Secret Service failed to stop Trump assassination attempt, Senate report says

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The Secret Service failed to prevent the assassination attempt against US President Donald Trump last year at his Pennsylvania campaign rally, according to a Senate committee report, which accuses the agency of a botched operation snarled by communication fumbles and the repeated denial of extra security assets at a time when the former president faced heightened threats on his life.
'This was not a single error. It was a cascade of preventable failures,' the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said in its report Sunday, marking a year since the shooting in Butler.
The committee, which is chaired by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), conducted 17 interviews with Secret Service staff and reviewed more than 75,000 pages of law enforcement documents during its investigation over the past year to reach its conclusions.
In an interview on CBS's 'Face the Nation' on Sunday, Senator Paul accused former Secret Service director Kim Cheatle of lying to Congress when she testified that the agency had not received requests to beef up Mr Trump's security detail in advance of the Butler shooting.
Senator Paul said investigators found that the agency had received at least four requests for countersnipers and other security enhancements from Mr Trump's Secret Service detail, as well as from his campaign.
'There was a cascade of errors,' he said. 'When we talked to the people in charge of security, everybody pointed a finger at someone else.'
In a statement Sunday, Ms Cheatle pushed back on the assertion that she lied to Congress, saying that when she testified, 'the information provided to me by personnel from Headquarters and the Trump detail, to include the current agency Director, confirmed my statement that no requests for additional support had been denied to our agents at Butler.'
'Any assertion or implication that I provided misleading testimony is patently false and does a disservice to those men and women on the front lines who have been unfairly disciplined for a team, rather than individual, failure,' she added.
The current Secret Service director, Sean Curran, said in a separate statement Sunday that the agency would continue to cooperate with the Senate committee and that following last year's shooting, 'the Secret Service took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day.'
On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing home worker from Pennsylvania, scaled a building outside the security perimeter of Mr Trump's campaign rally in Butler and opened fire using an AR-style rifle, killing one person and critically injuring two others.
He attempted to assassinate Mr Trump, grazing him near the top of his right ear, and was killed by law enforcement officers at the scene.
The report shed no new light about the assailant's motives, which remain a mystery to investigators one year on. But it painted a picture of an expansive security detail that was erroneously left in the dark as an assassination attempt unfolded.
The committee identified several Secret Service failures to properly disseminate information about a suspicious person - later determined to be Crooks - and his whereabouts. Its investigation also uncovered conflicting reports about who knew what, and when.
'The lack of structured communication was likely the greatest contributor to the failures of the USSS,' the report stated.
According to the report, Secret Service failures allowed Crooks to evade detection for nearly 45 minutes. In particular, the report singled out the Secret Service's security room agent, whose job is to manage communications between all parties involved in securing an event 'to ensure situational awareness.'
The committee accused the security room agent, who was not named, of failing to properly relay that a local tactical team was looking for a person equipped with a range finder outside the security perimeter, despite hearing of it at roughly 5:45 pm, about 25 minutes before the shooting.
A Pennsylvania State Police officer who was in the Secret Service security room testified that he told the security room agent in person that there was an active search for a person with a range finder outside of the security perimeter. When asked, he said he did not know if the security room agent relayed that information to others over the radio.
'I got a distinct impression that there's, like, a lack of urgency,' he recalled.
The Pennsylvania State Police officer said he later updated the security room agent that the suspect was seen on top of a roof, but that he did not know if the agent further disseminated that information. Meanwhile, the security room agent gave a conflicting story, saying he was not aware of a person on a roof, but only heard via radio communications that local police 'were working (a) problem at 3 o'clock.'
No one stopped Mr Trump from walking onstage, where he was shot at about 6:15 p.m.
In an interview with investigators, the security room agent acknowledged that he had no other contact with local law enforcement that day, and that he had not seen operations plans put together by the Pennsylvania State Police or the Butler Emergency Services Unit before the rally.
The Senate committee called into question why the agent was found to not have violated Secret Service policy and why he never faced any disciplinary action. He retired this June.
The Secret Service has since adopted some changes to its internal policy to address the communication failures, the report said.
Before the shooting, security officials were concerned about Mr Trump's safety, uncovering an alleged Iran-linked plot to assassinate him and other U.S. targets.
During the first week of July 2024, several top security officials met to discuss intelligence involving Mr Trump's safety and agreed to allow countersnipers at all of his rallies.
This bucked tradition: The Butler rally was the first time a former president and candidate had received countersnipers from the Secret Service, the report said.
The Senate committee accused the Secret Service of failing to inform the countersnipers about the 'elevated threat environment' leading up to the rally, and denounced Secret Service headquarters for a 'history of denials' to requests for additional security assets during Mr Trump's campaign.
In particular, the committee contested a statement from Cheatle, the former director, claiming that requests for extra security assets at the Butler rally were not denied.
Cheatle resigned in the aftermath of the shooting, saying she took 'full responsibility' for the failure.
In her statement Sunday, Cheatle noted that it's not typical for a Secret Service director to directly engage in approving requests for additional support.
'For the Butler rally,' she added, 'I actually did direct additional assets to be provided, particularly in the form of agency countersnipers.'
The report denounced the Secret Service for what it called 'insufficient accountability' for the shooting. Six Secret Service agents were placed on unpaid leave, with the suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days, The Post reported on Thursday.
Senator Paul said on CBS that he believed the Secret Service only took action against the agents involved in the security lapse after he sent a subpoena to the agency for their discipline records.
'No one was fired,' Senator Paul said. 'Some of these people could be in charge of security for another presidential candidate again. That's not right.'
Other investigations have reached similar conclusions, including an internal review by the Secret Service. After Ms Cheatle's resignation, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., who became the agency's acting director, acknowledged that the Butler attack 'was a failure of the Secret Service' to secure the area or protect Mr Trump.
The Secret Service this month said it made several changes since the Butler shooting, including boosting communication with state and local authorities and beefing up intelligence sharing before and during events requiring protection.
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Emmanuel Felton and Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.
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