Washington — An independent panel charged with assessing the Assassination attempt in July against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania the secret service suffers from “deep flaws” that enabled the attack on the Trump campaign rally, and called on the agency to undergo “fundamental reforms” to carry out its mission of protecting top government officials around the world.
The panel’s findings were made public in a report released Thursday. In a letter accompanying the report signed by all four members, the independent review panel said that in the course of its investigation it identified “numerous failures” that led to Trump’s attempted assassination, but also “deeper systemic issues that need to be addressed”. with urgency.”
“The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reforms to carry out its mission,” the members said. “Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen.”
The panel dedicated his work to Corey Comperatorewho died in the shooting, and James Copenhaver and David Dutch, who were injured, as well as their families.
In their assessment, members identified six shortcomings related to the attack during the July 13 meeting: the absence of personnel to secure the so-called AGR building, of which the roof shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from; the inability to address the building’s sightline threat; communication problems between the Secret Service and local law enforcement; the inability of the Secret Service or law enforcement to encounter the shooter even though he was spotted more than 90 minutes before he opened fire; the failure to brief leaders on Trump’s details about the shooter; and the inability to do so detect a drone the shooter operated hours before the shooting.
The group also pointed to “deeper concerns” it found about the Secret Service, including what it said was a “lack of clarity” about who has security ownership of a protected person’s site, and “corrosive cultural attitudes” about resources ; and a “disturbing lack of critical thinking” among Secret Service employees in the days before and after the assassination attempt.
It faulted Secret Service leadership for what the panel said was a failure to take control of security planning and execution at the Butler meeting and an “insufficiently experience-based approach” to Trump’s details of agent selection to perform safety-critical tasks.
The failures “reveal deep Secret Service shortcomings, including some that appear to be systemic or cultural,” the report said.
To mitigate the problems identified by the panel, it called for new Secret Service leadership with experience outside the agency and a refocus on its “core protection mission.”
“The Secret Service must be the largest protective government organization in the world,” the report said. “The events in Butler on July 13 demonstrate that this is not currently the case.”
Numerous shortcomings have been identified
The report discusses the planning leading up to the July 13 meeting, beginning with a kick-off meeting hosted by the Secret Service for State and Local Law Enforcement on July 8, and the events leading up to the shooting fired eight shots from a semi-automatic rifle before being killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The site agent assigned by Trump’s representative to coordinate with the Pittsburgh field office to conduct site preparation work and security planning for the Butler rally graduated from the Secret Service academy in 2020, according to reports the panel, and joined the former president’s staff in 2023. also said the site agent engaged in “minimal” site preparation work or safety planning.
The panel said the failure to secure the AGR building, its roof and other buildings in the area represented a “critical security failure” and noted that staff were available to secure it.
In identifying communication problems between the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement, the panel said there were “inconsistent and disparate approaches” to communication methods, with a “chaotic mix” of radio, cell phone, text and email which was used by different groups. staff at various points.
The panel also noted that in the 90 minutes that passed from when the shooter was first spotted by a local sniper who was off duty when he started shooting, the shooter was never questioned despite being seen with a rangefinder.
“The specific combination of repetitive suspicious behavior in a nearby location, possession of a rangefinder and use of it to reach the stage, and only occasional visual contact with him (in other words, Crooks was not continuously monitored and surveilled) “represents information that should have prompted a confrontation with police or other law enforcement, and such an encounter would likely have prevented the subsequent chain of events,” the report said.
Three Secret Service employees were notified of the shooter stood on the roof from the AGR building in the two minutes before he opened fire, the report said, and a fourth officer was told he was on the roof during the same period. But the panel said Trump’s leadership had never been told details about Crooks.
The Secret Service’s response was sharply criticized
The independent review panel castigated Secret Service personnel for a lack of self-reflection in the aftermath of the assassination attempt.
“July 13 represents a historic failure of Secret Service security that nearly led to the death of a former president and current candidate and also led to the death of a rally participant,” the report said. “For the personnel involved, given the multifactorial nature of the security failure, even a superficial level of reflection should provide insights into errors and possible solutions. But many staff struggled to identify meaningful examples of both types of observations – what went wrong and what could be done better in the future to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.”
Panelists said they found complacency among Secret Service employees they spoke with and said the new agency’s leadership will have to inspire agents to “be elite and flawless.”
The release of the panel’s findings comes as some members of Congress have requested increases in the Secret Service budget. The acting director, Ronald Rowe, has done so also warned that the agency has “finite resources” and uses them to “their maximum”.
The outside investigation found that while more resources would be “helpful,” the lessons learned from the assassination attempt would be lost if the conversation surrounding security concerns turned into a discussion about Secret Service funding.
“The July 13 failure would likely have occurred regardless of the current Secret Service’s budget level,” the report said. “Put another way, even an unlimited budget would not, by itself, eliminate many of the causes of the July 13 failures.”
The four-member panel was formed on the leadership of President Biden and conducted his investigation into the attack from early August to early October. The panel included Mark Filip, former deputy attorney general; David Mitchell, a longtime law enforcement officer; Janet Napolitano, former Secretary of Homeland Security; and Frances Townsend, former assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.
During the investigation, members conducted 58 interviews with Secret Service employees and federal, state and local law enforcement officials. The panel collected and reviewed more than 7,000 documents, the report said.
The consequences continue to occur
The assassination attempt at Trump’s rally in Butler led to substantial scrutiny from the Secret Service, which faced questions about how the gunman was able to gain access to a roof so close to where the former president spoke.
A five-page summary of the Secret Service report on the assassination attempt, released last month blamed the lack of security about multiple lapses in communication between law enforcement at the rally site and a “lack of due diligence” by the agency.
In addition to the Secret Service and FBI investigations, several congressional committees and a bipartisan task force are investigating the attack.
The FBI previously revealed that the shooter flew a drone near the campaign event location about two hours before he started shooting and livestreamed footage of it for about 11 minutes. Investigators said they recovered the drone and two explosives from the gunman’s car, as well as a third explosive from his home.
The shooter too performed a Google search for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy” a week before the shooting, the FBI found a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin who shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
The assassination attempt on Trump and the criticism of the Secret Service that followed led to the dismissal from Kimberly Cheatle, who headed the agency at the time of the attack. Rowe now serves as temporary leader of the Secret Service.
Concerns about the agency’s ability to protect Trump increased again last month after a Hawaii man armed with a semiautomatic rifle was arrested after being spotted by a Secret Service agent in the brush along the fence near the Trump’s Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Florida, where the former president played.
The suspect, identified as Ryan Wesley Routwas charged with three violations of federal firearms laws, assaulting a federal officer and attempted assassination of a presidential candidate. He pleaded not guilty on all five points.
The two incidents against Trump prompted the Secret Service to increase protection for the leading presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
