Pentagon officials say they have not been asked to provide any additional security support to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee this week following the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Saturday.
The National Guard is providing around 1,700 Guardsmen, as well as a small number of active-duty troops, but that the effort was pre-planned, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday.
States have deployed the National Guard to political conventions of both parties for years, and the support they provide is not unusual or atypical. “As of right now, I’m not tracking any additional requests for more support,” Singh said.
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The news comes after a gunman, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire on Trump and a surrounding crowd at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a small town about an hour north of Pittsburgh. Crooks shot from the roof of a building overlooking the rally that was roughly 400 feet away from the stage where Trump was speaking.
Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper but not before he killed one person and seriously wounded two others, including a Marine veteran. Singh said Crooks has no military service affiliation “in any branch, active or reserve component.”
The National Guard personnel that are deploying to the convention have been in…
