Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News
Washington, D.C.
Remarks as delivered.
Good morning everyone and welcome. Thanks to each of you for taking the time to join us today.
As we’ve been doing in an effort to be fully transparent given the national importance and the need to provide and ensure that the American people have all of the information relative to this case, we, the FBI, continue to share all that we can into the investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Trump on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
We’re taking another opportunity today to do that to ensure that the most accurate, up-to-date information is provided publicly, in part, through each of you, so thank you again.
This investigation remains urgent and ongoing, and FBI personnel agents, analysts, professional staff are working literally around the clock 24-7 as we continue to uncover new and refine details and evidence regarding the attack. Our teams, of course, are focused on building a timeline of events leading up to the attack covering a number of aspects. Our priorities within that are of course to identify the shooter’s motive—which as the SAC and the EAD will get into, is still not clear—and to determine whether any co-conspirators or associates were involved in or aware of the plot in advance. To be clear, though we have ruled nothing out and we’re leaving no stone unturned in continuing on that course, we have no information at this time that there are any co-conspirators.
While it is not typical for us, the FBI, to share details of an open investigation, we believe it is critical, in this instance, to provide the public and all of you everything that we know about this heinous attack and to correct the record where inaccurate or false information is put out in the realm, again, as a result of all that doing everything in our power to fully share information and to be as transparent as possible with each of you. And we’re committed to ensuring that the most accurate information is reported, and we are grateful to each of you again for helping us in that regard. We want to each of you and share with you real information, the truth, the cold, hard facts that we’ve developed and continue to bring out in the course of our investigation.
In a moment, we’ll go over to Kevin Rojek, he is the special agent in charge of our exceptional Pittsburgh Field Office. Kevin will lay out further details regarding the investigation. We’re also joined by Executive Assistant Director of our National Security Branch, Bobby Wells.
But first I want to take just a brief moment to thank, again, the FBI special agents, FBI intelligence analysts, and FBI professional staff who have been working non-stop since July 13. Literally moments after our personnel responded, after receiving word from the Secret Service, to the site and took over the lead in the investigation in the scene, within mere hours of the incident occurring.
I had the opportunity to visit myself over the weekend, the site in Butler, Pennsylvania, and also our field office there and meet with and hear from the people who are working on the front line on the case, and again, they’re doing an exceptional job. That includes also our extended investigative teams who’ve conducted literally hundreds of interviews and run down thousands of leads that includes our evidence response teams, behavioral analysts, forensic scientists, operational technology personnel, victim specialists, and many, many others who are doing everything they can to advance and support this critical investigation.
We also seek to reassure the public that our teams are doing everything they can to support the after action reviews. We know there are several that have already been announced or started through the DHS Inspector General, through Congress, through the independently named commission, and we plan to and are fully cooperating with each of those entities in pursuit of their mission in regard to this attack also.
I also want to highlight the corporation with the U.S. Secret Service, with Pennsylvania State Police, with Alleghany County and Butler County, and too many other to name state and local law enforcement partners, both in the investigation in terms of providing information to us in certain instances as witnesses. We are grateful to each and every one of our partners in that regard as well.
To be clear, relative to Secret Service, we are not investigating, from the FBI stance, or evaluating what was done correctly or incorrectly by any protective service or other law enforcement agency in regard to security planning, posture or execution, we defer entirely to others, though we are collecting facts that is relative to that and again, we’re sharing cooperatively in order to assist those conducting and refuse focus on those elements.
But again, the entirety of the FBI is committed to uncovering the real facts, the truth about this attack on former President Trump and the murder of Mr. Comperatore and the injury to others, as well, and to keep the American people informed those facts and the progress we are making and what we learn along the way.
I’d like to introduce FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek to take it from here and to further discuss and we’ll follow that, as Cathy mentioned, with questions at the conclusion.