If it serves powerful people’s interests, rest assured that major security incidents will result in the most exhaustive investigation. Career politicians will exploit it for theater, and the establishment media will cover it for years.
If, on the other hand, powerful people do not stand to benefit from the ensuing narrative, then rest assured that every aspect of the investigation and its coverage will feature gaps, errors, miscommunications and platitudinous stonewalling by high-ranking officials — all tending in the direction of secrecy.
According to Newsweek, Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana has accused the FBI of obstructing his investigation into the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, by quietly authorizing the release of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks’ body for cremation
Higgins serves on the House task force charged with investigating the shooting. He made his accusation in a report submitted to Republican Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, the task force chairman.
“My effort to examine Crooks’ body on Monday, Aug. 5, caused quite a stir and revealed a disturbing fact … the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after J13,” Higgins wrote. “On J23, Crooks was gone. Nobody knew this until Monday, Aug. 5, including the County Coroner, law enforcement, Sheriff, etc.”
After speaking with the Butler County Coroner, Higgins concluded that the FBI gave permission for the body’s release and cremation.
Note that the House voted unanimously to establish the task force on July 24. According to Higgins, the FBI authorized the release of Crooks’ body the previous day.
Understandably, this did not sit well with the congressional investigator.
“The problem with me not being able to examine the actual body is that I won’t know 100 percent if the coroner’s report and the autopsy report are accurate. We will actually never know,” Higgins wrote. “Yes, we’ll get the reports and pictures, etc, but I will not ever be able to say with certainty that those reports and pictures are accurate according to my own examination of the body.”
Will the destruction of Crooks’ body hinder the investigation?
Yes: 100% (9 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
Indeed, how many investigators might have benefited from access to President John F. Kennedy’s body following his November 1963 assassination? For instance, would those investigators have noticed something that lent credence to the theory of multiple shooters?
According to WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, Higgins also blasted Secret Service agents for their failure to retrieve radios set aside for them by law enforcement in Butler.
But the congressman reserved his most pointed criticism for federal law enforcement.
“The FBI cleaned up biological evidence from the crime scene, which is unheard of,” Higgins wrote. “Cops don’t do that, ever.”
Predictably, the FBI professed astonishment.
In fact, a spokesperson characterized the Bureau as “surprised” and “disturbed” by the obstruction allegation. The same spokesperson also described a “detailed, coordinated effort with the coroner’s office” that preceded the release of Crooks’ body.
In cases like this, one hardly knows what to think.
On one hand, of course, not every development has sinister implications.
On the other hand, patterns of behavior do matter. And when powerful people have obfuscated on details or tried to bury the Trump assassination attempt story altogether, suspicions naturally arise.
Those suspicions intensify when one recalls how the FBI behaved following the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021.
No doubt some rank-and-file agents deserve praise and even gratitude for the honest work they do.
As for the Bureau’s leadership and other less scrupulous actors, however, one can only conclude that a Gestapo-like agency capable of targeting political opponents and terrorizing ordinary Americans certainly has the capacity to obstruct a congressional investigation in the attempted assassination of a former and perhaps future president — or worse.
