Federal investigators are searching for a motive in the apparent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump on Saturday at a campaign event outside Butler, Pennsylvania.
The former president appears to have been incredibly lucky and says he was shot in his right ear, which caused bleeding that was captured in numerous images from official Associated Press and Getty photographers. (Doug Mills of the New York Times may have captured one of the bullets in flight.)
A 50-year-old former firefighter, Corey Comperatore from Sarver, Pennsylvania, was killed in the initial volley of bullets. Two other men were also shot, but were taken to a nearby hospital where they were listed in stable condition, according to the Pennsylvania State Police. “A GoFundMe campaign for the victims’ families, verified by the fundraising platform, had raised more than $3 million by Sunday afternoon, more than triple its initial goal,” CNN reported Monday morning.
Secret Service agents quickly tracked down and killed the shooter, who had used his dad’s AR-15 style rifle as he fired from the roof of a nearby building, just beyond their standard security perimeter. FBI agents later found possible explosive materials in the car he drove to the event, helping elevate the developments to a domestic terrorism investigation.
The shooter was identified as a 20-year-old male who lived an hour south of where the campaign rally was held. He was a registered Republican, but he also donated $15 to a progressive cause three years ago, according to the Times. It’s still less than 48 hours since the shooting, but “So far, investigators haven’t found any evidence on social media or other writings by [the shooter] that might help identify his motive,” CNN reported.
He had no known criminal history, and held down a job as an aide at a nursing center. He also recently obtained an associate degree in engineering science from a nearby community college. According to former classmates, the shooter doesn’t seem to have shown any signs or red flags in advance of Saturday’s events. (The Times noted that both his parents are licensed counselors.)
POTUS reax: “There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions,” President Joe Biden said in an address to the nation Sunday evening. “Violence has never been the answer—whether it’s with members of Congress in both parties being targeted, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on January 6, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against a sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump.”
“The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated; it’s time to cool it down,” said Biden. “The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin,” he added.
Trump’s latest reax: “UNITE AMERICA!” he posted Sunday on his social media platform.
For the record: “Threats against U.S. public officials have surged since 2017—with 85% tied to anti-gov’t/anti-authority violent extremists or racially motivated violent extremists,” terrorism scholar Charles Lister pointed out, citing recent data published by West Point in a feature entitled, “Rising Threats to Public Officials: A Review of 10 Years of Federal Data.”
Related reading: “How federal agencies are responding to the Trump assassination attempt,” via Eric Katz of Government Executive, reporting Sunday.
Welcome to this Monday edition of The D Brief, brought to you by Ben Watson with Bradley Peniston. Share your newsletter tips, reading recommendations, or feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 1849, the Austria-based Habsburg Empire deployed explosives-laden hot-air balloons to help put down a rebellion in Venice, marking history’s first aerial bombardment.
Breaking: A federal judge just dismissed the Justice Department’s case against Trump for unlawfully withholding classified documents after leaving office in 2021, Kyle Cheney of Politico reported Monday morning. The ruling from Trump-appointee Judge Aileen Cannon asserts that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith in this case “usurps” certain legislative powers intended specifically for Congress in accordance with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.
Expert reax: The ruling “can (and will) be immediately appealed to the Eleventh Circuit” Court of Appeals, said Texas national security law professor Steve Vladeck. “To me, the only question is whether the Special Counsel also asks for the case to be reassigned on remand,” he added.
U.S. forces in the Middle East are still shooting down drones apparently launched from Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthis continue their naval terrorism campaign targeting ships traveling the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
Three aerial drones were shot down Saturday, and another naval drone boat was destroyed in the Red Sea, defense officials at Central Command said Sunday. Other shootdowns happen nearly every day, as CENTCOM has documented.
Related reading:
The U.S. military’s information technology business arm still lacks cybersecurity strategies in several of its programs, according to a sweeping review of the government’s military and national security spending patterns released Thursday.
The 21 assessed IT programs include DOD’s healthcare management portal, a travel budget platform and several personnel systems used by the Pentagon’s military branches to process payments, David DiMolfetta reports for Nextgov/FCW. The specific programs lacking the strategies are unnamed but are supposed to have plans that include cybersecurity and resilience requirements, as well as system documentation for security testing, he writes. Read more, here.
Lastly today: Can nanotech help solve the Pentagon’s corrosion problems? Rust and other corrosion cost the U.S. military billions of dollars to ward it off and repair its damage. But Lockheed Martin and Hawaii-based Oceanit are testing AeroPel, a new water-based, nanotechnology-powered coating on tactical aircraft. The coating has not been tested on stealthy flight surfaces yet, so for now will be used for non-stealth components and ground support equipment. Defense One’s Jennifer Hlad has a bit more, here.
