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| - By: Nikolaj Kristensen
July 16 2024
(Source: X/TikTok/Screenshots)
The Secret Service says it has no employee named Jonathan Willis.
What is the claim?
After former U.S. President Donald Trump was hit by a bullet at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, videos (archived here) began circulating online showing two snipers on the roof of the building just behind Trump, seemingly aiming their rifles in the direction of the shooter before the first shot was fired.
A post (archived here) soon appeared on the anonymous message board community site 4chan by a user claiming to be one of the snipers on the roof. In the post, the user claimed "top brass" had ordered him not to take the shooter out.
"My name is Jonathan Willis, I'm the officer in the famous photo of the two snipers on the roof at Trump's rally. I came here to inform the public that I had the assassin in my sights for at least 3 minutes, but the head of the secret service refused to give the order to take out the perp. 100% the top brass prevented me from killing the assassin before he took the shots at president Trump," read the post in full.
Further down in the thread, the same user claimed that he took out the shooter "despite strict orders to not engage" after the shots against Trump were fired, causing him to lose his job.
Screenshots of the 4chan post spread to social media, including Facebook (archived here), Instagram (archived here), X, and TikTok (archived here). One X post (archived here) was viewed over 11 million times.
However, the U.S. Secret Service denied the account, saying there was no employee in the Secret Service by that name. 4chan message boards have a history of being a breeding ground for shitposting and internet hoaxes.
In fact
When asked about the 4chan post, the Secret Service said it was untrue.
"This claim is categorically false. There is no U.S. Secret Service employee by that name," Nate Herring of the United States Secret Service's Communication and Media Relations told Logically Facts.
According to CNN, counter-sniper teams have wide discretion when shooting down a threat. The Associated Press quoted an unnamed Secret Service spokesperson that snipers do not await instructions before taking a shot to neutralize a suspect. "Snipers are trained and instructed to act whenever they see a threat," the AP report said.
Despite several users on the 4chan message board asking for proof that the user was who he said he was, none was provided. The thread has now been archived.
4chan is widely associated with alt-right sentiment and has a history of shitposting and internet hoaxes. The QAnon conspiracy theory started on 4chan.
After the shooter opened fire on Trump at the rally, Secret Service snipers shot and killed the shooter at the scene.
The shooter killed one person at the rally while two others were injured.
The verdict
The Secret Service says it does not have an employee named Jonathan Willis. Counter-sniper teams are reported to have wide discretion when taking out threats. 4chan has a history of shitposting, internet hoaxes, and conspiracy theories. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.
Follow Logically Facts' coverage and fact-checking of the U.S. Election 2024 here.
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