Davis Details Trump Assassination Attempt In Interview With Tucker

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 shooter’s background and motivations, how government agencies allowed the attempt to take place, and what happened to the people responsible for the security failures.

“I refuse to believe this was just a series of unfortunate accidents and incompetence,” Davis said after outlining a number of explanations for how the attempt took place. “It’s just not.”

Trump was shot in the ear by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who stood on the roof of a building outside the secure area of the Trump campaign rally. Crooks was shot dead by law enforcement with a freakishly high-power weapon, a .300 Win Mag with a Hornady 210 grain hollow-point bullet.  

“For people who don’t shoot,” Carlson said, “that’s so much larger than the … round Crooks is shooting.”

Davis and Carlson then discussed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s lack of transparency in the aftermath of the assassination attempt. The FBI interviewed over 1,000 people, Davis said, with each presumably producing paperwork. But the FBI only gave House members investigating the security failures 81 documents relating to the interviews.

The FBI has Crooks’ electronics, but, Davis noted, it has never disclosed who Crooks was talking to in person and on the phone and social media chats, what places he visited in the six months leading up to the shooting, what he looked up on Google Maps, or his internet search history.

“I … want to go through it in real time and like just find out what was happening,” Davis said. “I assume the FBI has done that. I know they have the capability to do it. … Why has Congress not been told anything about it? “

Crooks left two improvised explosive devices (IED) in his car, an often forgotten detail. Davis said the IEDs were wired with detonators in them and had remote sensors. Crooks has the remote control with him on the roof.

“Now, what’s super weird about it is, in the car, the remote transmitters there were off. So even if he had that remote transmitter in his hand, he couldn’t have set it off,” Davis said. It is unclear why someone would go through the trouble of assembling two bombs, carry the detonator, but essentially “disconnect” the trigger.

Incredibly, security was so lax that Crooks was able to fly a drone over the area for 20 minutes the morning of the rally.

“The Secret Service didn’t send their own drones,” Davis said, instead they dispatched someone who had just been trained and was supposed to detect drones. His drone didn’t function for much of the day, and he spent hours on the phone with tech support before realizing he had a broken cable.

“So he finally gets his [drone] working at like 4:15 p.m., literally minutes after Crooks had been done doing his recon with his drone,” Davis said.

Remarkably, the Secret Service counter-sniper team lead who put together the sniper security plan for that event never stepped foot on or in the building where Crooks stood. During the investigation, he was interviewed several times, and his story changed each time, Davis said.

When Congress members asked why he didn’t do a walk-through the day of the rally, he told them he had paperwork he wanted to get done, Davis said.

The riveting interview described what police and Secret Service members heard, saw, and were thinking that day. Shockingly, Secret Service agents were looking everywhere but in Crooks’ direction. Davis unpacked the confusing timeline of events as counter-snipers reacted to Crooks’ shots and then shot him with a high-powered rifle.

Davis and Carlson discuss how the Secret Service Special Operations Division had long been asking for more staffing to protect Trump, but that request was never filled. They also talked about how Crooks’ father learned about his son’s role in the shooting through a call from CNN news, instead of from law enforcement.

Two-thirds of the way through the interview, Carlson questioned Congress’s failure to uncover more information about the assassination attempt.

“Why doesn’t the Congress issue subpoenas to find out [more about Crooks]?” Carlson asked.

“They’re completely weak and neutered,” Davis replied, noting Congress’s tendency to shift responsibility onto bureaucrats and blame “the process” for its failure to deliver.

The end of the interview included a fascinating political and theological discussion centered on guns and the Second Amendment, the harmful way media depicts violence and killing, and hope for our future.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.