Are President Trump's Top Influencers Trying to Snow Him About an Attempt on His Life?

Notes on "Bulletproof: the Truth About the Assassination Attempts on Donald Trump," by Jack Posobiec and Joshua Lisec

Screenshot via KTLA-5, YouTube

I picked up this book on Friday, it’s been out for about a month, published the day after the House task force released its interim report. It’s one of a few big Trumpverse titles Skyhorse has put out recently, including Melania’s memoir. The publisher is making a big play for conservative readers since it bought Regnery late last year. I’ve been checking details with Ken Silva as we’ve both been reading it.

Before we get into the details it’s worth pointing out that there appears to be a concerted effort to create the appearance that the Iranians were behind it, perhaps as revenge for Trump’s decision in his first term to assassinate General Qasem Soleimani. Many Republican members of the House could be expected to participate in any attempt to grease the president in a direction that makes war with Iran more likely.

To Posobiec and his co-author’s credit, they go into this as one of three possible scenarios but concede there’s no evidence for it. In the time since the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, there have been two significant indictments of people tied to Iran involved in murder schemes, Farhad Shakeri and Asif Raza Merchant. Between the two of them an odor of suspicion has been created. There are Iran-linked individuals indicted in murder schemes, there was an attempt on Trump’s life. If you’re a low-information conservative who’s used to having pro-war propaganda about Iran pumped into your ears every day on Fox News, the assumption is set. The authors put it too politely, referring to a “complex narrative where the intelligence community remains vigilant about potential Iranian threats, even as specific links to the July 13 attack remain unproven.”

The Merchant indictment mentions nothing that would indicate a connection to the situation in Butler, and the assassins the defendant met with were undercover law enforcement. But that didn’t stop the Republicans of the House Homeland Security Committee from making the connection anyway. Most Republican legislators could be expected to participate in an effort to grease Trump in this way.

What the authors here write is that “US intelligence reportedly received information from a human source suggesting that Iran had a plan to assassinate Trump.” This probably refers to information in the Shakeri indictment. This one is somewhat troubling from the standpoint of good intelligence practice. First of all he’s based in Iran so he will never stand trial. But he told the FBI that there was an assassination plot against Trump by the IRGC. The criminal complaint shows he was lying about key details of the scheme he was actually indicted for, targeting a dissident, but the FBI decided the Trump plot sounded truthy enough to put out there.

Also the New York Times reported that investigators were considering whether Ryan Routh was “inspired” by Iran. The Routh situation is recounted only briefly in this book.

This all is very redolent of the supposed assassination attempt on John Bolton, in which the alleged assassin was an FBI informant and no Iran connection was ever proved.

There have also been a number of other faulty claims about the assassination attempt from influencers close to Trump, whose manipulations may just be careless but raise questions. For instance, Benny Johnson’s documentary on the assassination attempt, which he worked on with Reps. Eli Crane and Cory Mills, gets the shot sequence wrong. Johnson is one of the right-wing influencers recently tied to Russian cash via Lauren Chen.

In the J13 forum on the assassination attempt with a number of GOP congressmen present, Dan Bongino and Erik Prince got most of the talk time, with the latter claiming the assassin was shot from 488 yards, a claim echoed by The Blaze’s Steve Baker who reported it was 448 yards. The two Secret Service teams were only about 140 yards away, and the furthest sniper team according to operational plans was 320 yards away. So where’s he getting this? Posobiec and Lisec get this one right.

The best evidence at this point is that a local sniper, Aaron Zaliponi, got the first shot in at Thomas Matthew Crooks, before the Secret Service counter-sniper team killed him. Zaliponi is covered in the Fox Nation documentary of the event. Posobiec and Lisec also get this one right.

There are a lot of clumsy phrasings in here. The staging of Julius Caesar in New York is said to “directly target” Trump, when a more accurate verb is “portray.” It’s a play. There’s a line about the Crooks shot that reads like a parody of Tom Clancy, “It’s a target-rich environment if aiming for center mass.” They also don’t seem to get the meaning of Trump, they say he “committed the unpardonable sin of the elite—he became a class traitor.” There’s a similar line in the IM-1776 review of Melania’s memoir, which ends with “The elite worlds which once held Donald Trump in such esteem should embrace him again along with the first foreign-born, supermodel, New York socialite First Lady.” No. This is all wrong, and it’s such an important part of the story. The actual New York elite always found Trump crass and gaudy. You can see this in the vote map of his improvement in the 2024 election, the dramatic gains are in all the outer boroughs but much less so in Manhattan.

Posobiec and Lisec also make a number of dubious claims about the political economy of the military-industrial complex, they call him “the only president since perhaps John F. Kennedy to betray the military-industrial complex in addition to defying the elite class from which Trump hails.” In their final summary of possible scenarios, in which they return to the Iran theory, it is suggested that pinning the assassination on Iran could justify an invasion. They refer to this as “rooted in the interests of the military-industrial complex.” The problem with this is the economics of it don’t make sense. The Ukraine war is providing plenty of stimulus for the military-industrial complex, tons of U.S.-made weapons systems are deployed there. So I would argue pinning the assassination on Iran has more to do with the geopolitical goals of Israel and perhaps, until the recent diplomatic rapprochement, Saudi Arabia, than the defense industry.

The rest of the book is a strange combination of police procedural and boosterish story about Trump’s protection by divine providence—the phrase “Bongino was almost a prophet” is written here with a straight face. The sourcing for the shooting itself is clear, with a number of named first-person accounts, but the sourcing for the investigation is a little odd. They commissioned an investigation which is included as the first appendix, from what appears to be a licensed private investigator, but the name of the investigator is not included.

A number of Silicon Valley figures are somewhat curiously cited here, Mike Solana gets a mention early on, and then there’s a paragraph on the cavalcade of VCs who began to get behind Trump after the assassination attempt, including Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale, Doug Leone, Jacob Helberg and Shaun Maguire. None of these people should be anywhere near decision-making roles in his administration.

Their profile of the shooter, Thomas Crooks does more to exoticize him than is warranted. The toxicology report showed nothing significant except an elevated lead level in his blood, which is all too typical for Western Pennsylvanians. They say he is driven “by a form of accelerationism,” but whether that refers to the Marxist spinoff version concocted by Nick Land, the far-right terrorist version, or the tech-booster version of Marc Andreessen, who is to say? They note he was a registered Republican who donated to a progressive PAC. Using encrypted messaging apps or VPNs is more or less normal as well, it only sounds exotic if we don’t know which ones they are—if it turns out to be Telegram, for instance, it would be Russian, and not even have real encryption. There are four or five paragraphs on the type of explosives Crooks is said to have possessed, they write the “containers looked plastic-like and contained some sort of tannerite or fuel oil-type mixture.” Are these more or less the types of explosives that are available in any gun store? The authors write that Crooks used iron sights, which is straightforwardly incorrect, as you can tell from the photos released by the FBI.

The authors make reference to the two Butler County Emergency Services Unit snipers inside the American Glass Research building, which Crooks fired from on top of. Ken Silva obtained a transcript after the book’s publication of radio transmissions showing they were told he was up there shortly before Crooks opened fire:

There were two snipers posted inside the second floor of the AGR building used by alleged gunman Thomas Crooks to shoot at Donald Trump. Both failed to spot Crooks before his assassination attempt.

Ever since then, excuses have been made for the failure of the local snipers, Greg Nicol and Mike Murcko. Local officials have insisted that the snipers didn’t have a vantage of Crooks, and would have had to lean out of their windows to see him on the rooftop. Meanwhile, some media members have reported rumors that Nicol locked himself out of the building while searching for Crooks—and that the shooting happened right when Murcko went downstairs to let him back inside.

However, a time-stamped transcript of encrypted radio communications from July 13 tells a different story—showing that both Murcko and Nicol received warnings about an armed man on the rooftop at least seven seconds before he opened fire, and that Murcko radioed that Crooks was down after the shooting. The transcript further reveals other new details about the July 13 Butler rally, raising still more questions in the process.

There are questions about DHS’s role which are not pursued at all in this book. To be sure, the Secret Service had culpable failures on July 13, but they have been part of that department since it was created (moving the Secret Service from Treasury in the Bush years). The Butler County Emergency Services Unit was sponsored by DHS. The police teams had, according to this book, a tactical operation center. The authors point out the failure of coordination between local law enforcement and Secret Service, this is almost precisely what DHS is supposed to be for, and yet they don’t mention that. It’s also a Butler ESU sniper, according to the Higgins preliminary report cited in the book, who fires the first shot at Crooks, before the Secret Service sniper kills him. Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service Director seems to have been poorly briefed about this. Rep. Comer asked her on July 23 why no snipers were on the roof, to which the obvious answer would have been that there were snipers inside the building.

Posobiec and Lisec’s account of some of these key details is troublingly unclear, and their sourcing is unattributed. They ask why the Butler team inside the building “didn’t simply look down from inside and check the roof themselves.” “They went up there, and one officer saw Crooks, who then turned and aimed his rifle directly at the officer. The officer ducked down, and according to the officer’s report, Crooks then swung the rifle back around and began firing at Trump.”

One other troubling thing about this is the drones, which one hopes the FBI is looking into. The vast majority of the local-level drone fleet is Chinese-made. In all likelihood, both the drone Crooks flew the afternoon of July 13 just before 4:00, and the one Butler ESU tactical commander flew that morning to clear the water tower, were Chinese-made. So there’s an interesting question here of whether this is giving some bad actor a three-dimensional picture of the site before this all happens. Acting Director Rowe confirmed to Sen. Hawley that the Secret Service had refused drones from the local police. The basic question here is whether they might have been justified in refusing Chinese ones. Rep. Cornyn’s questioning noted the Secret Service’s drones were not in place and Acting Director Rowe told him their anti-drone system wasn’t in place until more than an hour after Crooks had used his own to case the site. These points of coordination have everything to do with DHS.

The following chapters on the RNC and collapse of the Biden campaign are so brief as to be an afterthought, basically in there for color. At one point the authors call Pam Gellar an “anti-Muslim activist” which is refreshingly honest from a conservative influencer. Their account of the immediate congressional debrief of Director Cheatle is also interesting, I don’t understand why her responses to Rep. Gerry Connolly are made out to be so evasive, his questioning was irrelevant. The one who comes out looking very good is Rep. AOC, whose criticisms were measured, on-target and completely justifiable. Sen. Cotton is made out to be his usual ignorant self, yelling at the acting director that nobody has been held accountable just after his predecessor took the fall by resigning.

The authors’ final prescriptions about the need for education, vigilance, a better media and suspicion of the military-industrial complex are all completely unobjectionable. There are also holes here they did not focus on, the drones, DHS, and the custody of Crooks’ body.

References to the Custody of Crooks’ Body

Rep. Higgins

There is a section here drawn directly from Rep. Clay Higgins’ preliminary report from August 12, but attributed in the book to the House task force as a whole, which is a bit of an error. In these bullet points there is the only reference to the chain of custody over Crooks’s body. Here are the two relevant ones:

• My effort to examine Crooks’ body on Monday, August 5, caused quite a stir and revealed a disturbing fact… the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after J13. On J23, Crooks was gone. Nobody knew this until Monday, August 5, including the County Coroner, law enforcement, Sheriff, etc. Yes, Butler County Coroner technically had legal authority over the body, but I spoke with the Coroner, and he would have never released Crooks’ body to the family for cremation or burial without specific permission from the FBI.

• The coroner’s report and autopsy report are both “late.” As of Monday, August 5, they were a week late. The problem with me not being able to examine the actual body is that I won’t know 100% if the coroner’s report and the autopsy report are accurate. We will actually never know. Yes, we’ll get the reports and pictures, etc, but I will not ever be able to say with certainty that those reports and pictures are accurate according to my own examination of the body. Again, similar to releasing the crime scene and scrubbing crime scene biological evidence... this action by the FBI can only be described by any reasonable man as an obstruction to any following investigative effort. Please note, Mr. Chairman, that on J23, the day that Crooks was cremated, both the Homeland Security Committee and the Oversight Committee had begun House Committee jurisdictional investigation into J13, and Speaker Johnson had already stated that he was forming an Official Congressional investigative body. Why, then, by what measure, would the FBI release his body to the family for cremation? This pattern of investigative scorched earth by the FBI is quite troubling.

Private Investigator

In the appendix, the unnamed investigator writes this in his report, based on work done between August 3 and September 4:

…the body of Thomas Crooks was ultimately moved to the Allegheny Coroner’s office, office of the medical examiner, for a complete autopsy. Federal authorities decided to conduct the autopsy in Pittsburgh due to the more expansive resources available at that location, and due to the high profile nature of this case. It is expected, although unconfirmed, that the appropriate tissue and blood samples were collected at that time for proper toxicology screening, yet this has not been confirmed or released.

Upon completion of the autopsy, the body of Thomas Crooks was reportedly transferred back to the Butler County morgue, however the coroner reportedly lost custody, at lest temporarily, of Crooks’ body. Reportedly unknown to the Butler County coroner, Crooks’ remains were allegedly released to the family by federal authorities rather than by the coroner’s office. On or about 23 July 2024, Thomas Crooks was cremated by a Bethel Park funeral home and crematorium at the request of his family. However, the Butler County coroner was reportedly not informed of the release and disposition of Crooks’ body until on or about 5 August 2024.

House Task Force Interim Report (not in book)

Here is the version of the body’s chain of custody in the House Task Force report released the day before the book was published:

After rendering the scene safe, the FBI contacted the Butler County Coroner’s Office, and the coroner subsequently removed the body from the scene and conducted a death investigation. The Butler County Coroner’s Office then deferred to the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner to conduct the autopsy due to Allegheny County’s more advanced facility and capabilities.

Once Allegheny County completed the autopsy, the Butler County Coroner's Office consulted with the FBI, asking if there were any additional necessary investigative steps with respect to the body. The autopsy was observed by FBI and PSP personnel.

Once the autopsy was completed, the Butler County Coroner’s office consulted with the FBI to determine if there were any additional evidentiary needs with respect to the body. The FBI determined there were not, and the FBI and PSP concurred with the Butler County Coroner’s Office decision to release the remains to the subject’s family.

Via Silva

Ken Silva shared with me the following documents from the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner he obtained as part of his legal fight for disclosure, the only two he won on his appeal for chain of custody records.

This notice gives us the name of the funeral home, on the South side of Pittsburgh. All that it shows is the receipt was drawn up. It is notably unsigned. The time on it is also 12 minutes after the time on the toxicology report.

The Pittsburgh OME is run by Ariel Goldschmidt, who had been volunteering in Israel after 10/7. Here is his statement to the House task force:

All of this is consistent with the autopsy which has now been released, stating it was conducted on July 14 but not signed until August 5. So the body was out of the Allegheny County OME’s hands when they actually signed the autopsy.

And here is the statement from the FBI Special Agent in Charge, head of the Pittsburgh field office:

I would now like to clarify the process undertaken to release the subject’s body to his family. 

After rendering the scene safe and following our established evidence gathering procedures, the FBI contacted the Butler County Coroner's Office.   

Subsequently, the coroner removed the body from the scene and conducted a death investigation. 

The Butler County Coroner’s Office then deferred to have the Allegheny County Office of the Medical Examiner conduct the autopsy. 

Once Allegheny County completed the autopsy, the Butler County Coroner's Office consulted with the FBI asking if there were any additional necessary investigative steps with respect to the body.   

The FBI and Pennsylvania State Police then concurred with the Butler County Coroner’s Office decision to release the remains to the subject’s family. 

I want to stress that It is not standard procedure or practice for the FBI or any law enforcement agency to request that the coroner or medical examiner maintain indefinite custody of a deceased subject’s body once the investigative purposes of our agency and our partner agencies are completed. 

There are a three main reasons why this set of accounts is worth paying attention to. There was also a murky chain of custody for Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed in the January 6, 2021 riot who was also cremated. Basically we know very little about what happened to her body between the time it was transported out of the Capitol, and when her ashes were poured into San Diego Bay, courtesy a video from the Russia-backed influencer Tayler Hansen. In this case we don’t know, for instance, who transported the body from Butler to Pittsburgh, or who transported it to the funeral home because nobody signed for it. I’m not crazy about cremation for religious reasons, but there are also forensic reasons to be somewhat dubious of it.

Second, the parents of Crooks have lawyered up. In the book the case of Ethan Crumbley, a Michigan school shooter, is mentioned several times, because Crooks apparently Googled it. In that case Crumbley’s parents have been criminally charged for not doing more to stop the shooting. This could account for the reason why Crooks’ family home was scrubbed, as Rep. Eli Crane is reported to have been told.

Third, it’s accounts from Rep. Higgins and the PI that mention the date of cremation as July 23, the same day the Secret Service testified before Congress just before resigning. Who are they in touch with that would put them in a position to know that? It would have to be either Crooks’ family, or the funeral home, neither of which, as far as I’m aware, have spoken publicly. There is no reference to the cremation in the interim report from the House Task Force. The report is supposed to be on security failures, and the custody of the body falls somewhat outside that, but still, it’s a somewhat striking omission.