Washington— An independent panel commissioned to review Juli tried to kill to former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, meet Secret Service suffered from “deep flaws” that enabled attacks on Trump campaign rallies, and called on the agency to undergo “fundamental reforms” to carry out its mission to protect 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 it identified during the investigation “numerous errors” that led to the assassination attempt on Trump, but also “deeper systemic problems that must be addressed. urgently.”
“The Secret Service as an agency needs fundamental reform to carry out its mission,” the member said. “Without these reforms, the Independent Review Panel believes that another Butler can and will happen again.”
The panel dedicated a work to Corey Comparatorewho died in the shooting, and James Copenhaver and David Dutch, who were wounded, as well as their families.
In the review, the members identified six failures related to the attack on the July 13 rally: no personnel to secure the building called AGR, the roof gunman. Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from; Failure to address line-of-sight threats posed by buildings; communication problems between the Secret Service and local law enforcement; the failure of the Secret Service or law enforcement to locate the shooter even though he was seen more than 90 minutes before opening fire; Failure to inform Trump’s detailed leadership about the gunman; and failed to detect drones gunman executed hours before the shooting.
The group also pointed to “deeper concerns” it found about the Secret Service, including what it called a “lack of clarity” about who owns the security of the sites it protects, a “corrosive cultural attitude” about resources; and “less disruption of critical thinking” by Secret Service employees in the days before and after the assassination attempt.
Secret Service leadership blamed what the panel said was a failure to take ownership of security planning and execution at the Butler briefing and Trump’s “insufficiently experienced base approach” to detailing the selection of agents to carry out critical security tasks.
The breakdown “reveals deep flaws in the Secret Service, including some that appear to be systemic or cultural,” the report said.
To alleviate the problems identified by the panel, he called for a new Secret Service leader with experience outside the agency and a refocus on its “core protective mission.”
“The Secret Service should be the world’s premier government protective organization,” the report said. “The events at Butler on July 13 demonstrate, for now, that it is not.”
Many shortcomings were identified
The report goes over the planning leading up to the July 13 public meeting, beginning with a kickoff meeting held by the Secret Service for state and local law enforcement on July 8, and the events that will take place when the gunman. fire eight rounds from a semi-automatic rifle before being killed by a Secret Service countersniper.
Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images
The site agent assigned by the Trump detail to coordinate with the Pittsburgh field office to carry out site advance work and security planning for the rally Butler graduated from the Secret Service academy in 2020, the panel said, and joined the former president’s detail in 2023. The report also said The site agent is involved in “minimum” site advance work or security planning.
The panel said the failure to secure AGR buildings, roofs and others in the area was a “critical security failure” and noted that personnel were available to secure them.
In identifying communication problems between the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement, the panel said there was an “inconsistent and varied approach” to communication methods, with a “chaotic mix” of radio, cell phone, text and email used by various various. personnel at various points.
The panel also noted that in the 90 minutes that took place from when gunman was first spotted by a local countersniper who was going off-duty for when he started shooting, the gunman was never questioned despite being seen with several finders.
“A certain combination of repeated suspicious behavior in a nearby location, the possession of a range finder and its use for several stages, and only intermittent visual contact with him (in other words, Crooks was not continuously monitored and monitored) indicated information that should have led to the police or other law enforcement, and the encounter may have prevented the next sequence of events,” the report said.
Three Secret Service personnel identified the gunman is on the roof from the AGR building in two minutes before opening fire, the report said, and the four agents were at the same time on the roof. But the panel said Trump’s top detail was never told about Crooks.
The Secret Service’s reaction was heavily criticized
An independent review panel criticized Secret Service personnel for a lack of self-reflection after the assassination attempt.
“July 13 represents a historic security failure by the Secret Service that nearly resulted in the death of a former president and current candidate and resulted in the death of a rally participant,” the report said. “For the personnel involved, given the multi-factorial nature of security failures, even a superficial level of reflection should provide insight into lapses and potential remediation. But many personnel struggle to identify useful examples of either type of observation – what went wrong and what could have been be done better in the future to prevent similar tragedies from happening again.”
Panel members said they noticed complacency among Secret Service employees they spoke to and said the agency’s new leader must inspire agents to “be elite and flawless.”
The release of the panel’s findings came at the request of several members of Congress increase in the Secret Service budget. Its acting director, Ronald Rowe, has also warned that the agency has “limited resources” that are stretched to “their maximum.”
An outside review found that while more resources would “help,” the lessons of the assassination attempt would be lost if the conversation about security failures turns to a discussion about Secret Service funding.
“The July 13 failure could have occurred regardless of current Secret Service budget levels,” the report found. Otherwise, even an unlimited budget will not solve many of the causes of the failure of July 13.
The four-member panel was formed on President Biden’s directive and conducted raid inspections from early August to early October. The panel included Mark Filip, former deputy attorney general; David Mitchell, a longtime law enforcement official; 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. The panel collected and reviewed more than 7,000 documents, it said in the report.
Ramifications continue to unfold
The assassination attempt at Trump’s rally in Butler led to substantial scrutiny of the Secret Service, which faced questions about how the shooter was able to gain access to the 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 Blame security lapses about some lack of communication between law enforcement at the rally site and “lack of due diligence” by the agency.
In addition to the Secret Service and FBI investigations, several congressional committees and bipartisan task forces are investigating the attack.
FBI before it was revealed the gunman flew a drone near the location of the campaign event about two hours before starting to shoot and livestreaming the length of it for about 11 minutes. Investigators said they recovered a drone and two explosive devices from the shooter’s car, as well as a third explosive device from his home.
The gunman too do a Google search to “how far Oswald was from Kennedy” one 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, lead to retreat from Kimberly Cheatle, who headed the agency at the time of the attack. Rowe is currently acting head of the Secret Service.
Concerns about the agency’s ability to protect Trump were heightened last month after a Hawaiian man, armed with a semiautomatic rifle, was arrested after being found by Secret Service agents in brush along a fence line at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach. Florida, where the former president played.
suspect, identified as Ryan Wesley Routhwas charged with three violations of Federal Firearms law, assaulting a Federal officer and trying to kill the presidential candidate. They pleaded not guilty for all five counts.
The two incidents targeting Trump led the Secret Service to step up protections for key presidential and vice presidential candidates.
