Trump rally shooter was reported as a suspicious person an hour before he opened fire, sources say

The gunman who opened fire at former President Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania was reported as a suspicious person — and photographed — an hour before he began shooting, according to three sources familiar with a briefing for senators on Wednesday.

Secret Service and FBI officials shared a timeline of events that revealed troubling new details about the assassination attempt and raised questions about why Secret Service officials allowed Trump to take the stage.

Thomas Matthew Crooks — who had a rangefinder and backpack with him — was reported as a suspicious person an hour before he began shooting, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said in a statement after the briefing.

“This was a 100% safe briefing,” Barrasso said. “He had a rangefinder and a backpack. The Secret Service lost track of him.”

Approximately 30 minutes after the initial suspicious person report, the Pennsylvania State Police notified the Secret Service of a suspicious person at 5:51 p.m. The Secret Service notified its shooters at 5:53 p.m., the sources said.

At 6:02 p.m., Trump took the stage. At 6:09 p.m., members of the crowd notified police that Crooks, 20, was on a rooftop. Two minutes later, Crooks opened fire on Trump at 6:11 p.m.

Senators were also told that Crooks visited the site of the assassination attempt last week, the sources said.

Barrasso said Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle should be removed.

“Nobody took responsibility,” Barrasso said. “Did someone die. O [former] The president was almost killed. The head of the Secret Service needs to go.”

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On a interview Tuesday with ABC NewsCheatle said he did not yet have all the details about the incident, but that there was a “very short” period of time between the time Crooks was identified as a suspect and the time he began shooting.

A local police sniper team was inside the building from where Crooks shot Trump, Cheatle said, and the decision was made not to station officers on the roof because it was sloped.

“This particular building has a pitched roof at the highest point,” Cheatle said Tuesday. “And so, you know, there is a safety factor that would be considered there, that we would want to put someone on a sloped roof.”

Local authorities denied that the local shooters were in the same building as Crooks. On Wednesday, a Secret Service official told NBC News that the local sniper team was not actually in the building, as Cheatle said. Instead, it was in another building in the same complex.

During Wednesday’s briefing, FBI Director Christopher Wray said investigators have not established a motive for the shooting, according to the three sources.

Wray told lawmakers that the FBI interviewed 200 people and reviewed 14,000 images, including photos and live-streamed videos of the rally, according to the sources.

The criminals had little to no social media presence, Wray said, and used encrypted communication.

Wray also said investigators have not found a foreign connection to the attack, the sources said. The Biden administration recently obtained information about an Iranian assassination plot against Trump, but American officials said the threat was not linked to last week’s shooting.

Crooks, who worked as a dietary aide at a nursing home, requested Saturday off but told her employer she planned to return to work on Sunday, a senior U.S. law enforcement official told NBC News.

After the shooting, Trump said on his social media platform that the bullet pierced the top of his ear. During a Monday appearance at the Republican National Convention, he had a bandage covering most of his ear.

Corey Comperatore, former chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, was killed in the shooting. Two other people – David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74 – were injured. Their conditions were upgraded from critical to serious on Wednesday, according to the hospital where they are being treated.

The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed Cheatle to appear at a public hearing this month, calling the assassination attempt “a total failure of the agency’s core mission.”

An official at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, responded with a letter, obtained by NBC News, saying Cheatle is available to testify later this month or early next.

“The Department and the USSS share your concern about the horrific events that occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania, this past weekend,” the official wrote, using the Secret Service’s initials. “And we are committed to doing everything we can to find out what happened.”