The gunman who shot former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday flew a drone over the rally site a few hours before Trump took the stage.
The drone, made by DJI, allowed the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Crooks, to get an overhead view that may have helped him plan his attack, the source said.
Trump was shot in the ear in the assassination attempt, and the Secret Service killed Crooks after the attack at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Crooks used the drone.
The aerial surveillance appears to be another in a series of security failures that allowed the gunman to nearly kill the former president.
It’s common for the Secret Service to ban drones over areas they are securing, although it’s unclear if that happened with the Butler rally. It’s also unclear how investigators learned about the drone flight, but drones often leave electronic traces of their flight paths, and DJI may have had a record of the flight.
Read: Florida Sen. Rick Scott Demands Transparency On Attempted Assassination Of Former President Trump
A senior law enforcement source said a drone and drone equipment were recovered from Crooks’ vehicle.
The motive behind the attempt to kill Trump remains unknown and is under investigation.
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