'Hard to explain': Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson questions whether Trump shooter acted alone

FONTANA-ON-GENEVA LAKE, Wisconsin − As Congress begins to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, one congressman from the Cincinnati region questioned whether the shooter acted alone.

"It's such a level of negligence that it's just hard to conceive that it was simply negligence," U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, told The Enquirer Tuesday morning while attending the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin. "So the investigation has to be thorough. There are failures that are hard to explain by anyone with any remote level of training, to say that a sniper could get 130, 150 yards away from the president of the United States."

The FBI identified 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident Thomas Matthew Crooks as the shooter and has said in statements it continues to investigate the motive. According to the FBI, the shooter appears to have acted alone but the agency continues to look into whether there were "co-conspirators associated with this attack."

Crooks was shot to death by the Secret Service after firing bullets that grazed the former president's ear.

Davidson wants to know how the shooter got on top of a roof within 150 yards of Trump, and why, after he was spotted, action wasn't immediately taken. When asked by The Enquirer whether he's suggesting the assassination attempt was an inside job, he said, "It's hard to explain all the failures."

Davidson won't say whether he's interested in Vance's Senate seat

While Davidson is not a delegate at the Republican National Convention, he is attending along with more than 2,400 Republican delegates who have convened in Milwaukee to nominate Donald Trump as their choice for president. He will speak to the Ohio Republican delegation on Thursday at their breakfast in the hotel where they're staying at Fontana-on-Geneva Lake.

One of the big questions to come out of the convention is who would fill Sen. J.D. Vance's Senate seat should Trump win and Vance become vice president.

Davidson wouldn't say yes or no when asked whether he'd be interested in being appointed to Vance's Senate seat by Gov. Mike DeWine.

"There's a lot of things that have to happen between now and then," Davidson said. "So I'm just focused on this next election cycle."

He wouldn't rule it out.

"I'm focused on other things right now."