A new Senate committee report reveals that the US Secret Service did not properly respond to direct threats before the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally last year. The report, released on the anniversary of the July 13, 2024, attack in Butler, criticises the agency for a series of operational failures, poor communication, and denial of additional security resources despite known threats against Trump.
“This was not a single error. It was a cascade of preventable failures,” stated the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), who led the year-long investigation. The committee conducted 17 interviews and examined over 75,000 pages of law enforcement documents to reach its conclusions.
FAILURES IN SECURITY
The report pointed out that the Secret Service was repeatedly asked to increase security measures ahead of the Butler rally, including requests for countersnipers and other protective assets. However, these requests were denied or ignored by agency leadership. Senator Paul accused former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle of misleading Congress when she testified that no such requests were refused.
“There was a cascade of errors,” Paul said on CBS’s Face the Nation. “When we talked to the people in charge of security, everybody pointed a finger at someone else.”
Cheatle responded in a statement denying any false testimony, asserting that “the information provided to me by personnel from Headquarters and the Trump detail confirmed my statement that no requests for additional support had been denied.” She also condemned what she called unfair blame on frontline agents for what was a team failure.
The committee’s report emphasises significant lapses in communication, including failures by security room agents to properly relay warnings about a suspicious person with a range finder near the rally perimeter. Pennsylvania State Police officers testified that despite notifying the Secret Service of the active search for a potential threat, the information was not effectively disseminated, delaying the agency’s response.
DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS
Following the shooting, six Secret Service agents were suspended for 10 to 42 days, but no one was fired. The “site agent,” responsible for security at the rally, received a 42-day suspension for negligence and reassignment. Other senior agents and team leaders also faced suspensions and restricted duties.
The report also exposes a lack of coordination between senior supervisors and the security team. An independent panel commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security earlier identified critical failures, including assigning inexperienced agents to lead security planning and overlooking vulnerabilities.
On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania, climbed onto a building outside the rally’s security zone and fired an AR-style rifle, killing one person and critically wounding two others before he was shot dead by law enforcement. Trump was grazed near his right ear but survived the assassination attempt.
Since the incident, the Secret Service has made some internal policy changes aimed at improving communication and security protocols. Current 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.”
While Donald Trump, on the one-year anniversary of the assassination attempt against him in Butler, said, “God was protecting me … The more you think about it, the more you see it.”
– Ends
With inputs from Agencies
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