Panel looking into Trump assassination attempt says Secret Service needs ‘fundamental reform’

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent panel to research the attempted murder by Donald Trump at a Campaign rally in Pennsylvania says the secret services need fundamental reforms” and that “a new Butler can and will happen again” without major changes in the way candidates are protected.

The review accused the Secret Service of poor communications that day and failing to secure the building where the shooter took his shots. It also found more systemic problems at the agency, such as a failure to understand the unique risks Trump faces and a culture of “doing more with less.”

The 52-page report, released Thursday, scrutinized the Secret Service for specific issues leading up to the July 13 meeting in Butler, as well as deeper problems within the agency’s culture. It recommended bringing in new leadership from outside and refocusing on its protective mission.

“The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reforms to carry out its mission,” the authors wrote Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas of the Homeland Security Department, the Secret Service’s parent agency, in a letter accompanying their report. “Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen.”

One rally-goer was killed and two others were injured when Thomas Michael Crooks climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and opened fire as Trump spoke. The former president suffered an ear injury before being chased off stage by Secret Service agents. That shooting, along with another incident in Florida when Trump was golfing — a gunman there never locked eyes with the president or fired a shot — led to a crisis of confidence the agency.

The report from a panel of four former national and state government law enforcement officers follows investigations by members of Congress, the agency’s own investigators and by the Homeland Security oversight body.

A look at the report’s key findings and recommendations:

The panel reiterated previous reports that focused on the inability to secure the building near the meeting, which had a clear line to where Trump spoke, and the many communications problems that hampered the ability of the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement hindered. to talk to each other.

“The failure to secure a complex of buildings, parts of which were within a radius of approximately 130 meters from the protected person and which contained numerous positions at risk of high line of sight, represents a critical security failure,” the report said.

The panel criticized the planning between the Secret Service and local law enforcement, saying the Secret Service failed to ask what was being done to secure the building: “Relying on a common understanding that ‘the locals are in control of that area’ is simply not good enough and in fact this attitude at Butler has contributed to the security failure.”

The panel also cited the fact that the Butler meeting had two separate command posts: one with different local law enforcement and another with the Secret Service: “This created a structural gap in the flow of communications at the highest level.”

There were other communication problems.

The Secret Service had to switch radio channels because radio traffic from agents protecting first lady Jill Biden at an event in Pittsburgh showed up on the channels of agents covering the Butler rally.

The panel also noted that all law enforcement personnel on site used a “chaotic mix” of radio, cell phone, text messaging and email to communicate throughout the day.

The panel also said it was unclear who had ultimate command that day.

The report delved into the agency’s culture and painted a picture of an agency struggling to think critically about how it carries out its mission, especially when it comes to protecting Trump.

The panel said the agency’s staff operated under the assumption that they essentially had to “do more with less.” The report said the additional security measures taken to protect Trump after the Butler shooting should have been taken earlier.

“To be clear, the panel did not identify any nefarious or malicious intent behind this phenomenon, but rather an overreliance on assigning personnel based on categories (former, candidate, nominee) rather than an individualized risk assessment,” the panel wrote .

The panel also noted the “back and forth” between Trump’s security detail and Secret Service headquarters over how many people were needed to protect him.

The panel also accused some senior staff involved in the meeting of what they called a “lack of ownership.” In one example, the panel said a senior officer on the scene charged with coordinating communications did not walk around the rally site in advance and did not inform the state police colleague before the rally about how communications would be managed.

It cited the relative inexperience of two specific officers who played a role in security during the July 13 meeting. One was Trump’s team’s location agent, whose job was to coordinate security planning for the rally with the field office in Pittsburgh. The panel said the agent graduated from the Secret Service academy in 2020 and had only been on the Trump detail since 2023. Before the Butler meeting, the officer had done only “minimal prior site preparation work or site safety planning.”

Another officer assigned to operate a drone detection system had only used the technology in two previous events.

Having a uniform command post at all major events where the Secret Service and other law enforcement representatives are all physically in the same place; overhead surveillance for all outdoor events; security plans must include a way to limit concerns about the location to within 1,000 meters and who is in charge of the event; and more training on how to get protected people out of dangerous scenarios.

The panel said the agency also needs new outside leadership and a renewed focus on its core protective mission, while expressing skepticism that the agency should continue with the investigations it is currently conducting. While the Secret Service is known for what it does to protect presidents and other dignitaries, it also investigates financial crimes.

“In the panel’s view, it is simply unacceptable for the service to have anything less than a primary focus on its protective mission, especially when that protective mission function is currently suboptimal,” the report said.

The panelists were Mark Filip, deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush; David Mitchell, who served in numerous state and local law enforcement positions in Maryland and Delaware; Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama; and Frances Fragos Townsend, Bush’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism.