Sen. Ron Johnson (R) irresponsibly spread an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that there was a second shooter in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Law enforcement has not uncovered any proof of another gunman.
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“Was it one rifle? Was it more than one?” the Republican senator said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo . “I’ve seen some pretty interesting video on the internet by experts that certainly calls into question what the FBI’s telling us about a single shooter.”
The “pretty interesting video” Johnson is referring to may be blurry footage of the water tower near the rally site in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot. This footage has circulated in conspiracy circles on X , Reddit , and YouTube . It shows the water tower and a dark spot near the tower’s vent that conspiracy theorists claim is a second shooter. An eyewitness also said on Fox News that she believed there was another shooter, mentioning “the other shooter” that she heard was by the water tower.
According to CBS News and experts they interviewed, “The videos do not show a person atop the tower.” Additionally, law enforcement — including the Secret Service, FBI, and local officers — as well as members of the media and other eyewitness accounts all point to 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks as the only gunman . Crooks opened fire from the roof of a building located outside the security perimeter, approximately 150 yards away from where Trump spoke at the podium. Crooks’ gunfire grazed Trump’s ear, killed former fire chief Corey Comperatore, and critically wounded two others.
Johnson has spread other baseless conspiracy theories about the shooting, including blaming “identity politics” and “critical race theory” for dividing the nation and somehow causing the shooting. Crooks was a registered Republican who gave $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021.
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Johnson urged those who were at the rally and witnessed the shooting to come forward. “It is so important that people who saw things, that have information, they preserve it, they memorialize what they saw because memories change over time, they can be influenced,” he said. “So, again, it’s good news on a bipartisan basis, Chairman [Richard] Blumenthal [(D)] and I are dedicated to taking transcribed interviews with law enforcement and public — just members of the general public that were at that that rally.”
Johnson also suggested that it may have been “divine intervention” that he gave Trump a chart showing immigration numbers across his administration. Trump turned his head slightly to look at the chart during his speech, potentially sparing him from a direct hit to the head.
At the rally, Trump alleged that a drop in immigration numbers on the chart showed that when he left office, immigration was the lowest “in recorded history.” This is false. The dip in the chart was actually in early 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic when Covid-19 temporarily decreased border crossings. Since 1925, the number of Border Patrol apprehensions across the country have often been lower than January 2021, when Trump left office.
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