Before Butler, Secret Service denied requests to bolster Trump's security, report says
Ahead of the assassination attempt one year ago on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Secret Service denied multiple requests from Mr. Trump's Secret Service detail to bolster his security apparatus during his 2024 presidential campaign, according to a Senate report released Sunday.
The report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs found that the Secret Service "denied or left unfulfilled at least 10 requests" from Mr. Trump's detail for "additional resources," including an enhanced counter drone system, counter assault team personnel and counter snipers.
On July 13, 2024, a 20-year-old gunman opened fire on Mr. Trump from the rooftop of a nearby building during a campaign rally in Butler. The president was grazed in the ear by one of the bullets, while one rallygoer was killed and two others were critically wounded in the shooting. The gunman, Thomas Crooks, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper. The incident prompted several investigations into the Secret Service's practices and protocols.
"This report reveals a disturbing pattern of communication failures and negligence that culminated in a preventable tragedy," wrote Sen. Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, in the report. "What happened was inexcusable and the consequences imposed for the failures so far do not reflect the severity of the situation."
The report accuses then-Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle of "falsely" testifying to Congress that "no USSS asset requests were denied for the Butler rally." Cheatle resigned nearly a year ago after testifying before Congress.
Richard Giuditta Jr., chief counsel to the Secret Service, told the committee that there was no evidence that "political animus" was behind the denials, the report reads.
Specifically concerning the Butler rally, the committee did not find that there was an "explicit denial" for enhanced counter drone systems. However, in a transcribed interview to the committee, a Secret Service counter-unmanned aircraft systems agent alleged that such a request was denied via phone by a Secret Service technical security division advance agent, the report states.
That denial was corroborated by Secret Service documents, the report found.
This would appear to contradict previous testimony from then-Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe, who had replaced Cheatle in the post. During a contentious July 30, 2024, hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, Rowe testified that "all assets requested were approved" for the Butler rally.
Rowe, however, also testified regarding requests for assets other than Butler: "There are times when assets were unavailable and not able to be filled, and those gaps were staffed with state and local law enforcement tactical assets."
Furthermore, the new report found that, prior to the Butler shooting, the Secret Service had no formal process for submitting resource requests, and "therefore there was no standard response concerning approvals or denials of such requests from USSS Headquarters."
Documents obtained by the committee "revealed a pattern of certain categories of requests being either blatantly denied, unfulfilled, or required to be supplemented by local law enforcement or other federal agencies," the report said.
In a statement, Secret Service director Sean Curran said the agency "took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day."
A "lack of structured communication was likely the greatest contributor to the failures" of the Secret Service at Butler, the report stated, echoing a previous 180-page House report released last December on the assassination attempt which found that there was "fragmented communications" at Butler because local law enforcement and the Secret Service had separate command posts.
According to the Senate committee's findings, the Secret Service agent tasked with leading communications at Butler — a role known as the "security room agent" — was the special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Buffalo, New York, field office, and was assigned the Butler role on July 11, 2024, only two days before the rally.
That agent "only discovered the existence of the second command post" after he overheard conversations between a Pennsylvania State Police officer who was stationed in the Secret Service's command post, and other law enforcement.
"By his own admission, he never had direct contact with local law enforcement throughout the day, and that his only method of communication with them was through the PSP officer in the USSS Security Room," the report said of the security room agent.
The report also addressed the announcement this week that six Secret Service personnel were suspended following an internal investigation into the Butler shooting response. The six personnel were issued suspensions without pay or benefits ranging from 10 to 42 days.
However, the Senate committee's investigation found that the security room agent at Butler was not among those disciplined, even though, the report writes, "according to testimony and documents received by the committee," he "failed to relay critical information he obtained from" the Pennsylvania State Police officer stationed in the Secret Service's command post "regarding a suspicious individual with a range finder" to the Secret Service agents "who could have removed or prevented President Trump from taking the stage."
In a statement provided to CBS News, U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran said that his agency had received the report "and will continue to work cooperatively with the committee as we move forward in our mission."
"Following the events of July 13, the Secret Service took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day," Curran said. "The Secret Service appreciates the continued support of President Trump, Congress, and our federal and local partners who have been instrumental in providing crucial resources needed to support the agency's efforts."
Earlier this week, meanwhile, CBS News was taken inside the Secret Service's James J. Rowley Training Center in Laurel, Maryland, to see the agency's security improvements in response to Butler, which include a fleet of military-grade drones and a system of mobile command posts.
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