he learn to set up remote detonators? How did he conduct this research without getting attacked?” he told the Post the next day. “I still have a lot of questions.”
“We’ve heard the Secret Service and the FBI put it in different ways: whatever they saw [points to] “He acted alone and they haven’t found a co-conspirator yet,” Waltz added. “I have a hard time believing that, and I want to see, where is the evidence?”
“Any suggestion that the FBI is interfering with Congress’ efforts to investigate the attempted assassination that took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, is inaccurate and unfounded,” the FBI said in a statement Monday night. “The FBI worked closely with our law enforcement partners to conduct a thorough investigation into the shooting, and we followed standard procedures in handling the crime scene and evidence.”
“The FBI continues to work diligently on the investigation to develop as complete a picture as possible of what led to the shooting, and we remain committed to maximum transparency as we continue to share information with Congress, including participating in public hearings and conducting multiple direct briefings and releasing information to the public regarding the ongoing investigation.
“The crime scene was released to the property owners in stages as we completed our work in the AGR building, surrounding area, and on the Butler Farm Show grounds. Nothing was rushed and everything was documented as part of the investigation,” the statement added. “The FBI organized the cleanup of the scene where the shooter died, which is consistent with standard procedures. The shooter’s body was released to his family after coordination with the coroner’s office and our state and local law enforcement partners. This is also consistent with standard procedures.”
The Butler County coroner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
