Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the Secret Service discovered a “suspicious” hunting post near Palm Beach International Airport with a direct line of sight to where President Donald Trump exits Air Force One.
“The FBI has since taken the lead in the investigation,” Patel said in a statement, “sending resources to collect all evidence from the scene and deploying our cell phone analysis capabilities.”
Now, two weeks later, a Florida reptile hunter who calls himself Python Cowboy says he’s convinced the FBI is barking up the wrong tree.
Mike Kimmel, owner of Martin County Trapping and Wildlife Rescue, told NBC News that the elevated stand has been there for years and the only mystery is whether it was installed by a hunter, bird watcher or wildlife photographer.
“When we first saw it, Joe Biden was president,” Kimmel said. “And it looked old and dilapidated at the time. It never gave a sense of suspicion.”
A professional trapper for more than a decade, Kimmel operates throughout South Florida, removing invasive species such as Burmese pythons, green iguanas and feral pigs. He also guides hunting trips, with the help of his specially trained dogs: Trouble, Rooster and Rowdy, among others.
Kimmel knows the canals surrounding Palm Beach Airport well. They are privileged places for hunting iguanas.
Kimmel said he first noticed the tree Patel identified a couple of years ago.
“It never crossed our minds that it would be used by someone who would shoot the president or something,” Kimmel said.
In July 2024, a would-be assassin managed to fire several bullets at Trump during a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, hitting him in the ear. Two months later, the Secret Service arrested a man who was seen hiding in the bushes, with a rifle, at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. In late September, a Florida jury found him guilty of attempting to assassinate Trump.
Kimmel said the Secret Service approached him after the first assassination attempt and told him to refrain from hunting in the area for the next week.
“We respect that,” he said. “We’re out there with BB guns and everything. It might look suspicious.”
If you spend as much time in that area as he does, Kimmel said, there are plenty of other things you could see.
“There are homeless encampments out there,” he said. “There’s all kinds of trash. I found a dead body out there. The tree stand is a very small spot.”
“I think the FBI is wasting their time,” he added.
One of Kimmel’s hunting guides, Joseph “JR” Entry, also recalled seeing the stand for the first time a couple of years ago and thinking little about it. He said he and the other guides find the FBI’s sudden attention amusing and a little disconcerting.
“To be honest, I think it’s a big scandal for nothing,” Entry told NBC News.
An FBI spokesman said the agency continues to analyze hunting post materials for forensic clues at its laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. So far, the investigation has not identified any individuals linked to the mysterious tree perch, the spokesperson added.
Kimmel’s exploits in catching giant pythons (and sometimes being bitten by them) are the stuff of legend in Florida.
The video clips he posts to YouTube and Instagram, which show him slumping over pythons in alligator-infested swamps and bagged snakes like a 16-foot pregnant woman with 60 eggs in her belly the size of grapefruits, often attract thousands of views and media attention.
In 2024, he took a blind dog hunting with him, and the dog nicknamed “Helen Killer” helped him catch a 9-foot python that he also couldn’t see. The feat was reported in the Miami Herald, which described him as “one of Florida’s best-known wildlife trackers.”
Four years earlier, Kimmel appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and brought with him the head of a monstrous snake that almost took him over.
“I almost bled to death in the middle of the Everglades,” Kimmel told Rogan. “This snake: 17 feet 7 inches, 135 pounds. At the time, that’s about what I weighed, so it was a fair battle royale in the Everglades.”
Kimmel said he understands why the Secret Service would consider the tree suspicious, given its proximity to an airport Trump frequents and the fact that he has been attacked before.
But he believes there is little chance that even the most advanced technical analysis will turn up anything.
“It’s been exposed to the elements, fair sun, rain, all that,” Kimmel said. “I imagine any DNA or fingerprints would be removed quickly, but that’s not my area of expertise.”
From their perspective, the authorities should have already taken action.
“I’d sure expect them to investigate something like that,” Kimmel said, “but I’d also expect them to realize very quickly that it’s essentially nothing.”
“All you have to do,” he added, “is talk to us.”
