Given that the Kennedy assassination has been deeply debated and discussed for 61 years now, we should not expect that after just seven weeks, we would know how and why on July 13th, at an open-air campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, a 20-year young man named Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to assassinate Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump.

First and foremost, Crooks should never, ever have gotten off a shot in the first place. The last time something like this happened was on March 30, 1981, when John Hinckley Jr. shot then-President of the United States Ronald Reagan as he was going to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton. Our Secret Service has been protecting presidents, former presidents, their immediate families, etc. without another such incident for over forty years.

So how did it happen on July 13th in Butler, PA? Watching the videos of the assassination attempt, the Secret Service looked at times like the Keystone Kops rather than an elite protection unit. It was not the skills of the Secret Service but the grace of God that caused Trump to turn his head at just the right moment to avoid what undoubtedly would have been a potentially fatal blow.

So, where did the security break down? Why was the roof where Crooks were shot from not secured? Even people in the crowd could see a man on the roof; why not those assigned for that very purpose? Yes, the Secret Service uses local law enforcement, but that does not mean they were the scrub team, or at least, they should not have been.

Four years ago, Donald Trump made two visits to Williamsport while running for President. I talked with several of those responsible for local security, and they emphasized that the protocol for these events is rigidly standardized and trained. No matter how you cut it, someone either did not know what they were doing or was doing it wrong—and that falls back on the Secret Service, who are supposed to be running the show.

Who was Thomas Matthew Crooks, and what was his motive? No one seems to know. Most of those who knew him described him as a normal guy, not particularly popular but also not one that got picked on. He was a fairly good student and especially liked history. Interestingly, a former classmate told ABC News he “shot terribly” and “wasn’t really fit for the rifle team.” The school district confirmed that there was no record of Crooks trying out for the team, and he never appeared on a roster.

Was Crooks a patsy, i.e. Lee Harvey Oswald? It did not take very long for the New York Times, Reuters, NPR, and other mainstream press to quickly quell any possibility of a conspiracy. Personally, I do not follow these James Bond-type plots, but it surely begs the question of how Thomas Matthew Crooks could climb to the roof of a building, providing a clear shot at Trump, and the assigned law enforcement agents just happened to look the other way, which allowed the attempt.

Right now, it appears incompetence is winning the argument, as the shooting was a devastating failure of one of the agency’s core duties and led to the resignation of the Secret Service’s director, Kim Cheatle, and five agents who were there in Butler have been “reassigned” to other duties. But the investigation is still continuing. There is a congressional task force of 13 members, consisting of seven Republicans and six Democrats, charged with determining what went wrong on the day of the attempted assassination and to make recommendations to prevent future security lapses. They are to issue a final report before December 13 of this year.

Final report? Forgive my skepticism. I cannot help but wonder if my grandchildren are going to be my age before the truth of what happened on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, fully comes to light.