Assassination attempts

Chapter 1

Path tease: sixteen links

The established account needs each of these links. Theories are scored against them at [[#path|the critical path]].

1. **Unguarded AGR sight line** — roofs outside the Butler perimeter can see the stage.

2. **Suspicious person flagged** — rangefinder, odd behavior; drone flight later noted.

3. **Comms do not pull the protectee** — Trump still walks on stage.

4. **Eight shots from the roof** — Crooks fires.

5. **Casualties** — ear wound; Comperatore killed; two spectators critically hurt.

6. **Counter-sniper kills Crooks** — no proven second shooter.

7. **FBI: bullet struck the ear** — not “just glass.”

8. **Cheatle resigns; probes open** — Congress and watchdogs move.

9. **Routh at the golf course** — rifle in the shrubbery.

10. **Agent spots the barrel** — Florida attempt foiled.

11. **Separate Iran-linked cases** — Merchant and Shakeri, not Crooks.

12. **Oversight: Butler preventable** — Task Force and Senate.

13. **FBI: Crooks alone, no motive** — November 2025 closeout.

14. **Suspensions and OIG** — limited discipline; missed-opportunities report.

15. **Routh life sentence** — jury, then Judge Cannon.

16. **Staging/inside-job fail the record** — through late October 2026.

Chapter 3

The roof that should not have been free

Before anyone fired, the geometry was wrong. The American Glass Research complex sat with line-of-sight to the stage. The House Task Force and the DHS inspector general later described an outside-perimeter sector that was not secured like the inner magnetometer world — a fence-line crowd, confused responsibility for roofs, local snipers who thought overwatch meant the venue, not the AGR tops. ^[6][7][8]

OIG added a colder detail: Crooks flew a drone to view the stage area, and Secret Service detection failed through operator and equipment problems. ^[9][10]

Chapter 5

Six seconds and a dead firefighter

Crooks fired about eight rounds. Trump was hit in the ear. Comperatore was killed. David Dutch and James Copenhaver were critically wounded. The counter-sniper ended Crooks’s life on the roof. ^[13][3][4]

Those sentences are why “staged” collapses. A political still of a raised fist can dominate memory; it cannot erase a named dead man. ^[1]

Chapter 7

Florida: the control case

On 15 September 2024, Ryan Wesley Routh waited with a rifle in vegetation along Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. A Secret Service agent saw the weapon. Routh fled and was arrested. Trump was not hit. ^[17][18][19]

The Task Force later held Florida up as proof that protective measures, executed, can stop an ambush — the contrast that makes Butler’s failures sharper, not softer. ^[20][7]

Routh’s prior Ukraine-related public activity shows up in profiles. This guide notes it as biography and stops. The war is another subject. ^[21]

Chapter 9

Oversight writes “preventable”

The House Task Force’s final report said Butler should not have happened — not because of one cartoon villain moment, but because planning, execution, and leadership failures stacked. ^[7][27]

In July 2025, Senator Rand Paul’s committee product catalogued denied resources, communication breakdowns, and discipline that stopped at suspensions. ^[12] The Secret Service said six employees were suspended for 10 to 42 days and published a one-year reforms update. ^[28][29]

Chapter 11

Alone — and still no why

In November 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino described an exhaustive probe: hundreds of employees, more than a thousand interviews, full access to Crooks’s devices and foreign email accounts. Their conclusion: Crooks acted alone. No manifesto. No foreign tie. No established motive. ^[26][34][35]

Patel said Trump, briefed as a victim, was satisfied. That is a political communication fact. It is not a substitute for the missing motive. ^[36]

Chapter 13

What the theories have to break

**Staged** must erase Comperatore and the FBI bullet statement. It fails. ^[3][14]

**Inside job** must turn documented negligence into proven intent. It has not. ^[26][7]

**Second shooter** must overturn round accounting and the state-police identification of the water-tower figure. The bureau says no. ^[37][13]

**Iran ran Crooks** must invent a foreign handler the FBI says it did not find — while real Iran dockets sit next door. ^[26][23]

**Democrat plot** must produce controllers. Publicly, Patel’s testimony and the closeout point the other way. ^[38][39]

Chapter 15

How to use the critical path

The sixteen links above are the spine. Every major theory in this file is scored against them: which steps it must deny or recast, what missing evidence it needs, what would have to be fake. ^[40]

If a viral clip cannot say which numbered step it breaks, it is entertainment, not a rival history.

Chapter 17

What remains open

Crooks’s motive. Whether any unreleased page ever shows intent behind a failure. Whether Shakeri faces a courtroom. What Routh’s appeal changes. How many quieter plots never make a headline. ^[35][24][33]

Open is not the same as “therefore staging.”

Chapter 19

Nest, gateway, no homepage peer

The maintained deep guide path is `/files/trump-assassination-attempts/`. The Trump hub lists it under Full guides. The thin nest at `/files/trump/assassination-attempts/` stays as a MAINTAINED RECORD gateway so old links do not die. No new homepage peer card. ^[41][43][40]