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    Trump Assassination Attempt 911 Calls Released

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0

    Months after a 20-year-old gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Butler County officials have released 911 calls from that day.

    One redacted call came from the wife of a 74-year-old shooting victim from Moon Township, telling police her husband was shot at the rally, but she does not know what hospital he was transported to. James Copenhaver, a 74-year-old man from Moon Township, was shot and critically wounded at the rally.

    “Paramedics serviced him. I called Butler Hospital. He’s not there. They told me to call 911,” the woman can be heard telling a dispatcher.

    The dispatcher tells her to stay on the line and not hang up.

    “I won’t,” she says.

    Other 911 calls released by Butler County give more insight into the moment gunman Thomas Crooks fired approximately eight times, nicking Trump in the ear, killing Corey Comperatore, and injuring Copenhaver and another man named David Dutch.

    “We’re at the Butler Farm Show. We need assistance now,” says another.

    “We’re at the Trump assembly, and there’s a guy shooting,” another caller can be heard telling dispatchers.

    Listen to the chilling audio below:

    The calls reveal a chaotic scene after shots rang out at the rally, with attendees unaware whether the shooter was an active threat to those attending the event.

    Investigation revealed that Crooks had accessed the roof of a nearby building by climbing HVAC equipment and piping on the side of the building, which was outside the official perimeters of the rally but less than 200 yards from where Trump was speaking on stage.

    A local officer with Butler County identified where the shots were coming from, located the shooter, and fired one round at Crooks with his rifle, “which caused the shooter to recoil and briefly fall out of sight,” Adams Township Police Department Sgt. Edward Lenz testified in September.

    A Secret Service counter sniper then fired the fatal shot that neutralized Crooks on the roof of the AGR building, where he was perched with a direct line of sight to Trump.

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    Report: Appeals Court Upholds Jan. 6 Trespassing Misdemeanor

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    On Tuesday, a federal appeals court upheld a Jan. 6 rioter’s misdemeanor trespassing conviction in connection with the 2021 Capitol riot.

    Couy Griffin, a founder of “Cowboys for Trump” and former New Mexico county commissioner, challenged his 2022 conviction for entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

    The law bars “knowingly” entering a restricted zone, described as areas “posted, cordoned off or otherwise restricted,” and later defines “otherwise restricted” as an area where Secret Service protectees will be visiting.

    According to The Hill, Griffin claimed that he could not have “knowingly entered” the restricted zone without knowing the reason for the restriction was to safeguard a person under the Secret Service’s protection — on Jan. 6, then-Vice President Pence during his time at the Capitol.

    A District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed 2-1 that breaching a restricted area alone suffices as a violation of the law, even without knowing why the restriction is in place.

    “A contrary interpretation would impair the Secret Service’s ability to protect its charges,” Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote in the majority opinion. “It would require Secret Service agents preventing members of the public from encroaching on a temporary security zone to confirm that each intruder knows that a person under Secret Service protection is or is expected to be there. Neither the text nor the context of the statute supports that reading.”

    Griffin also argued that many of the rioters ahead of him trampled fencing and signage that would have designated restricted areas, but the panel held that Capitol grounds were “adequately ‘posted, cordoned off or otherwise restricted’ when Griffin clambered over a stone wall and jumped inside.’”

    Judge Gregory Katsas wrote in a dissenting opinion that both elements of the law — knowledge of an area being restricted and the reason why — must be satisfied to successfully convict for entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

    “My colleagues try to split the difference,” Katsas wrote. “They agree the defendant must know that the relevant area satisfies the first part of the statutory definition — i.e., that the area was ‘posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted’ at the time of the trespass. But there is no textual or contextual basis for projecting the knowledge requirement only halfway through the definition.”

    A decision in favor of Griffin could have upended the cases against hundreds of fellow rioters facing the same charge.

    More than 1,400 Jan. 6 rioters faced the count as a misdemeanor.

    This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

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    Panel Reports Another Assassination Attempt ‘Likely’

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0

    An independent panel investigating the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump released its findings this week.

    The report which was released to the public on Thursday predicted that without significant reform measures, another potshot assassination attempt like the one on former President Donald Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania earlier this year “can and will happen again.”

    According to the panel, its investigation revealed “deep flaws in the Secret Service, including some that appear to be systemic or cultural,” including: “a lack of clarity, in practice, regarding who has overall security ownership of a protectee’s site on the day of an event,” and “a troubling lack of critical thinking by Secret Service personnel,” among other issues.

    24_1017_opa-Independent-Review-Panel-Final-Report-and-Accompanying-MaterialsDownload

    In a letter presenting their findings to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the panel wrote, “The United States Secret Service aspires to be the best protective service of high-ranking government officials in the world. This is a zero-fail mission, for any failure endangers not only the life of the protectee, but also the fundamentals of our government itself. Today, however, the Secret Service does not perform at the elite levels needed to discharge its critical mission. The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved.”

    “Thousands of men and women have dedicated their lives to the Secret Service, and we remain grateful to them for their bravery, selflessness, and willingness to serve in a vital role,” they continued. “But the Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission. Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again.”

    Report: Journalist Says FBI Visited After He Published Hacked Vance Document

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    0

    Independent journalist Ken Klippenstain said that the FBI came to his home after publishing a report on Republica vice presidential nominee JD Vance using materials allegedly obtained through an Iranian hack.

    “The Bureau told me that I had been the target of a foreign influence operation with regard to a news article I had written, a clear reference to my publication of the JD Vance Dossier,” journalist Ken Klippenstein wrote on his Substack page of the visit the FBI paid to his Madison, Wis. home.

    Klippenstein did not say exactly when the FBI visited him but noted the agent he spoke with came with “no subpoena, no search warrant, no prior announcement, no claim of illegality.”

    “America’s most powerful law enforcement agency wants me to know that it was displeased. It is delivering what many would consider a chilling message: we know where you live, we know what you’ve done, we are watching,” he wrote. “This is how out of control the disinformation and foreign influence hysteria has become.”

    Klippenstein’s most recent Substack post comes just days after the journalist was briefly suspended from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter after he published a 271-page report compiled by the Trump campaign to vet Vance, the Ohio senator and Trump’s running mate.

    X said at the time that the dossier contained “unredacted private personal information” about Vance, and that Kippenstein’s post justified a suspension of his account.

    “I knew and acknowledged in the story that it had probably come from Tehran. This placed me at odds with the entirety of major media, which in an extraordinary act of self-censorship declined to publish the dossier,” Klippenstein wrote this week. “The FBI and the federal government has now successfully enlisted the mainstream news media into being some kind of adjunct national security agency. That is the major threat to our democracy. Not some foreign government’s hijinks.”

    President Trump is the only one who stood up for working families, and the DC elite want him destroyed. Kamala is raising over $1 Billion to crush his campaign. Will you chip in $3 before the day ends? — JD Vance

    Iranian Plot Against Trump, Officials More Serious Than Previously Reported

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    4
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Trump is facing serious threats…

    U.S. officials have warned more than a half dozen former national security officials from the Trump administration that Iran’s assassination threats against them are serious and likely to continue for the foreseeable future as tensions reach fever pitch.

    The threats, including the ones against former President Donald Trump, stem from the administration authorizing the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

    A new report from Politico revealed that the plots against the officials are “even more extensive and aggressive than previously reported,” according to interviews with a dozen officials about the threats.

    “This is extraordinarily serious,” said Matt Olsen, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security. “Iran has made it very clear that they are determined to seek retaliation against former officials in connection with the Soleimani strike.”

    A former senior Trump administration said that the threats they are facing are “historic” as the U.S. has “never had former senior national security officials,” including cabinet members, face serious threats on their life from a foreign adversary.

    The threat against Trump’s life is so serious that he has not played golf — his favorite pastime — in a month and will not do so until after the election because federal officials are not able to secure courses to the extent needed to guarantee his safety.

    Trump’s motorcade is now being broken up at random times as a precaution and he has started traveling on “nondescript planes that do not have his name on the side instead of his longtime 757 jet.”

    Trump is now requesting military assets to guard and transport him.

    At least seven former Trump officials receive 24/7 protection from the U.S. government, which can include up to six officers at a time.

    Six of the seven are top former officials who were directly involved with the operation going after Soleimani,  including Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense; Mark Milley, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Paul Nakasone, head of NSA and U.S. Cyber Command; Kenneth McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command; Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State; and Brian Hook, the State Department’s Special Representative for Iran.

    Report: Senator Accuses Secret Service Of Hiding Information To Ensure Trump’s Safety

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    1

    Is the Secret Service hiding something?

    Sen. Josh Hawley sent letters to U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leaders on Wednesday detailing a new whistleblower claim that Secret Service leadership is trying to hide the level of protection given to former President Donald Trump.

    The letter to USSS Director Ronald Rowe and DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari alleges a whistleblower’s claims that government auditors are being denied access to certain Trump campaign events in an effort to hide these apparent protection shortfalls for the former president.

    “You of course have publicly stated that former President Trump is receiving ‘the highest level of Secret Service protection’ and that ‘he’s getting everything.’ This new whistleblower information troublingly contradicts your public statements,” Hawley wrote in his letter to Rowe.

    In his letter to Cuffari, Hawley said the new whistleblower allegations say “Secret Service headquarters blocked several of your auditors from accessing recent Trump campaign events.”

    “The Secret Service whistleblower alleges that the denial was in order to hide the fact that the former president is not receiving a consistent level of protective assets for all of his engagements,” Hawley wrote. “[Y]ou should be aware of these allegations, which indicate that the Secret Service is not in fact cooperating with your auditors and is instead painting a false picture.”

    Since the July 13 assassination attempt against the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania, Hawley has been collecting whistleblower claims to expose potential USSS deficits and errors.

    Hawley released a wide-ranging whistleblower report detailing various allegations against the agency.

    Hawley found a “compounding pattern of negligence, sloppiness, and gross incompetence that goes back years, all of which culminated in an assassination attempt that came inches from succeeding,” the report read.

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    © Great America News Desk 2022