A bipartisan U.S. Senate report from members tasked with investigating the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally two months ago found systematic failures in the Secret Service’s handling of the event.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governance Committee and its permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a lengthy interim report Wednesday detailing the Secret Service’s mistakes in preparation and communication before and during the rally.
They found that security at Trump’s July 13, rally in Butler, Pa., was marred, in part, by communication mix-ups between the Secret Service and local law enforcement, a lack of manpower, and technology problems.
During the rally, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, climbed on the roof of the American Glass Research building and fired eight shots at Trump and his supporters at 6:11 p.m., hours after the Republican presidential nominee arrived at the farm show grounds.
In preparation for the shooting, Crooks brought a range finder to measure his distance from the stage and flew a drone around the perimeter of the site.
The Secret Service faced technical issues with its radios and the counter-unmanned aerial systems it uses to combat drone threats, the report says.
A major reason for the communication breakdown between law enforcement units was the existence of two different communications centers at the rally, one for the Secret Service and one for local law enforcement. The Secret Service and local law enforcement operated separate radio channels, and the Secret Service failed to record its radio transmissions.
Secret Service personnel learned about a suspicious person with a rangefinder near the AGR building at 5:44 p.m., 27 minutes before the shooting, but lead personnel remained unaware, according to the report. The lead advance agent, site agent, and site counterpart said they did not receive information about the suspicious person.
They also did not know until after the shooting that local law enforcement had identified and lost track of Crooks.
Two minutes before the shooting. Secret Service personnel were made aware of Crooks’s presence on the roof. A Secret Service counter sniper noticed armed local law enforcement running to the AGR building just before the shooting, but did not notify Trump’s security detail, according to the report.
The Secret Service counter-sniper who shot and killed Crooks only saw him for seconds before pulling the trigger. The counter-snipers did not need permission to fire at Crooks.
Leading up to the rally, a member of the Butler County emergency services until told Secret Service advance agents that local law enforcement lacked the manpower to adequately cover the AGR building. The advance agents believed that covering the building was the responsibility of local law enforcement because it was outside the immediate perimeter of the rally, and Secret Service did not assign personnel to it.
The Secret Service delegated AGR building coverage to local law enforcement without giving them specific instructions or adequately reviewing their operational plans.
Advance agents did identify line-of-sight concerns at the Butler site. The Secret Service utilized counter-sniper teams and bleachers to mitigate those concerns, but they did not use large trucks and heavy equipment to protect Trump as the advance agents recommended.
Trump’s security detail and advance agents requested additional resources ahead of the rally, but their requests were denied, according to the report. However, the counter-snipers were deployed because of “credible intelligence” related to a security threat, the Secret Service’s assistant director of the office of protective operations said.
Most Secret Service personnel did not know about the intelligence and Crooks was not known to the FBI ahead of the attack.
Before he was killed, Crooks shot Trump in the right ear. He also killed former fire chief Corey Comperatore, who was in the crowd, and wounded two other rally attendees.
The ongoing investigation is being overseen by senators Gary Peters (D., Mich.) and Rand Paul (R., Ky.), the chairman and ranking member of the homeland security committee, as well as Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) and Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.), the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee.
“From planning missteps, to the siloed and flawed communication to the lack of effective coordination between law enforcement, to the breakdowns in technology, the Secret Service’s failures that allowed an assassination attempt on former President Trump at his July 13 rally were shocking, unacceptable, and preventable – and they led to tragic consequences,” Peters said.
Although acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe has admitted to the agency’s widespread failure to secure the rally, the personnel tasked with overseeing the rally have not taken responsibility for the mistakes. Advance agents didn’t know who had final approval over security decisions and were unsure who planned the security perimeter.
The senate report is based on 2,800 pages of Secret Service documents, as well as interviews with Secret Service personnel and local law enforcement officers. The documents are heavily redacted and the senators still have outstanding documents requests with the Secret Service, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
“Someone needs to be held accountable for these egregious failures by the USSS, and despite USSS, DHS, FBI, ATF, and other federal agencies’ continued obstruction of our bipartisan investigation, I will continue to push for answers and accountability,” Paul said.
The attempted Trump assassination is one of the most significant law enforcement failures in U.S. history, and it remains the subject of ongoing congressional and law enforcement investigations. Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) released a report last week documenting other Secret Service failures that whistleblowers brought to his office’s attention.
The FBI is leading the investigation into Crooks and how he planned the attack. After conducting 1,000 interviews and reviewing Crooks’s internet search history, the FBI has not determined a motive for the attack.
The FBI believes Crooks broke down his rifle and put it into a backpack to conceal it from law enforcement as he lingered around the rally site and eventually scaled the AGR building to shoot Trump from roughly 200 yards away from the former president.
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