Former Georgia congresswoman and one-time Donald Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the disgruntled group of MAGA stalwarts raising questions about the assassination attempt on the president when he was running for office.
“President Trump, of all people, should be leading the charge” to determine all the facts of what happened that day in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a campaign speech two years ago, she noted on X. “Why isn’t he?” Greene demanded. “That’s the question.”
Suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was killed by a Secret Service sniper after a bullet reportedly grazed Trump’s ear as he spoke on stage. Instead of ducking or being pushed to the ground by his security team, Trump defiantly raised a fist to the crowd and shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service agents pressed around him to protect him.
Crooks’ rifle fire injured two people at the rally and killed local volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore as he was shielding his family. Trump later insisted he was “saved by God," who he claimed wanted him to “make America great again.”
Questions were raised at the time, largely by the left, about the incident. Now, an increasing number of one-time Trump supporters are arguing that the attempt was staged by the president to win votes in a hard-fought election. They have offered no evidence, and a federal task force report concluded the shooting was as it appeared.
But Greene directed her followers on X Saturday to carefully read her lengthy repost by Trisha Hope, a former GOP national convention delegate from Texas.
“Extremely important post worth the read and consideration,” Greene wrote. “Corey Comperatore’s family deserves to know the truth about Matthew Crooks and what happened in Butler on July 13, 2024.”
Hope wrote in her post that her “first red flag” about the shooting was Trump’s vow at the Republican Convention just days later that he would tell the story of what happened just once and never speak about it again because it was “too painful.”
“When people tell a lie, certainly a big one, it is tough to keep all the details straight… In my opinion, Trump made that statement to stop any further conversation about what happened,” Hope wrote. “We all know no one loves Trump more than Trump, so this to me felt completely out of character.”
She also found it “odd” that Trump didn’t “aggressively” go after the Secret Service agents who had failed to stop the shooting. The president promoted one of them, Sean M. Curran, to be director of the Secret Service shortly after his election, praising Curran for risking “his life to help save mine from an assassin’s bullet.”
Six agents were suspended after the assassination attempt following a review by the Department of Homeland Security, which concluded that law enforcement breakdowns left Trump vulnerable.
Trump’s iconic photo also struck Hope as too coincidentally press-ready as the agents crouched around him, leaving his head exposed, even though other would-be assassins may have been hiding in the crowd, she added.
She claims Comperatore was sacrificed to make the attempt deadly serious.
“If you cannot look at this story, and use critical thinking skills and have at least some questions, you are the problem and we need you to snap out of it,” Hope concluded.
Greene’s repost of Hope’s claims attracted nearly 1,000 comments in a matter of hours. Some referred to John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on then-president Ronald Reagan when Secret Service agents immediately hurled him into the presidential limo, shielding him with their bodies. One was struck by a bullet.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
