The director of the United States Secret Service on Monday confirmed that the agency was alerted several times about a “suspicious individual” prior to a suspected gunman shooting Donald Trump at a rally earlier this month.
“How many times was the Secret Service alerted about a suspicious person at the July 13 campaign event prior to the first shot being shot?” Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat, asked Kimberly Cheatle at a House Oversight Committee hearing.
"From what I've been able to discern, somewhere between two and five times there was some sort of communication about a suspicious individual,” Cheatle said.
Law enforcement officials last week reportedly admitted that Secret Service snipers first spotted the suspected gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, on the roof of a building 20 minutes before he shot at Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Cheatle, who was grilled by members of Congress from both sides of the aisle during the hearing Monday, said the assassination attempt was “most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades” and took full responsibility for the lapses in security.
