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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

The French Fraudulent Disaster Elections

Together: Brigitte Macron, Baron David de Rothschild, Emmanuel Macron 

Peter Koenig

It looks and feels like this past Sunday, 7 July 2024, second round French election is one of the biggest election frauds in French history, maybe even in European history.

The vote engineers have been at it in the same way they have been at it in the 2020 US elections, when by all appearance, President Trump, the Republican, but much more important, the anti-Globalist, won with a landslide. However, the Democrat, Joe Biden, an easily bought Globalist, suddenly emerged as the winner.

Similarly in France, Madame Le Pen’s Party, the National Rally (NR), is called unfairly by all mainstream as the Populist far-right, when in reality, Madame Le Pen is primarily an anti-Globalist wanting a new sovereign France, not one submissive to the European Union and by proxy to the United States, as are most members of the EU.

These two-tier elections, with a second round when no first-round absolute majority winner emerges, are tailor-made for fraud. Because between the two elections, the vote-manipulators and election engineers go to work with well-refined techniques and tools, having observed people’s election behavior during the first round.

These parallels can and MUST be noted throughout the Western world.

There is, of course as usual, no proof of manipulation. Not yet. The sophistication in this trade has achieved extraordinary technological IT and Artificial Intelligence (AI) skills.

Yet, the election results after Sunday, 7 July, just smell very bad. All odds were broken. The “National Rally”, excelled with 34% of the votes in the first round, just ONE week earlier on June 30.  

All predictions gave the NR a large advantage for the second round – even an absolute majority was projected.

That did not happen. Madame Le Pen’s party came in third after the second vote. Behind the New Popular Front (NPF) Coalition Party and Macron’s Centrists, Ensemble.

The so-called “setback” of the NR, winning only 142 Parliamentary seats (out of 577), gave, at least at the surface, President Macron the edge to continue on his Globalist bandwagon and especially on his warmongering odyssey, pledging sending French / NATO troops to Ukraine fighting against Russia. French boots, some mercenaries, some advisors, are already on the ground in Kiev, Odessa, and other places in Ukraine.

What did Russia do to France? Or to Germany? Or to the UK? Or to the European Union? No harm at all. Just seeking friendship and alliances.

Indeed, Russia is only seeking peace and friendly relations – seeking a normalization of the Eurasian continent, a move also strongly supported by China’s President Xi Jinping. Presidents Putin and Xi are very much interested in peace with Ukraine. But the NATO-West does not allow it, it is not interested. They want more war, and eventually conquer Russia. This is a ludicrous dream or quest of the West, over 200 years old. They have not achieved it, and will never achieve it.

In the meantime, the war industry becomes richer and richer – as people die, families are destroyed, the future of societies are devastated. Of no importance. The hegemon and its war industry must continue making money, and the world must continue being destabilized, and the world must continue being depopulated – and wars are just one instrument to do so.

European politics and European politicians are sick beyond rescue.

The left wing New Popular Front (NPF) won apparently 188 seats, but no absolute majority (289 seats). In fact, none of the alliances won an absolute majority.

The NPF consists of a loose coalition of several left-wing parties, ranging from the Socialists to the Greens, the Communists and the radical left France Unbowed, and other, minor parties. How reliable is this alliance? Not very, or not at all.

It is a make-shift and make-believe alliance to keep the Globalist and warmonger in place; the WEF-obedient, EU and Washington vassal submissive to the hegemon: Mr. Macron, also called “Little Napoleon”.

Ensemble, the centrist Party of Emmanuel Macron, won 161 seats. Yet, Macron is slated to remain President with no majority — a fake and powerless President.

What is wrong with this picture?

On 30 June, the National Rally winning 34% of the votes was way ahead. Macron’s party, the Centrist Ensemble, came in second with only 22% of the votes. Not unexpectedly because French citizens were and remain upset and tired about Macron’s globalist policies, favoring immigrants over French citizens, spending billions and billions of taxpayers moneys to support Ukraine, a lost cause – that any schoolboy could have told you from the very beginning.

Spending French money abroad, instead of at home, where social services and physical infrastructure crumble and would badly need it, is of course not very popular. Not in the US, not in any Western country, if you ask the people, not the corrupted politicians, but the PEOPLE.

By the way, that is how the Roman Empire eventually collapsed, and others – spending domestic money abroad for foreign conquests while the homeland rots to pieces and into the ground.

Shortly after the June 30 first round elections, the Greens and Socialist affirmed in no uncertain terms that they would never go into an alliance with the Communists. And what do they do? Just to avoid that a National Rally coalition could take an absolute majority, they must have been ordered, or bought to collaborate with the Communists. But as mentioned before, it is not a stable alliance.

At least Macron’s Premier, Gabriel Attal  was honest to himself. He resigned. Rather than working in an unhealthy, artificial, and unsustainable alliance, he decided to step down. Bravo!

What’s next?

Rumors have it that this new multiple-coalition France will be ungovernable – and Macron may have to call early elections. Of course, the powers-that-be will do whatever they can to avoid in Europe as in the US an anti-Globalist being elected. One who wants to make his country, the People’s country, Great Again, a sovereign partner for other sovereign partners, is not desirable, not acceptable.

Even though, in an honest and truly democratic election, this is what over 90% of the people want, if you really and truthfully let them choose. They want their own country, not a subordination to Brussels cum Washington.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/french-fraudulent-disaster-elections/5862026

Did Trump’s Shooter Have Help?

By Michael Snyder

Okay, so we are supposed to believe that a 20-year-old kid “who was turned away from his high school rifle club for being a ‘comically bad’ shot” and that had no military training whatsoever was able to pull this off all by himself?  We are being told that it was “a mistake” that the ideal location for a sniper to be located was left unguarded, and somehow Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to identify this oversight and position himself accordingly.  Just 150 yards away from where Donald Trump would be speaking, Crooks was able to climb on to a roof with a rifle and stay there for nearly half an hour before he finally started shooting at Trump.  Either this was a cataclysmic security failure, or Crooks had some help somewhere along the way.

According to a former Secret Service agent who was in charge of Vice President Al Gore’s security detail during the Clinton administration, there should have been Secret Service personnel on that roof and “someone dropped the ball”

Before a high-profile person like Trump attends an event and needs Secret Service protection, the agency conducts a security survey that also takes nearby buildings into account.

William Pickle, a former special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s vice presidential protection division who oversaw Vice President Al Gore’s detail, told USA Today that something was clearly missed. “We know who’s there, why they’re there, we have control over those buildings,” Pickle said. “It seems like somewhere in this security survey, someone dropped the ball on those particular buildings.”

Was this just a mistake, or was it done on purpose?

Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino is claiming that an “unimpeachable source” has told him that someone was supposed to be on that roof but never showed up…

NEW: Dan Bongino says an “unimpeachable source” tells him that someone was supposed to be on the roof where Thomas Crooks shot from but “didn’t show up.”

Bongino also claimed that the Biden admin is telling the USSS director to keep her mouth shut if she wants to keep her job.

“According to my source, that roof was supposed to be a police post… [there] was so supposed to be someone there.”

“They’re now making up excuses saying the pitch of the roof. My source says to me that no one knows why the post didn’t show up.”

“I was also told that the USSS director has been given instructions from the administration and the DHS secretary: ‘If you wanna keep your job, you’ll keep your mouth shut about this.’”

We need to identify who was supposed to be posted on that roof, and we need to determine exactly why that individual did not show up.

And why is the director of the agency being told to shut up about this?

Something does not smell right.

Just before Trump was shot, members of the crowd could see a man with a gun on that roof, and they tried to warn the police

According to several media outlets who did their own analysis of eyewitness videos, crowd members had spotted the suspect on the roof about two minutes before the shooting happened and frantically tried to warn police.

“The police are down there running around on the ground. We’re like, ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle,’” a witness, who called himself Greg, told BBC News. “And the police were like, ‘Huh, what?’ Like they didn’t know what was going on.”

One eyewitness was absolutely amazed that Trump was not pulled off the stage after a potential threat had been identified…

‘I’m thinking to myself ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage,” he said. ‘The next thing you know, five shots ring out.’

This has raised serious questions around whether the two teams had completely failed to spot the shooter until it was too late and how Crooks was able to fire at least eight shots before he was taken down.

Is the Secret Service really this incompetent?

It just seems so unlikely that they could really be this inept.  One of the best snipers in the entire world, Dallas Alexander, is entirely convinced “that the shooter had help”…

“I’m very familiar with the layout of these types of things and what the jobs should be. And yesterday, what happened, I have no doubt in my mind that the shooter had help from somewhere within an agency, an organization, or the government,” said Alexander.

“The second I saw that aerial photo of what they were saying happened, it immediately made no sense to me. You cannot, in broad daylight, get onto a rooftop within what looked like maybe a couple of hundred yards. You can’t get into that position with a gun when there’s a president speaking. It cannot be done. You don’t even need to be a sniper to know that it’s the most f—king obvious thing, the most obvious place in the whole world.”
“So something happened, and I’m not pointing fingers at anyone. It’s too obvious that this guy had help getting there. So whether someone turned a blind eye or it was strategically planned, I mean, it had to be planned to a certain level because events like that and security like that, it’s not a small thing. And that is the most obvious place to be.”

U.S. Representative Cory Mills also served as a sniper, and during a recent interview he shocked a CNN host by also suggesting that Crooks probably had help…

Former sniper and defense contractor Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) triggered a CNN host on Tuesday after suggesting that “intentional” failures may have resulted in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Saturday.

“The amount of negligence, the amount of mistakes that was made here, I have a very difficult time not leaning myself towards this was intentional, as opposed to fecklessness,” Mills told anchor Kate Bolduan.

“If I have a building 160 yards perfectly adjacent to the stage, that’s an obvious threat,” he continued. “Especially with an elevated position that has overwatch? That’s a sniper’s paradise.

Will we ever get the truth?

I don’t know.

But as Matt Walsh has aptly pointed out, the official story does not seem to be holding up…

Here’s the official story so far:

a random 20 year old acting completely alone walked within 150 yards of a presidential campaign rally with a rifle, climbed onto a rooftop in full view of Secret Service snipers, set up his shot and fired without anyone intervening and with no help from anyone.

This 20 year old is also so politically radical as to attempt an assassination and yet not radical enough to have ever posted any political writings or commentary on any social media site ever in his life.

He also wrote no manifesto and left behind no indication about why he did it.

But when has the government ever been good at investigating itself?

And potential evidence is already been washed away.  In fact, an FBI agent was literally photographed power washing the crime scene

Maybe this particular agent was ordered to wash the shooter’s blood off the roof.

But to me it doesn’t make sense to get rid of evidence while so much is still unknown.

In my career, I have learned that it always pays to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Of course in this case we may be witnessing a major league cover up.

If Trump’s shooter did have help, those that were involved will want to cover their tracks as rapidly as they can.

[…]

Via https://www.activistpost.com/2024/07/did-trumps-shooter-have-help.html

Short-Selling In Trump Stock Prior to Attempted Assassination

Igor Chudov

Donald Trump is a significant owner of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) shares. That publicly traded entity operates Truth Social, a pro-Trump social network in which Mr. Trump owns 78.8 million shares. The network’s business plan is to be the hangout for like-minded Trump fans who want to be the first to read their favorite politician’s announcements and socialize.

Like other stocks, many people buy and sell shares of DJT for various reasons. However, an interesting financial bet stands out. A little-known private financial firm reported initiating an unusually large short position by buying put options for the nominal amount of 12,000,000 shares.

So, on July 12th, a day before the assassination attempt, Austin Private Wealth reported a short position nominally equivalent to 12 million shares. It is huge: it represents approximately one-seventh of Trump’s ownership in the same company, or 16% of all available stock float not held by major insiders.

Is that a big deal? For my nonfinancial readers, here is a little introduction to puts. Austin Private Wealth’s position is in put options. Puts are financial instruments whose holder receives a payment if the underlying stock falls below the agreed price (the strike price) by a certain date. In such a case, the put option holder receives the difference. The more the stock falls, the more the put holder gains.

The standard American contract size is 100 shares, so Austin Private Wealth held approximately 120,000 put options, exposing it to potential gain linked to 12,000,000 shares of $DJT.

A sudden demise of Truth Social’s central figure, Donald Trump, would make the DJT 2.13%↑ stock worthless, making Austin Private Wealth a beneficiary of a gigantic payoff. Depending on the strike price, it could be a couple hundred million dollars.

What do we know about this odd financial bet? One thing to note is that it was made sometime before it was reported on the 13F filing: form 13F must be filed after the end of the quarter, and in this case, refers to the position as of the end of the second quarter, or 6/30/2024.

Austin Private Wealth is a money management firm catering to well-off individuals. Therefore, it is possible that the idea of initiating an unusually large put position belonged to one of its clients or just one money manager. Here’s the picture of their top managers, so you can play a guessing game of which of them possibly came up with this idea:

It is also plausible that this extremely unusual position is a coincidence. There are many reasons why TruthSocial does not have a bright long-term future. However, the timing of this unusually large put option purchase raises some questions. Had the assassination succeeded, Austin Private Wealth would have reaped a windfall! The only reason Trump is alive is that he turned his head away in the last split second.

I am not new to options trading and made some money from Moderna puts that I purchased in 2021. People buy and sell options for all kinds of reasons. However, Austin Private Wealth held a position far beyond the size of typical speculative put positions.

What do you think? Is a giant put position, which would benefit from a sudden drop in DJT stock, initiated so close to the assassination attempt, just another unrelated coincidence?

[…]

Via https://www.igor-chudov.com/p/a-huge-financial-bet-against-donald?r=83qir

Chinese journalists film California to explain decay in America

Thomas Crooks’ Parents Called Cops on Day of Trump Shooting

RTM

Shocking new information has come to light regarding the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman responsible for the attack, was reportedly on law enforcement’s radar hours before he opened fire.

The gunman’s father reportedly told CNN he believed his son had gone to practice at a local shooting range, expecting him to return by 1 pm.

Crooks had also informed his boss that he needed the day off on Saturday, telling colleagues he would see them on Sunday.

Fox News reported that Crooks’ parents had contacted local law enforcement in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, expressing concern about their son’s whereabouts on the day of the rally.

Crooks was spotted at the rally’s security screening area approximately three hours before the shooting, Daily Mail reported.

[…]

Via https://resistthemainstream.com/why-thomas-crooks-parents-called-cops-on-day-of-trump-shooting-revealed/

1,000-plus doctors, scientists sign Hope Accord calling for SUSPENSION of all mRNA jabs

1,000-plus doctors, scientists sign Hope Accord calling for SUSPENSION of all mRNA jabs

Dr Eddy Betterman

The Hope Accord is moving forward after cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra tweeted a video of himself explaining that more than 1,000 doctors, scientists and concerned citizens have thus far signed the document, which calls for the immediate suspension of all mRNA jabs.

In order for health professionals to reclaim any semblance of medical ethics and set the record straight that mRNA technology is dangerous an unsuitable for use in medicine, Dr. Malhotra is urging everyone who cares, including our readers, to sign the Hope Accord.

“In 2015, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet, Richard Horton, wrote a chilling commentary in which he claimed that possibly half of all the medical literature may simply be untrue,” Dr. Malhotra says in the video below. “He wrote that science had taken a turn towards darkness. And now it’s a question of who is going to take the first step to clean up the system.”

“The COVID pandemic has revealed a microcosm of the corporate capture of medicine and public health by powerful vested interests in the form of Big Pharma in particular. This is an industry whose business model is one of fraud. And sadly, we have seen the greatest failings of the system with the rollout of an mRNA product that has likely contributed to deaths and serious harm to millions of people around the globe.”

Dr. Malhotra believes that now is the time to take the next step to clean up the medical system. And the best way for ordinary folks to do this, he says, is to sign the Hope Accord “which calls for the complete suspension of these products but also calls on reclaiming medical ethics.”

“It’s time to act,” he pleads. “Please sign this petition and this accord and we can take things further to really genuinely clean up the system.

A number of elected officials are also joining the call for the medical system to be cleaned up starting with the immediate removal of all Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) “vaccines” to be pulled from the market for the safety of the public.

Americans for Health Freedom (AHF) says that as of June 25, 2024, 191 politicians, 96 candidates, one surgeon general, one entire state Republican party, one state congressional district, 17 Republican party county committees, and seven physician organizations have all pledged to call for all COVID injections to be banned immediately.

All of the above entities have also pledged not to take any more donations from the pharmaceutical industry. A complete list of all of them is available at AmericansForHealthFreedom.org.

“I am honoured to be standing alongside my respected colleague, Dr. Malhotra in calling for the restoration of medical ethics,” tweeted Dr. Ayiesha Malik, who describes herself on X as “a compassionate GP and integrative doctor.”

“We won’t let history repeat itself. We will stand together and bring hope to the future.”

One perhaps major setback is that the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) just took control of the United Kingdom – and on Independence Day for the United States, no less – with the installment of Keir Starmer as England’s new prime minister.

The latest news about growing medical industry opposition to mRNA can be found at BadMedicine.news.

[…]

Via https://dreddymd.com/2024/07/18/doctors-scientists-sign-hope-accord-mrna-jabs/

The 100 Years’ War on Palestine

The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917--2017 ...

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance

By Rashid Khalidi

Profile Books Ltd (2024)

Book Review

Authored by the son of a negotiator in the 1990s Madrid and Oslo negotiations, Khaidi organizes his book as as a series of six wars against Palestinian Arabs, the first dating 1917-1939.* Although he’s is highly critical of British and (and later US) foreign policy for systematically denying Palestinians any right of self-determination, he’s also highly critical of other Arab states (who have a long history of denying self-government to their own subjects) and Yasser Arafat and other PLO leaders for denying Palestinian residents of input into the Madrid and Oslo peace negotiations.*

The book also contains an Afterword about Israel’s current war on Gaza, with has mobilized support for Palestine, throughout the Western and Arab world, as well as the global South. At present, Khalidi estimates that approximately 5 million Palestinians live in Israel and its occupied Palestinian territories and 5 million live in exile.

The most interesting parts sections the book concern the Israeli invasion of Lebanon In 1982 (Khalidi and his young family lived in Beirut at the time) and the peace negotiations (in which his father served as an advisor to Palestinian negotiators) leading to the 1993 Oslo Accord.

1909: Khalidi starts his chronology in 1909, when Palestine was stil a colony of the Ottoman Empire. At the time the first Jewish immigrants (fleeing brutal repression in Eastern Europe) arrive (40,000 in 1909-1914), Jews represent 6% of the population and Jews, Arabs and Christians lived comfortably side by side.

1917:  The Balfour Declaration, signaling British intent to establish a Jewish state in British- controlled Palestine, issued on November 2, 1917.

1936-38: Palestine remains a British colony until 1947, subject to brutal military repression when they protest eviction by Jewish immigrants from the farmland they work. Because European Jews fleeing Nazi persecution are denied entry to the to the UK and and US, many flee to Palestine, where the Jewish population increases to 18%. An armed rebellion in 1936 lasted two years it could only be quashed by massive military force.

1947-48: Ongoing terrorist attacks by Jewish paramilitary groups (Stern Gang, Haganah, Irgun) force the British to withdraw from Israel in 1947, leaving the newly created United Nations in charge of Palestine and the formal process of independence. The original UN resolution grants 56% of historic Palestine to the self-governing state of Israel (despite Jews representing a minority of Israel’s population) and 44% Palestinian Arab state tsubject to military occupation by the king of Jordan.

Jewish paramilitary groups begin ethnically cleansing many Arab-assigned sectors of Palestine prior to 1947, a process that evicts 300,000 Arabs from Palestine’s major cities prior to the UN-designated date for Israeli independence (May 15, 1948) and 400,000 shortly afterwards. They flee to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank (then under Jordanian control) and Gaza (then controlled by Egypt).

Palestinian refugees with means, skills or relatives in Arab countries (a large majority) come to live outside refugee camps.**

1959: Fatah (the party which currently runs the Palestinian Authority) formed in Kuwait 1959 by group of Palestinian engineers, teachers and professionals headed by Arafat.

1964: Because the Arab states fear retaliation by Israel, they oppose Palestinian attacks on Israeli border regions, and the Arab League forms the PLO (in Egypt) in the hope of reigning in Fatah. Meanwhile the Egyptian and Jordanian military harass, arrest and torture Gaza militants who stage attacks on Israel.

1967: Following Israel’s 1967 Six Day War war on Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Egypt and Jordan are forced to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank, which have been Israeli colonies every since.

1969:  the Cairo Agreement puts the PLO in charge of security in the Lebanese refugee camps and by the start of the Lebanese Civil War (1973-1990), the PLO (with 15,000 15,000 armed members) represents the largest military force in many parts of Lebanon.

1982:  Israel invades Lebanon and embarks on seven week siege of Beirut. They make withdrawal of all PLO troops a condition for ending the siege. They latter resettle in numerous Arab capitols, with the PLO leadership in Tunis.

1987:  indirectly empowered by the PLO’s political decline, a secret Unified National leadership launches the First Intifada, consisting of mainly peaceful strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, and subject to brutal Israeli military repression.

1993: first Oslo Accord signed, negotiated mainly by PLO leaders with no direct knowledge of actual conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. Creates the Palestinian Authority, which has limited political input into any aspects of governance other than security, and takes over from Israel the task persecuting, arresting and torturing Palestinian militants. Conditions become much worse for everyone but a few Palestinian authority leaders.

1994:  Arafat returns to Palestine

2000: Worsening repression leads to Second Intifada, resulting in Arafat’s imprisonment in his compound until his death (most likely by polonium poisoning) in 2004.

2005: Abbas elected to 4 year term as president.

2006:  After boycotting the 2005 election, Hamas win 74 seats to Fatah’s 45 seats in the Palestinian Authority legislature. Refusing to accept Hamas as part of the PA government, a US trained Fatah-controlled security force invades Gaza and makes an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Hamas.


*For most of his life, Arafat ran the PLO in exile from Lebanon or Tunis. He only resided in Palestine for 10 years (1994-2004).

**Breakdown by country:

  • In Jordan, of 2.2 million originally registered with UNRWA, only 370,000 remain in camp today (The king of Jordan granted Jordanian citizenship to all Palestinian and they now represent the majority of Jordan’s population.)
  • In the West Bank only 1/4 of the 830,000 registered with UNRWA remain in camps.
  • In Syria, only 1/4 of the 550,000 refugees remain in camps
  • In Lebanon, fewer than half the 470,000 refugees remain in camps.

Five unanswered questions over Trump assassination attempt

Questions surrounding how would-be political assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to get into a position just 100 feet from Donald Trump was speaking, take aim with a rifle and fire off at least eight shots, remain.

Crooks, 20, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper moments after he opened fire at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. The presumptive Republican nominee was wounded in the ear while supporter Corey Comperatore tragically lost his life.

In the aftermath of a seismic day in US politics, it now appears that it was sheer luck that Trump was not killed by Crooks’ gunfire which the ex-president’s ear and did not cause major injury.

The Secret Service is coming in for the most scrutiny of their handling of the event. The building that Crooks’ fired from was identified as a security risk but the shooter was still able to establish a position and fire off multiple shots.

New videos appear to confirm witnesses accounts that attendees at the rally notified law enforcement about Crooks’ presence after seeing him bear crawling and armed atop the building.

After witnesses alerted cops when they saw Crooks bear crawling, an officer was hoisted by another officer on to the rooftop.

Once there, Crooks trained his gun on the officer, forcing him to duck for cover. Moments later, shots rang out, terrifying the crowd.

Trump was said to be in ‘great spirits’ on Sunday while telling the Washington Examiner that he has rewritten the speech he will deliver at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden spoke for about five minutes from the Oval Office and noted that the Republican National Convention was opening in Milwaukee on Monday, while he himself would be traveling the country to campaign for reelection.

He said passions would run high on both sides and that the stakes of the election were enormous.

But the president added, ‘it’s time to cool it down’ and noted not just the weekend attack on Trump but also the possibility of election-year violence on multiple fronts.

Here, the MailOnline looks at five of the key unanswered questions surrounding the first assassination attempt in 43 years and the security lapses around it.

How did Thomas Crooks get on to the roof?

Officials have confirmed that Crooks used a ladder to climb up to the roof of the American Glass Research building in Butler, along Evans Road.

How he managed to get the building with a large rifle and a ladder undetected remains to be established.

It’s not clear for how long he was in the vicinity. Trump took the stage at 6:03pm, attendees began entering the grounds of the event around 1:00pm.

The crowd were forced to go through metal detectors before gaining entry. CNN reports that Crooks was reportedly acting suspicious around security. It’s not clear at what time that was reported.

A message was relayed to the Secret Service about Crooks, warning them to keep an eye on him.

According to the Associated Press, Trump supporters notified local cops who were patrolling the area about Crooks’ presence at 6:10pm.

The building was identified as a security risk. So why wasn’t it secured?

The building rooftop where Thomas Crooks was perched is shown here. It was to the right of where Donald Trump was facing when he was shot

The building that Crooks shot from was identified as a security risk so it’s not clear as to why it wasn’t properly secured, according to a report from NBC News.

‘Someone should have been on the roof or securing the building so no one could get on the roof,’ a former Secret Service agent told the network. The rooftop was well-within the range of someone with AR-15 style gun.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that the agency worked with local law enforcement to secure the area and that securing the perimeter was the responsibility of the Butler Township Police Department and the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.

Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldlinger disputed this somewhat when speaking to NBC News.

‘They had meetings in the week prior. The Secret Service ran the show. They were the ones who designated who did what. In the command hierarchy, they were top, they were No. 1,’ he said.

‘To me, the whole thing is under the jurisdiction of the Secret Service. And they will delineate from there.’

The officer who confronted Crooks on the roof was a member of the Butler Township Police Department.

Why did it take so long for snipers to take him out?

Butler Township snipers provided support to the Secret Service snipers who were monitoring the event

The Secret Service is still investigating the response to the gunshots.

It took ‘seconds’ for the sniper to kill Crooks, a law enforcement source told CBS.

The video reveals that it was 43 seconds between the first series of pops heard and a Secret Service agent saying: ‘The shooter is down.’

Initial reports indicate that Crooks managed to fire eight bullets into the crowd before being shot dead at 6:11 pm.

Trump was in the middle of describing a displayed chart at the time. ‘And if you want to really see something this sad… take a look at what happened…’

The next sound heard was a series of pops, as many as six can be heard.

The next sound is a male voice saying: ‘Get down! Get down! Get down!’ Five Secret Agents then swarm the stage and provide coverage for Trump. Another series of pop like sounds are heard.

It’s 12 seconds later that we hear a final volley of shots, less than 30 seconds after that a voice can be heard saying: ‘Shooter is down.’

The weapon used was an AR-15 style rifle chambered in 5.56mm. At least three attendees, including Comperatore, were hit. Donald Trump was wounded in the ear.

The others were described as being ‘critically injured.’

Why was the glass making building out of the security perimeter?

It’s not clear why the glass manufacturer’s building remained outside of the secure perimeter.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News Monday: ‘A direct line of sight like that to the former president should not occur. That’s why president Biden directed an independent review of the incident.’

A former Secret Service agent told NBC News that the mere presence of the building should have been enough to pique the interest of those charged with securing the event.

‘Just because it is outside of the perimeter, it doesn’t take it out of play for a vulnerability, and you’ve got to mitigate it in some fashion,’ the agent said.

Another former Secret Service agent, Anthony Cangelosi, told NBC that one of two scenarios is likely to be revealed. There was either no plan to deal with a potential sniper on the roof or there was an it was not executed.

‘I don’t like making any assumptions, but it does look like some mistakes were made, that this was preventable,’ Cangelosi added.

‘There will be an intensive review’ of the incident and ‘there’s going to be a massive realignment,’ said Joseph LaSorsa, a former Secret Service agent who served on the presidential detail. ‘This cannot happen.’

DA Goldlinger told CBS News that local law enforcement provided snipers to aid the Secret Service which means there was extra coverage.

Those local snipers were placed to the left of the Secret Service sniper who took out Crooks, disrupting their line of sight to Crooks.

During most of Trump’s campaign stops, local police aid the Secret Service in securing the venue. Agents from other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, such as the Transportation Security Administration, occasionally help.

Many Trump rallies feature thousands of audience members, take place in the open air and last for hours.

Before the event, agents scan the venue for bombs or other threats, and Trump invariably arrives in a fortified motorcade.

Law enforcement officials typically put up barriers as a perimeter, and require all attendees to go through a metal detector to enter the venue. Armed protective agents search all attendees’ bags and even wallets.

Many rallygoers are patted down by hand.

Why did the cops not do anything?

A member of the public is seen talking with a police officer before the shots rang out, the building where Crooks was perched is to the right

Following the shooting, Trump put out a statement thanking the Secret Service for their ‘rapid response’ and offering his condolences to Comperatore

Video from the scene just before the gunfire began shows a man speaking with a local cop and appearing to point to the roof of the building where Crooks was lying in wait.

Other bystanders can be heard directing the officer to that roof top.

A witness told KDKA that the shooting began moments after he told a cop that he’d seen Crooks.

‘When I turned around to go back to where I was, it was when the gunshots started, and then it was just chaos, and we all came running away, and that was that,’ Ben Macer said.

Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told CBS News that when the cops were told about the sightings of Crooks, they began ‘searching’ for him.

Slupe said an officer with the Butler County Township was hoisted on to the roof where he encountered Crooks.

‘All I know is the officer had both hands on the roof to get up on the roof, never made it because the shooter had turned towards the officer, and rightfully and smartly, the officer let go,’ Slupe said.

‘I would have done the same thing, absolutely. I mean, people think the officers are supermen like you hold on the roof with one hand while you are hanging on for dear life and pull a gun out. It doesn’t work that way.’

[…]

Via https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13635445/FIVE-unanswered-questions-assassination-attempt-Donald-Trump-including-rooftop-unsecured-despite-identified-security-risk-Matthew-Crooks-got-roof-took-long-snipers-out.html