Iran, sight lines and missed chances: New report reveals how badly Secret Service botched Trump rally security

Report says Secret Service failed to take responsibility for lapses in planning and judgment

The Local police had warned about Crooks acting suspiciously before the rally. Secret Service failed with key lapses in its security plan and not communicating with local and state law enforcement agencies before a gunman opened fire at Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new report found.

The findings from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs came via interviews and 2,800 pages of documents. The panel determined the agency tasked with protecting the former president did not take a proper leadership role in planning and securing the site on July 13. About 20 minutes into the Trump’s rally, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire, wounding the former president, killing a spectator and injuring two more.

The Secret Service has faced intense criticism for its planning and the investigation into the attempted assassination.

“[United States Secret Service] failures in planning, communications, security, and allocations of resources… were foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt,” the report says.

A new interim Senate report has outlined the failures of the Secret Service before the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. They included missed chances to catch the gunman and failure to take threats seriously (Getty Images)

Some of the failures highlighted were the negligence in blocking a line of sight from the roof of the nearby building where the gunman would eventually be found. There were also credible threats about Iran targeting US politicians.

But most striking, the chaotic, and deficient, method of communication the Secret Service had with local and state law enforcement contributed to a delay in locating the gunman promptly and preventing the former president from taking the stage.

These are some of the failures found in the report:

Lack of leadership

The report found that a key failure was the lack of clearly defined responsibilities or chain of command in planning and making security decisions ahead of the rally.

“No single individual was responsible” for making decisions which meant the roles and responsibilities of the advance team, in charge of planning, were unclear and ultimately led to security oversights.

Federal, state and local law enforcement did not receive planning documents ahead of time because there was no single point of contact and meetings were “informal.” One Butler Emergency Services Unit Commander described the rally site walkthrough as “incredibly disorganized” and left feeling as though there was “no plan.”

The report recommends Congress “require the Secret Service to identify defined roles and responsibilities for agents responsible for advance planning of any protective event.”

Officials determined there was a lack of leadership in the security plan to help protect Trump while he was at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Failures to block line of sight

Secret Service failed to ensure the building where the shooter shot from was properly secured and covered despite acknowledging concerns about it.

That was because they believed local law enforcement would handle securing the building.

However, local law enforcement officials reportedly told the Secret Service planning team they were unable to secure the building due to lacking “manpower.” The agency allowed the rally to continue despite the sight lines not being blocked when agents arrived at the site in the morning.

Requests for additional resources were denied

Secret Service officials failed to provide unmanned aircraft systems, a counter-assault team liaison or counter surveillance unit to the rally – all of which may have helped spot the gunman earlier.

Crooks had flown a drone over the site for 11 minutes before the shooting and was undetected by the Secret Service. An operator on the system, had to call tech support for help. The operator admitted he had less than an hour of total training on the system.

Lack of communication between agencies and creditable threats not being shared were prevalent on July 13 (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Acting director Ronald Rowe previously said that had the countermeasures been working, the agency might have found Crooks before the shooting.

No communication between different law enforcement agencies

Most obviously, the inability of all levels of law enforcement agents and officers to communicate effectively significantly contributed to the gunman being able to take a shot at Trump and rallygoers.

Secret Service agents did not provide local and state law enforcement with plans ahead of time nor did they ensure each department could share information in real time. On the day of, each team used a different communication method – through text messages, radio, email and verbal which delayed the information.

Local police had warned about Crooks acting suspiciously before the rally. The warning did not get to many on the Secret Service because agencies were using different radio systems.

Still, snipers failed to pick up on reports about a possible shooter and watched local police approach Crooks with pistols drawn - without raising any alarms.

The gunman was initially spotted at 5:32 p.m. by a local sniper, in between then and when shots were taken at 6:11 p.m., at least eight Secret Service personnel were notified of the suspicious individual’s presence.

“When we looked, just plain eyes, no optics or anything, you could see police running towards the building with their hands on their pistols,” a sniper team leader told Congress, according to CNN. “I think one actually had a pistol facing towards the ground, out of a holster. That’s a pretty big deal for us, so immediately we turned and faced our guns towards the threat area. We didn’t know what was happening, but it seemed pretty serious, especially with the locals’ response.”

Secret Service snipers were only told to look for something at their “three o’clock” two minutes before Crooks started shooting. It was around that time, that warning went out on the radios that a man was on a nearby roof.

Prior potential threats were not relayed

The report says Secret Service counter snipers were to be provided at the rally days before the shooting took place because there was “credible intelligence” of a threat. Yet, that information was never shared with Secret Service personnel responsible for planning the rally or any state or local law enforcement authorities.

There were reports about Iran targeting US officials, but it was not relayed to agents in the Pittsburgh field office or other Secret Service agents. Secret Service members told Congress they should have been aware of the threat because it would have allowed them to request extra resources.

This aerial photo of the Butler Farm Show, site on July 13. It shows the aftermath after a gunman opened fire on Trump during a rally. Now, Secret Service failures are being highlighted in a new report (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Despite the threat, there is no evidence Crooks was working with a foreign government.

Still, officials told CNN that the threat alone should have increased the security around Trump.

“As a Site Agent or Lead [Advance] Agent assigned, you should have any intelligence or any information pertaining to an active threat to a particular protectee, absolutely, in case that we need to take, you know, take additional measures, or maybe plan for additional assets or additional resources for that particular matter… So it shocked me,” an agent said, according to the report.