Butler, Pennsylvania. July 13, 2024. A Bullet. A Rooftop. Twenty Months of Silence. And Questions That Should Terrify Every American.

Butler, Pennsylvania. July 13, 2024. A Bullet. A Rooftop. Twenty Months of Silence. And Questions That Should Terrify Every American.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #845: Sunday, April 5th, 2026

Stop what you’re doing.

I need sixty seconds of your complete attention.

Because what I’m about to show you isn’t a conspiracy theory. It isn’t speculation. It isn’t the kind of thing you dismiss and scroll past.

It is documented. Sourced. Confirmed by nonpartisan government auditors, Republican senators…Republican congressmen…and former Secret Service agents who built their careers protecting presidents.

And…it has been buried…quietly…systematically…and successfully…under twenty months of incomplete answers, stonewalled subpoenas….and….an FBI investigation that consumed 480 employees, 1,000 interviews, and 500,000 digital files…

…and concluded with no motive.

None.

Here is what you need to understand right now.

The Setup

July 13th, 2024. Butler, Pennsylvania.

A twenty-year-old named Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto a rooftop 157 yards from a presidential candidate. In plain sight. For ninety minutes. With a rifle.

He fired eight shots.

One man died. Two others were critically injured. A bullet allegedly grazed the ear of the man who would become the 47th President of the United States by a margin measured in fractions of an inch.

Corey Comperatore went to that rally as a spectator. He didn’t come home.

Twenty months later…the FBI says they don’t know why it happened.

I’m going to show you why that answer is not acceptable.

And why the questions that remain open should make every American….regardless of politics…furious.

Signal: What We Know That We Were Never Supposed To Notice

Here are the facts. Documented. Sourced. In order.

Fact one.

Ten days before Butler…July 3rd, 2024…senior Secret Service officials were briefed on a classified intelligence threat to Trump’s life.

Not a vague threat. A specific threat. From Iran. Specifying a long-range attack. A potential sniper.

This is not rumor. This is confirmed by the Government Accountability Office…the nonpartisan auditing arm of the United States Congress…in a report commissioned by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley.

The Secret Service had this intelligence for ten days.

They told almost nobody.

Not the local law enforcement securing the event. Not the agents on Trump’s protective detail. Not the specialized countersurveillance unit whose entire job is to find people like Crooks before they pull the trigger.

Their explanation…and I need you to read this carefully…is that the Secret Service “had no process to share classified threat information with partners when the information was not considered an imminent threat to life.”

A classified Iranian sniper threat to a presidential candidate. Ten days out. Not imminent enough to share.

Read that again. Slowly.

Fact two.

The rooftop Crooks used had been identified as a sightline risk before the event. Supervisors expected farm equipment to block the view. The equipment wasn’t placed. Staff who visited the site saw it wasn’t there. They didn’t tell their supervisors. The roof was assessed as “acceptable” risk.

And…left…unguarded.

Fact three.

Spectators spotted Crooks acting suspiciously before he fired. They alerted law enforcement. Text messages from a police sniper confirm law enforcement knew Crooks was on that roof ninety minutes before the shots rang out.

He was not stopped.

Fact four.

The Secret Service’s counter-drone technology malfunctioned that day. The agent operating it had received exactly one hour of training. Crooks had flown his own drone over the site…undetected…hours before the rally.

Fact five.

Crooks’ body was cremated ten days after the shooting. Republican Congressman Clay Higgins called this decision something that “could only be described as an obstruction to any following investigative effort.”

The FBI said nothing was rushed.

Ten days. For the body of the man who nearly killed a president.

Fact six.

The FBI initially told Congress and the public that Crooks had almost no online footprint. Limited social media. No clear ideology. A mystery.

That turned out to be false.

Investigators later found at least seventeen social media accounts. A documented radicalization timeline. Encrypted foreign-based email accounts they couldn’t crack. A post on a gaming platform one week before the shooting: “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”

Republican Congressman Pat Fallon, who sat on the House Task Force investigating the shooting, said this:

“We definitely got stonewalled. When we finally got answers that we thought were fully forthright — now it seems like they weren’t.”

Pattern: This Is What Institutional Cover Looks Like

I want you to step back from the individual facts for a moment.

And…look at the shape of what happened after.

The FBI assigned 480 employees. Conducted 1,000 interviews. Processed 500,000 digital files. Closed the investigation in November 2025.

With no motive.

Senator Ron Johnson issued subpoenas for ballistics reports…witness transcripts…and body camera footage. He got nothing. “It’s a year now and the American people don’t have answers,” he said. “There is bodycam video footage that’s not being provided to us or the public.”

The full FBI report has not been released. The stated reason: ongoing prosecutions. Specifics: undisclosed. Timeline for release: none given.

Six Secret Service personnel were formally disciplined. Some received reduced punishments from what was originally recommended.

Six people. For the security failure of the century.

Now…I need you to notice something.

Governments withhold information for two reasons.

The first is legitimate…ongoing prosecutions…source protection…operational security. Real. Sometimes appropriate.

The second is institutional self-protection…when the full truth of what happened would be so catastrophically damaging to the agencies involved that releasing it would destroy them.

I am not telling you which one this is.

I am telling you the pattern is consistent with the second.

And…that twenty months of incomplete disclosure, stonewalled subpoenas…a cremated body…seventeen social media accounts after they said he had almost none, and a closed investigation with no motive…

…is not the profile of a completed inquiry.

It is the profile of a contained one.

Implication: Three Things You Need To Watch

One:

Senator Ron Johnson is still pulling on this thread. The subpoenas are still active. The body camera footage still hasn’t been released. Watch for what comes out…and watch more carefully for what gets blocked.

Two:

In March 2026…just weeks ago…a Pakistani national with ties to Iranian intelligence named Asif Merchant was convicted in federal court for a separate plot to assassinate Trump.

During the trial, an FBI agent testified that Merchant told his Iranian handler he believed Iran was responsible for Butler. The FBI says there’s no evidence of that connection. But the conviction exists. The testimony exists. And the Iran intelligence thread from ten days before Butler exists.

Watch those three things together.

Three:

The full FBI report on Butler has not been released. When it is… if it is…read it like the document it is. Not as a conclusion. As a starting point.

Because twenty months of non-disclosure…means whatever is in that report has been carefully managed before you ever see it.

Orientation: What You Do With This

Here is the frame I want you to carry.

This is not about whether you like Trump. Whether you voted for him. Whether you think he deserved what almost happened in Butler.

This is about something much simpler and much more important.

A man died in Butler, Pennsylvania. Two others were nearly killed. The President of the United States survived by a fraction of an inch.

The American people were promised a complete accounting.

They have not received one.

That is not acceptable. Not in a democracy. Not ever. Not for any president. Not for any political party. Not under any circumstances.

Demand the answers. Keep demanding them.

Don’t let the Iran war bury this.

Don’t let twenty months become forty.

Stay clear. Stay steady. Stay dangerous.

#HoldFast.

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

In about an hour, the paid subscriber edition goes deeper….into the Iran intelligence thread, the Asif Merchant conviction, the specific institutional architecture that made Butler possible, and the pattern of non-disclosure that tells its own story.

If you’ve been reading this as a free subscriber and today was the day something clicked…the door is open. The rate you lock in never changes. Not by a dollar. Not ever.

Sources

GAO Report — classified Iran intelligence threat not shared, Secret Service failures: Senate Judiciary Committee — Grassley Report

Iranian plot to assassinate Trump — intelligence obtained before Butler rally: CNN | ABC News

FBI investigation — 480 employees, 1,000 interviews, 500,000 files, closed November 2025, no motive: Washington Times | Wikipedia — Thomas Crooks

Crooks spotted on roof 90 minutes before firing — text messages confirm: Wikipedia — Thomas Crooks | Newsweek

Rooftop identified as sightline risk — left unguarded — farm equipment not placed: Senate Judiciary — GAO Report | Spotlight PA

Counter-drone technology malfunctioned — agent had one hour of training: Senate Judiciary — GAO Report

Body cremated ten days after shooting — Congressman Clay Higgins: Newsweek

FBI initially said Crooks had minimal online footprint — later found 17 accounts: Fox News | YourNews — Tucker Carlson findings

Crooks gaming platform post: “July 13 will be my premiere”: Wikipedia — Thomas Crooks | Fox News

Senator Ron Johnson — subpoenas stonewalled, body camera footage withheld: Washington Times

Congressman Pat Fallon — “We were stonewalled”: The National News Desk

Six Secret Service personnel disciplined — some received reduced punishments: CNN — One Year After Butler

Asif Merchant — Iranian-linked assassination plot, convicted March 2026: Fox News

One year later — unanswered questions, Secret Service reforms: NBC Philadelphia | Spotlight PA | Fox 13 Seattle

Encrypted foreign communications — FBI seeking backdoor access: Fox News

Corey Comperatore — killed at Butler rally: Wikipedia — Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania

All links verified as of publication. Some may require free registration to access. This is the free edition of Jack Hopkins Now…available to all subscribers. The paid expansion, published separately, goes deeper into the Iran intelligence thread, the Asif Merchant conviction, and the institutional architecture that made Butler possible.