Two years later, investigators are still fighting to get the full story of what happened in Butler.
Last week the final federal report landed – and one agency's name showed up in a place nobody expected.
Pennsylvania State Police were at Butler that day – and now the federal report shows exactly what they don't want asked.
Pennsylvania State Police Refused DHS Inspector General Interviews About the Butler Shooting
The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General released its final report on the 2024 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The findings are already brutal.
Secret Service personnel missed 102 radio transmissions about Thomas Crooks.
Their counter-drone operator was Googling the building Crooks shot from while the gunman was already on the roof.
The Secret Service couldn't even establish a joint communications room with local law enforcement.
"We did not interview state law enforcement officers," the DHS-OIG report stated. "PSP denied our interview requests."
The Pennsylvania State Police refused to sit for federal interviews about the day a gunman climbed onto a rooftop 155 yards from President Trump and fired eight rounds.
They submitted written answers instead.
Why Pennsylvania State Police Refused to Answer Questions About Thomas Crooks and the AGR Building
This isn't the first time Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris has been in front of investigators about Butler.
In July 2024 – just days after the shooting – Paris flew to Washington and testified before the House Homeland Security Committee.
He talked about text threads, suspicious persons reports, how PSP relayed Crooks' position to the Secret Service.
He answered questions for hours.
Now federal investigators are asking those same kinds of questions and PSP is saying no.
The DHS-OIG report shows exactly what PSP doesn't want its troopers saying under oath.
According to the report, PSP emailed an operations plan on July 12, 2024 – one day before the shooting – that laid out areas outside the perimeter to secure.
That plan did not include securing the AGR complex where Crooks fired from.
The Secret Service reviewed that plan.
Nobody flagged the gap.
A PSP supervisor told investigators that if the Secret Service had asked, he would have assigned officers to secure the AGR building.
Nobody asked.
DHS Inspector General Blocked From Butler Assassination Attempt Intelligence Investigation
The Butler investigation has been plagued by stonewalling from the start.
DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari told Congress in March that he was being blocked from investigating the agency's intelligence-sharing ahead of the rally.
That's the piece that still doesn't have answers – intelligence about a reported Iran assassination plot against Trump that the Secret Service possessed but never passed to its Pittsburgh field office or the agents on the ground at Butler.
Trump's own protective detail told the OIG that knowledge of the Crooks search would have stopped the speech – they would have pulled the President off that stage before the first shot was fired.
They weren't told.
A separate OIG report found that Secret Service communications were exposed after the agency put a third-party messaging app on agency devices in March 2025 – one that routed messages through servers outside Secret Service control.
The agencies that failed Trump are more interested in protecting themselves than answering for what happened.
Two Years After Butler Secret Service Assassination Attempt Reforms Remain Unfinished
The final OIG report issued seven recommendations to the Secret Service.
The Secret Service agreed to all seven.
Four remain open.
Nearly two years after a gunman nearly murdered Donald Trump in front of thousands of Americans, the agencies that failed him still haven't fully implemented the fixes.
The Secret Service still cannot confirm it has an approval process to prevent another open rooftop at a presidential event.
That's the exact failure that allowed Crooks onto that roof.
Now Pennsylvania State Police – the agency that wrote the operations plan and had officers on the ground – won't let its troopers be interviewed about any of it.
Corey Comperatore was killed that day.
Two other Americans were critically wounded.
The President of the United States was shot in the ear.
Someone owes them answers.
Sources:
- Ken Silva, "Pennsylvania Police Refused to Cooperate w/ Trump Shooting Investigation," Headline USA, July 6, 2026.
- Staff Report, "Bombshell IG Report: Secret Service Was Clueless and Searching the Internet for the Shooter's Rooftop Location During the Butler Assassination Attempt," The Gateway Pundit, July 3, 2026.
- Staff Report, "Shocking New Details Emerge In Thomas Crooks Butler, PA Shooting," WLT Report, July 3, 2026.
- DHS Office of Inspector General, "OIG-26-13: The Secret Service Missed Opportunities to Prevent and Disrupt the Attempted Assassination of President Trump on July 13, 2024," June 30, 2026.
