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President Donald Trump has instructed the U.S. Secret Service to provide him “every bit of information” known about the two assassination attempts made against him during the campaign cycle.
“I’m entitled to know,” the president told the New York Post in an exclusive interview on Friday.
“I want to find out about the two assassins,” he added. “Why did the one guy have six cell phones and why did the other guy have [foreign] apps?”
President Trump further stated that the Secret Service had been withholding this information under the previous orders of former President Joe Biden, adding that the department had “no excuses” to retain the information any longer.
“No more holding back because of Biden,” he continued. “I’m entitled to know. And they held it back long enough.”
During a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire from a rooftop, shooting the president in the ear, killing rally-goer Corey Comperatore, and injuring two other attendees.
Seconds after the shooting started, Crooks was shot dead by police. The would-be assassin’s phone was allegedly filled with encrypted messaging accounts for platforms based in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany, according to a report from the New York Times, leading officials to question these ties.
Two months after the Butler rally shooting, 59-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was caught by the U.S. Secret Service reportedly hiding with a rifle in the shrubbery around the perimeter of Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida waiting over 12 hours for the president, who was golfing, Fox News reported.
The Secret Service supposedly witnessed Routh pointing a rifle through a fence and opened fire at him before he ran off from the property. He was later caught and arrested the same day.