Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene drew some backlash over the weekend when she shared a lengthy post from a user on X who questioned the circumstances surrounding the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024.
“Corey Comperatore’s wife and daughters deserve to know why Corey, a true American patriot and hero was murdered in Butler,” Greene, a Georgia Republican, wrote in a post on Saturday. “Trump said repeatedly ‘I am your retribution.’ Where is the retribution?”
The former congresswoman stressed she did not share the post because she believed the shooting was a “hoax,” but rather because she agreed there needed to be questions asked of the Secret Service and more transparency on findings.
“I’m not calling the Butler assassination a hoax,” Greene wrote in a post on Sunday. “But there are a lot of questions that deserve public answers.”
Why It Matters
Greene’s break with Trump marked a sharp reversal from her years as one of his most vocal allies, as she publicly accused him of abandoning the “America First” agenda and escalating foreign conflicts she said betrayed core MAGA principles. The split escalated after disputes over U.S. military actions and the administration’s refusal to release additional Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, prompting Trump to revoke his endorsement and denounce Greene in public statements.
The spat is the latest salvo in an ongoing split among prominent MAGA figures, which Greene highlighted last week when she posted on X about “new” and “old” MAGA. Greene, who resigned from Congress earlier this year, described Trump’s leadership as destabilizing and warned continued loyalty to him would cost Republicans future elections.
She went further by calling for the GOP to be “burned to the ground,” arguing it had become captive to leadership and donors rather than voters, and distancing herself from what she described as a cult-like version of MAGA centered on Trump personally.
What To Know
A gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop as Trump was speaking in Butler during the 2024 presidential campaign, striking the president in the ear and killing one rally attendee, Corey Comperatore. The shooter, later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was killed by a Secret Service countersniper.
Footage and investigations have since raised more questions about how Crooks was able to position himself with a clear line of sight toward the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. But as a cascade of security failures have come to light, public attention has waned.
Greene shared a post on Saturday in which Trisha Hope, a January 6, 2021, activist who calls herself “as MAGA as it gets,” wrote a lengthy argument focused on irregularities she believed to exist around the attempted shooting of Trump, which resulted in an injury to his ear and a now-famous photo of the president standing defiantly and urging the crowd to “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
Greene called the post “extremely important … worth the read and consideration,” which many took as an endorsement of the part of the post that implied the shooting could have been staged, even though Greene focused her message on why Trump wasn’t “leading the charge” to get more answers and “the truth about Matthew Crooks and what happened in Butler on July 13, 2024.”
“I’m asking why won’t Trump release the information about Matthew Crooks? Did he actually act alone? If not, who is behind him and who helped him? Why the cover up??” Greene wrote in her post on Sunday.
Her series of posts drew criticism from far-right activist and independent journalist Laura Loomer, a close Trump ally and supporter. Loomer lashed out at Greene and Buckley Carlson, the son of Tucker Carlson, accusing the latter of “joining MTG in pushing the deranged conspiracy theory that President Trump staged his attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
“The woke right is very triggered this morning,” Loomer wrote on X, speculating Buckley Carlson may have been acting out after he stopped working for Vice President JD Vance.
However, Carlson responded that “Corey Comperatore’s widow and daughters — & all Americans — deserve a real investigation,” and he thanked her for “spreading the word.”
Update 4/19/26, 3:04 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.