Questions Grow After Butler Shooting Report

Security personnel with earpiece at event

A newly revealed detail that a Secret Service agent was reportedly Googling the rooftop where Trump’s shooter stood, even as shots rang out in Butler, Pennsylvania, is reigniting deep public concern that federal security agencies missed obvious warning signs and are still hiding what really happened.

Story Snapshot

FBI files and a congressional report show officers flagged a “suspicious male” well before the Trump shooting.
A Department of Homeland Security review says a Secret Service member searched the rooftop location online as the attack began.
Judicial Watch and other watchdogs accuse the FBI and Secret Service of redactions and stonewalling, while officials call some claims false or “clickbait.”
Only a tiny fraction of roughly 75,000 FBI pages on shooter Thomas Crooks has been released, fueling bipartisan frustration over government secrecy.

What The New DHS Review Says About Secret Service Actions

A recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) review into the Butler attack states that a Secret Service team member was actively searching online for the rooftop location where Thomas Crooks fired on Donald Trump at almost the same time shots were being fired. The report describes an agent using a web search to pinpoint the roof of the American Glass Research complex as radio traffic about a suspicious man intensified. This detail suggests agents were still trying to figure out basic geography even as the threat turned into an active attack, deepening questions about preparation and training.

The DHS review fits into a broader picture of confusion and delay among those tasked with protecting Trump that day. According to the final report from the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, three local law enforcement officers separately noticed Crooks acting suspiciously around 5:00 p.m., well before he pulled the trigger. Over roughly 13 minutes, between 5:38 and 5:51 p.m., a stream of calls and messages about Crooks’ movements reached the Secret Service. Yet the Task Force found only one Secret Service agent who testified to hearing radio transmissions about Crooks before the shooting actually started, underscoring serious breakdowns in communication.

Early Warnings, Radio Traffic, And A “Suspicious Male”

FBI witness interviews released in a batch of 37 pages add more detail to those early warnings. One Butler operator told investigators that “several operators were communicating information about the unknown male back and forth over the radio – including to/from Command, to the Secret Service, to the Pennsylvania State Police, to everybody,” and that this unknown man “ultimately ended up being the shooter.” That account lines up with the Task Force timeline showing officers tracking a suspicious figure and passing his description up the chain, but it clashes with the limited Secret Service testimony about who actually heard those alerts.

These files also show the FBI is slowly releasing information in small, redacted batches. The 37 pages recently made public are the first meaningful release since the FBI concluded its criminal investigation in late 2025. Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick and other Republicans say they are “not satisfied” with what has been shared so far. Their concern is simple and widely shared: if officers spotted Crooks, if radio traffic reached “everybody,” and if a Secret Service agent was Googling the shooter’s rooftop in real time, how did security still fail to stop an attack on a former president at a campaign rally?

Judicial Watch, Redacted Files, And The Remote Device

Watchdog group Judicial Watch used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain 48 heavily redacted pages of FBI documents about the Butler attack. The group says those pages reference a “gray remote device” with an antenna recovered from Crooks’ pocket by a local Special Weapons and Tactics officer. That point matches earlier public reporting that a remote transmitter was found on Crooks, but the FBI has not yet released full forensic analysis of the device, its range, or whether it was tied to the explosives later found at Crooks’ home and in his car.

Judicial Watch first claimed that Crooks exchanged emails with a Butler County deputy before the attack, sparking viral anger online. After local reporting and a statement from Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones, the group walked that charge back. The FBI and Sheriff Jones said the emails were between Crooks and college instructors about coursework, and Jones called the deputy-email claim “completely false,” noting the deputy in question was not even sworn in until 2025, after the shooting. The episode shows how fast redacted records can be misread—and how quickly mistrust grows when federal agencies refuse to share fuller context.

FBI’s Private Briefing To Trump And Ongoing Secrecy

In a private meeting with Trump, FBI agents said they accessed three foreign email accounts used by Crooks and found no signs of anyone else directing or helping him. They told Trump that officers first saw a person on the roof about three minutes before Crooks opened fire, and that they identified his rifle roughly thirty seconds before he began shooting. This account backs the official conclusion that Crooks acted alone, but it also confirms how narrow the window was between recognizing the rooftop threat and the actual gunfire.

FBI Rapid Response staff later pushed back on popular claims that the Bureau had insisted Crooks left “no online footprint,” saying on social media, “This FBI has never claimed that Thomas Crooks had no online footprint. Ever.” Even so, lawmakers and commentators point to a much larger issue: the FBI reportedly holds about 75,000 pages of records on Crooks, yet has so far released only a few dozen pages at a time, with heavy blacked-out sections. That pattern echoes past assassination files on Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, where agencies delayed or redacted records for decades and fueled suspicions across the political spectrum.

Why This Fuels Shared Anger At “The System”

For many Americans—conservative and liberal—the Butler case hits several nerve points at once. A president who ran on draining the swamp was nearly killed at a campaign rally. Local officers saw a suspicious man, and radio traffic reached “everybody,” yet the shooting still happened and innocent people died. A DHS review now says a Secret Service member was Googling the shooter’s rooftop as bullets flew, which sounds to many like a picture of an unprepared, overly bureaucratic security operation.

At the same time, the FBI controls tens of thousands of pages on the case and is releasing only fragments, while telling the public to trust its conclusion that Crooks acted alone. Judicial Watch and other watchdogs accuse the Bureau and the Secret Service of hiding key facts behind redactions, and federal officials respond by calling some outside claims “clickbait” and “false.” Whether one leans right or left, this back-and-forth looks familiar: powerful agencies guard information, ordinary citizens see gaps and contradictions, and trust in the federal government falls even further. Until the FBI and Secret Service provide a fuller record—especially on that rooftop search, the radio alerts, and the remote device—many Americans will see Butler not as a closed case, but as another symbol of a system that protects itself first and the public second.