New video from the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump is reigniting conspiracy theories aimed at the Secret Service.
The footage, obtained and released by Fox News on Wednesday, shows 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks on the roof of the now-infamous American Glass Research Building just minutes before he opened fire.
New Trump shooter video
Incredibly, the video comes from the bleachers behind Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, filmed by James Copenhaver, one of the men who Crooks shot on July 13.
The Secret Service faced serious criticism from Congress and others, given its poor response, which ultimately led agency director Kimberly Cheatle to resign.
Crooks was only confronted after being spotted on the roof, despite an array of concerning behaviors that day that led him to be labeled a “suspicious person” by law enforcement.
But where most see a catastrophic failure, Trump supporters see a conspiracy theory. Shortly after it happened, conservatives falsely blamed an Italian football fan for the shooting. Then, the Secret Service was accused of orchestrating an “inside job.” After that, an anonymous poster on 4chan posing as a Secret Service agent fooled Trump fans into believing the agency was ordered to stand down.
Now, the new footage, which highlights how visible the shooter was before setting up to shoot the former president, is only inflaming those unsupported claims.
“There is no way this wasn’t an inside job,” one X user said. “If this is your job….how TF do you miss this person running across the roof?”
A local law enforcement officer spotted Crooks on the roof and went up to confront him. But when the officer climbed up and peered his head over, Crooks pointed a rifle at him and he jumped back down.
Still, the conspiracy theories persist.
“They allowed him to take those shots,” another added.
Replies to Fox News were much the same.
“THIS. WAS. AN. INSIDE. JOB. JUST. LIKE. KENNEDY,” one replied.
Some even went as far as to claim that there was a “second shooter” and that Crooks was merely a “decoy.”
But it isn’t just conservatives spreading conspiracy theories in the assassination’s wake. Liberals alleged that Trump staged the shooting to bolster his popularity.
It’s likely that no matter what any investigation finds, conspiracy theorists on both sides won’t accept the answers and will still believe either Trump or the federal government orchestrated the shooting.
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