(AP Photo - July 13, 2024)
- After an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump Saturday, an aide to Mississippi Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson posted to social media “I don’t support violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time.”
From the roof of a manufacturing plant more than 130 yards from the stage set up at Butler Farm Show Grounds in Pennsylvania, a gunman squeezed off multiple rounds. His target? Former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was speaking at a campaign rally.
Bullets whipped past Trump’s head, one grazing his ear, before Secret Service forced him to the ground and one of their snipers killed the shooter. As Trump was escorted off the stage, flanked by multiple agents and with blood splattered across the right side of his face, he threw up a defiant fist in the air. The crowd in attendance erupted.
The captured images are the sort of thing that can make a president, or at a minimum, encapsulate the gravity of the moment.
The consequence of the shooting included the death of an innocent bystander and serious injuries to at least two others. Had the bullet that knicked Trump’s ear passed an inch further to the right, news reports today would be drawing comparisons to Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield and William McKinley — a sobering thought and a reminder of just how volatile the nation’s political divide has become.
The former President was reported to be “fine.” He released a statement thanking the Secret Service and offering condolences to those killed or injured.
Multiple sources have since reported the gunman as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, a resident of nearby Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. No immediate motive for the shooting has been made available, though the FBI is treating it as an assassination attempt. Crooks body was recovered from the top of the roof where he was perched, along with an AR-style rifle.
Bennie Thompson staffer breaks with mostly unified response to shooting
President Joe Biden, along with former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama all denounced political violence and expressed thanks that former President Trump was not seriously injured.
Mississippi officials, including Gov. Tate Reeves, U.S. Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, and Speaker Jason White all expressed some form of solidarity with Trump. They were joined by a bevy of other statewide and local elected officials. Among them was Congressman Bennie Thompson (D, 2nd District).
Thompson has been one of former President Trump’s most outspoken critics, chairing the January 6th Committee that investigated Trump’s role in the Capitol riots and recommending criminal prosecution of the former President. In April, Thompson proposed the DISGRACED Act aimed at removing Trump’s Secret Service detail if he was sentenced to prison.
In the aftermath of Saturday night’s shooting, one of Thompson’s self-identified aides, Jacqueline Marsaw, was apparently not able to muster the same level of magnanimity as her boss.
As first reported by Magnolia Tribune staff, a series of Facebook posts made on Marsaw’s account expressed her desire that the would-be assassin’s aim had been better.
Other posts by Marsaw included justification for the attempted assassination:
And a post suggesting the shooting was “staged”:
Shortly after Magnolia Tribune shared the posts on its social media channels, Marsaw deleted them from her Facebook account.
Marsaw’s Facebook page indicates she is employed by Congressman Thompson as a case manager/field director.
Russ Latino
