Free Republic

What happened: Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci won a prestigious journalism award this week for his iconic shot of President Donald Trump moments after he was nearly assassinated during a 2024 campaign rally in Butler, Pa. The unforgettable image, featuring Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents, his fist raised in defiance under a crane-mounted American flag as blood trickles down his cheek, was named Photo of the Year on Monday by the White House News Photographers Association. Crucial context: This is the same photo journalists denounced as "dangerous" propaganda, or "photoganda," in the days following the failed assassination attempt. Axios...

President Donald Trump may well have won his reelection effort in one fateful moment in Butler, Pennsylvania. It will doubtless prove to be one of those "remember where you were when..." moments, and his reaction to being grazed by an assassin's bullet, leaping back to his feet, shaking his fist and shouting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" was (as I've written repeatedly) probably the most powerful image in American politics since Ronald Reagan's Brandenburg Gate speech. As for the attempted assassin himself, he was quickly dispatched by law enforcement - and a lot of questions remain around him. Who was Thomas Crook?...

UFC President Dana White shared President Donald Trump’s defiant response after the UFC chief begged the then-candidate to quit politics following the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July. “Why are you doing this stuff? Stop,” White told Piers Morgan on a recent episode of Uncensored. “I told him to stop so many times. It’s just like, ‘You have such a good life, and you could do all these other things’. But the thing is, with President Trump is, he believes in God, and he’s very religious…He believes that, to his core, that God has spared his life...

‘I refuse to believe this was just a series of unfortunate accidents and incompetence,’ Davis said. ‘It’s just not.’ Federalist CEO Sean Davis dropped some stunning details about the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump’s life in a Friday conversation with Tucker Carlson on “The Tucker Carlson Show.” The conversation explored how, six months after the shooting, despite a congressional investigation, little is known — or has been released — about the shooter, and the incident quickly fell out of the news cycle. Davis began the interview by describing three critical things the American people need to know: the...

John Cullen 🐓 @I_Am_JohnCullen The mystery of the "UFO" at the Butler PA rally / Assassination attempt has been solved, thanks to @ChuckGrassley Secret Service DID have a Surveillance drone in the air, and it went operational at 5:20 pm. Did it fire at the shooter? Why didn't it spot the kid on the roof?

Most of the agents on former President Trump’s protective detail during his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13 were Homeland Security personnel who had little protective training, according to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Hawley told Fox News’ Jesse Watters Tuesday night that he had been informed by a whistleblower that the day Trump was almost assassinated, he was mostly guarded by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents who had only received a short and glitchy online training session before the rally. From a rooftop only 450 feet away, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks was able to fire eight rounds, hitting Trump in the...

Every day, more information comes out arguing against the government narrative that a “lone wolf” attack lies behind the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump. The Biden Administration’s feeble attempts through surrogates to deflect and deny have become standard and boring. The variations are endless but the content is the same: ∙ “I can’t comment at this time until we have more information.” ∙ “I can’t comment at this time until all the reports are in.” ∙ “I will have to get back to you on that.” ∙ “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.” Shortly after the shooting, a...

Thomas Crooks is the American Antifa. We now know he was groomed over five years in bomb-making lessons and then sniper training to go on to almost murder a President. How did the Science Scholarship Winner building chess sets for the blind become a bomb builder and a sniper for Antifa? Thomas Crooks wore the “Demolition Team” T-Shirt to the Trump Assassination. The FBI is currently hiding the Antifa involvement with the grooming of Crooks as a bomber and a sniper, and it seems even members of Congress are coming to that conclusion.

Whistleblower reveals Homeland Security Agents protecting Trump at Butler, PA rally were ONLY GIVEN A 2 HOUR ONLINE TRAINING, pulled from child exploitation cases and pushed to his protective detail.

The FBI has released the first photos of the AR-15 rifle that Thomas Matthew Crooks used in his attempt to kill former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania last month. The images show that Crooks — a 20-year-old gun nut — broke down the semi-automatic DPMS DR-15 rifle into two pieces and stowed it in a black SwissGear backpack as he made his way through the Butler, Pa. rally crowd. A closer look at the weapon reveals an approximately three-inch chunk missing from the gun’s buttstock, which could be where the police sniper’s bullet struck before the Secret Service sniper...

The Rutgers University professor who was under an internal review after posts she made on Facebook following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, writing “Let’s hope today’s events inspire others" will teach this fall. ... The Rutgers University professor who was under an internal review after posts she made on Facebook following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, writing “Let’s hope today’s events inspire others” will teach this coming fall. A source provided Campus Reform with screenshots of the Facebook posts, which were made by Rutgers University Writing Program Assistant Teaching Professor Tracy Budd in the...

In the video, police officers express anger at the Secret Service for ignoring their security recommendations. New body camera video reveals the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13 during a rally in Butler, PA.

Representative Clay Higgins is a member of the congressional investigative task force looking into the assassination attempt by Thomas Matthew Crooks against President Trump. Rep Higgins was also doing independent research prior to his appointment to the congressional committee, and he released his preliminary report findings today [SEE HERE pdf]. There are some remarkable revelations in the 6-page pdf. One detail outlines how it was a Butler County SWAT officer who fired the initial shot that stopped Matthew Crooks after 8 shots fired. The Feds did not initially stop the assassin, the locals did. Another detail highlights how the Butler...

A preliminary investigation report by Rep. Clay Higgins (LA-R) has revealed the body of Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks is gone. In Rep. Higgins’s report, he wrote that on August 5th, when he requested to view the body of Thomas Matthew Crooks, he was told the body of Crooks was “gone.” The representative from Louisiana further noted that the FBI released the body to be cremated just ten days after the shooting occurred on July 13. Higgins, in his preliminary report of the Trump rally shooting, wrote, “My effort to examine Crooks’ body on Monday, August 5, caused quite...

This photo was submitted to LEO in PA. To my knowledge, this photo has not been released until now.

Doug Mills joins me for an in depth discussion of the technical details surrounding his historic photo and an incredible life on the road with Presidents of the United States of America.

A whistleblower is claiming that the lead Secret Service agent in charge of Donald Trump's deadly Butler, Pennsylvania, rally was 'inexperienced' and 'failed to implement appropriate security protocols.' The complaint comes weeks after 20-year-old murderer Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump from a 'perfect location' in relatively close range to the former president as he spoke at the July 13 campaign rally. Crooks hit Trump, injuring him and two others, along with fatally wounding firefighter Corey Comperatore.

It has come to light that the Secret Service’s handling of urgent security information on the day of the attack on President Donald Trump was disastrously inadequate.According to The Washington Post, crucial messages about the imminent threat posed by Crooks were not properly relayed to the Secret Service, leading to a deadly game of telephone tag that ultimately failed to prevent the attack.On her show, Laura Ingraham highlighted the chaotic communication breakdowns that occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania. Local commanders were forced to use cell phones to call state troopers, who then relayed messages to the Secret Service, resulting in critical...

A series of bombshell text messages from countersnipers who were supposed to protect Donald Trump at the Pennsylvania rally where an assassin's bullet nearly killed the president showed them a step behind the gunman. Now, it appears a group chat of those meant to protect Trump were aware that gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was in their midst over 90 minutes before Trump was shot at, rather than an hour as the FBI had previously claimed. When one of the three countersnipers was about to call off at the end of their shift at around 4:26pm, they noticed a man...

BREAKING - FBI statement on Trump assassination attempt: "What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject’s rifle." https://x.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1816941651006525696