FBI Director Asked If There Are Any Recorded Conversations From Law Enforcement From Trump Shooting

2 months ago

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing held last week, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) questioned FBI Director Chris Wray about

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Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Director.

00:04Thank you for today.

00:07I think I greatly appreciate your candor.

00:10I know it's highly unusual to go into this level of detail during an active investigation,

00:17and I know it's a special and unique circumstance, given the nature of what happened that day.

00:23I'll ask my colleagues that we not try and take advantage of this in other circumstances.

00:29I think we need to be careful about pressuring our investigators to disclose information

00:36in the middle of an investigation in a casual or routine way.

00:42But thank you for what you've done here today.

00:45I do want to mention this, too.

00:47Like Congressman Correa, I went up to Butler with Homeland Security Committee and had a

00:55chance to meet with a number of the people there, including people who were there at

00:58the rally.

01:02Several of them were elected officials.

01:04In fact, one of them that spoke with me a lot was sitting directly behind Mr. Trump

01:09when he was shot, and she had video that she'd taken, and she'd love to share it with you

01:14all.

01:15But she mentioned a couple of things, too, that I hope you all will have a chance to

01:19have conversations about.

01:21I know some of it's going to be in the Secret Service lane, some is going to be in the FBI

01:25But one of the things she talked about was the fact that the day before the shooting,

01:32she and other officials in the town and people who just wanted to prepare the stage showed

01:38up and started working on putting the bunning up and decorating it.

01:42But the point she noted was that none of them had been vetted.

01:45There was nobody there to keep an eye on them and make sure that, you know, everything that

01:48was being done was appropriate.

01:51And she actually sort of thought in this in the context of hearing that a gun was found

01:57or a gun was perhaps hidden at the site before the shooter was able to get it and use it.

02:05I don't know those details, but those are some of the things that came up that day.

02:09She also mentioned that there was sort of the outer perimeter.

02:13She had a perimeter around the stage that the Secret Service had set up.

02:17Beyond that, you had a field and then you had the building where the company was and

02:22the shooter got on the roof.

02:24Apparently there was a sort of a second level of a perimeter there that wasn't particularly

02:28restricted from an access standpoint, as with the street that was just beyond that.

02:34So she raised and another elected official raised as well, issues about security that

02:41may actually kind of get into what you're talking about, whether the ladder was there,

02:46how the guy got on the roof.

02:47There are all sorts of issues with respect to that.

02:50And there was a lot of people, as you said, that had videotape.

02:53I just I talked to three that were showing me videos while I was standing out there on

02:56the in the grounds.

02:57But I had a couple of questions to ask of you briefly.

03:02Apparently there was no Secret Service recordation of communications during that day.

03:09You know, there's no no no radio runs, we call them, but there's no tapes.

03:14Do you know if there are any recorded conversations among law enforcement from that day?

03:20I don't know the details of that.

03:22I believe there may be some, but I don't I don't have in front of me exactly what what

03:28we've seen or heard.

03:30Okay.

03:31And then with respect to email communications, there were a lot of issues about, you know,

03:36because my personal view, haven't gone to the site was that they shouldn't, they just

03:39shouldn't have had the rail, the rally there, it should not have been permitted.

03:42I thought there were just too many roofs.

03:45You know, he picked one, but there was like a half dozen others that he could have picked

03:48on the other side of the field.

03:51And as Eli Crane, a congressman who was a sniper for the US military said there was

03:56a water tower that actually would have been a better site, probably the so that Secret

04:01Service should have used but could have been used as well.

04:04But had the lead up to that decision and Congressman Correa raised this, who made this decision

04:09about how to pick the site.

04:12And apparently it was back and forth between local law enforcement, Secret Service and

04:18the campaign.

04:19And I was kind of curious as to whether that's something that your investigation is going

04:23into or not.

04:25So I think that primarily falls within the scope of the other the two other reviews,

04:30that is the inspector, the DHS Inspector General review and the outside panel, independent

04:35panel that's been announced.

04:37And we are interviewing law enforcement personnel.

04:43But the security preparations, the adequacy of the security preparations, that's the other

04:48line.

04:49That's the other line.

04:50I only got 15 seconds left.

04:51Quick question for you with a probably not a quick answer.

04:53But this scenario is kind of the worst case scenario from a couple of standpoints.

04:57Got a lone wolf shooter with no red flags that we've heard of so far.

05:03You know, nobody should have known that this was coming.

05:06He didn't have a criminal record and that sort of thing.

05:09Easy access to an assault weapon.

05:12I had a discussion like this with I think Congressman Roy and Congressman Bishop several

05:17months ago.

05:18What is it we can do to try and preempt those kinds of scenarios?

05:23We've got gun violence all over the country, including in my district.

05:27This is one example.

05:28But you know, this scenario is the worst possible that I can think of from the standpoint of

05:35no intervention, prevention efforts that can be put in place to try and address it.

05:38But I'm kind of curious if you have any thoughts to the contrary on that.

05:43I don't know that I have any magic solution to the problem, and I certainly don't want

05:50to be proposing legislative ideas.

05:53That's not really my role.

05:57Certainly dangerous weapons, especially high-powered weapons in the hands of the wrong person represent

06:05a real concern for law enforcement, including to law enforcement, sometimes as the victims,

06:12as we saw very tragically down near Miami with two of our agents killed.

06:18That's probably all I can say on that.

06:19I do, while we're on the subject of firearms, Mr. Chairman, I do have an answer to Congresswoman

06:24Dean's question.

06:25Go right ahead.

06:26I might as well give it now, which is about the purchase of the firearm.

06:33I'm told that the father purchased the firearm in 2013, so quite a while ago, and then he

06:39sold it to his son in October of 2023.

06:45Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

06:46I yield back, and thank you, Mr. Director, for your great work.

FBI Director Asked If There Are Any Recorded Conversations From Law Enforcement From Trump Shooting

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