On July 13th, 2024, just a few days before the Republication National Convention, at a campaign rally near Butler, Penn., a gunman allegedly shot at Donald Trump, then candidate for president of the United States.

In the ensuing moments, a rally attendee and the alleged shooter were killed.

One year later, so many questions remain.

So much of the actual incident makes little sense.

When UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered in New York in December 2024, it only seemed like ten minutes later that everyone knew the suspected killer’s name, Luigi Mangione, his face, his motive for the murder, his political views, what he studied in college, and practically even his go-to TV show. Anyone and everyone who ever crossed paths with him was interviewed for their two cents.

The blitz of information came fast, furious, and fully.

In contrast, the July 2024 assassination attempt of then former president running for re-election is shrouded in secrecy by authorities and aided by a media blackout even today.

Why did the Secret Service turn down the offer of a drone to help with their surveillance of the area?

How was this gunman able to get into position overlooking the rally?

Who was he and why did he want Trump dead?

How does someone grazed by an assault rifle bullet only bleed a trickle?

Since when does ear cartilage grow back?

Where’s the scar? Where are the medical reports?

In the middle of an active shooter situation, why did Trump’s Secret Service detail give Trump the precious seconds to grandstand to the cameras?

How did a man known for his profound cowardice – the five-time draft dodger famously hid in the White House bunker during his first term when peaceful protesters marched outside – find the guts to defy incoming bullets and fist-pump to the crowd?

The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was a 20-year-old community college graduate who worked as a dietary aide in a retirement home. His motive for the shooting remains a mystery to this day.

Local law enforcement apparently saw Crooks scoping out the building he used as a platform as much as a half-hour before the incident.

Bystanders alerted law enforcement on the scene when they saw him on the roof.

Yet he was still able to get off multiple rounds before being shot dead himself.

According to a U.S. House task force that investigated the shooting, Crooks had encrypted online accounts on platforms in Belgium, New Zealand and Germany. That’s hardly typical for your average 20-year-old dietary aide. No one has been able to determine with whom he was communicating or what about.

The greatest suggestion that something is terribly amiss about this incident comes from the alleged victim himself.

Donald Trump routinely refers to himself as the most persecuted man in history. Here’s a man quick to be offended and who never, ever forgets a slight: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, the media, democrats and more – anyone who has ever wronged him in any way, real or imagined, is a target.

Earlier today on his beloved Truth Social, he teased revoking former “View” host Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship because “she is a threat to humanity.” (I forget: Did Rosie gain control of a nuclear arsenal when we weren’t looking?)

And yet not a word – not a single word – about the time someone tried to kill him.

Riiiiiggggghhhht.

The most obvious reason for his silence is that he wants people to forget about that incident. He’s in the White House. He doesn’t need anyone checking up on what he did to get there. Mainstream media, long cowed by Trump, is only too happy to move on.

The U.S. Secret Service issued a statement earlier this week, commending themselves on the reforms the agency has undertaken in the wake of the shooting. That day “represents an operational failure that the Secret Service will carry as a reminder of the critical importance of its zero-fail mission and the need for continuous improvement.”

Trump’s hand-picked director of the Secret Service?

Sean Curran, the leader of the protection detail on the day of the shooting.