Scathing new Secret Service report on Donald Trump assassination attempt warns a shooting will happen again
An independent report on the first assassination attempt against Donald Trump concludes its likely another incident will happen if there is not a complete overhaul of the U.
An independent report on the first assassination attempt against Donald Trump concludes its likely another incident will happen if there is not a complete overhaul of the U.S. Secret Service.
The four-person panel released a scathing 52-page report Thursday claiming there is a loss of public confidence in the group tasked with protecting all current and former presidents as well as major party presidential candidates.
Without massive reform, the report claims, there will be more incidents like the one at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally on July 13.
The latest comes after fears emerged over the weekend of a third assassination attempt on Trump when a man was arrested outside his rally in Coachella, California on Saturday with two firearms and a high capacity magazine.
The group appointed by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is just one of the several groups looking into the USSS failures that allowed shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to get just a few hundred feet within the former president with an AR-15 rifle.
A new independent report on the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump concludes that there needs to be a complete overhaul of the U.S. Secret Service in order to prevent another attack in the future
Crooks was able to discharge several shots in the direction of Trump – one even grazing his right ear – before he was shot dead by the detail protecting the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
One rally goer was shot dead and two others were critically injured.
[T]the Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission, the report notes. Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again.
The report recommended that the USSS bring in new, outside leadership to refocus the agency on its protective mission.
It also faulted the Secret Service for poor communication the day of the first assassination attempt and claimed the detail for Trump failed to secure the AGR building where Crooks was crouched with his weapon and took his shots.
The systemic issues, the report found, stem from a culture of trying to use less resources to do more work.
The Panel has encountered repeated evidence that Secret Service personnel, including those associated with the protection of former President Trump, viewed themselves as operating under an informal mantra of, effectively, do more with less, which is inconsistent with achieving excellence or no fail in the Services protective mission, the report reads.
This perspective permeated discussions with the Panel regarding security resourcing, staffing, personnel availability, travel, training, outsourcing to state and local partners, and other dimensions of the Service.
Secret Service agents stand over the body of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, after he shot Trump in the during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024
Crooks is pictured walking around the Trump rally before opening fire hours later, killing an attendee, critically injuring two others and grazing the former presidents right ear
Just two months after the first attempt on Trumps life, another man is being investigated for an assassination effort against the former president.
Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested near Trumps West Palm Beach golf course after he aimed a rifle at the former president through the shrubbery outside the club during a round of golf on September 15.
He fled the scene when a Secret Service agent saw the barrel of the rifle through the trees of the course and fired shots at Routh.
The suspect left at the scene his firearm, two knapsacks filled with ceramic tiled armor and a go-pro camera that appeared set up on the fence in a way to capture video of the former president.
Besides the DHS independent panel, the House also appointed a 13-person task force to investigate the two assassination attempts on Trump.
Other members of Congress continue to look into the failures that day and periodically release whistleblower revelations about the Secret Service.
Trump speaks behind a casing of bullet proof barriers at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina on September 21. The glass is now a common sight at the former presidents outdoor rallies
The four members of the independent DHS panel who produced the report are as follows:
Mark Filip, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General under President George W. Bush.
David Mitchell, a five-decade law enforcement career veteran who worked on the Secret Service protective details for every president since Richard Nixon except for Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
Janet Napolitano, the founder of the Center for Security in Politics at the University of California at Berkeley. She was U.S. secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama and was Arizonas governor from 2003 through 2009.
Frances F. Townsend runs a consulting business and was Assistant to President George W. Bush for both Homeland Security and Counterrorism and chaired the Homeland Security Council. From 2003-2004 was National Security Advisor for Combatting Terrorism.
