Secret Service report details communication failures preceding July assassination attempt on Trump

Author of the article:

Associated Press

Rebecca Santana, Eric Tucker And Alanna Durkin Richer

Published Sep 20, 2024  •  4 minute read

FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024. Photo by Gene J. Puskar /THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Communication breakdowns with local law enforcement hampered the Secret Service’s performance ahead of a July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, according to a new report that lays out a litany of missed opportunities to stop a gunman who opened fire from an unsecured roof.

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A five-page document summarizing the Secret Service report’s key conclusions finds fault with both local and federal law enforcement, underscoring the cascading and wide-ranging failings that preceded the July 13 shooting at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally where Trump was wounded in the ear by gunfire.

Though the failed response has been well-documented through congressional testimony, news media investigations and other public statements, the report being released Friday marks the Secret Service’s most formal attempt to catalog the errors of the day and is being released amid fresh scrutiny following Sunday’s arrest in Florida of a man who authorities say wanted to kill Trump.

“It’s important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13th and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another mission failure like this again,” Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe Jr. said in a statement accompanying the release of the report into the agency’s own internal investigation.

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The report details a series of “communications deficiencies” before the shooting by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper after firing eight rounds in Trump’s direction from the roof of a building less than 150 yards from where Trump was speaking. It makes clear that the Secret Service knew even before the shooting that the rally site posed a security challenge.

Among the problems: Some local police at the site were unaware of the existence of two communications centres on the grounds, meaning officers did not know that the Secret Service were not receiving their radio transmission.

Law enforcement also communicated vital information outside the Secret Service’s radio frequencies. As officers searched for Crooks before the shooting, details were being transmitted “via mobile/cellular devices in staggered or fragmented fashion” instead of through the Secret Service’s own network.

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“The failure of personnel to broadcast via radio the description of the assailant, or vital information received from local law enforcement regarding a suspicious individual on the roof of the AGR complex, to all federal personnel at the Butler site inhibited the collective awareness of all Secret Service personnel,” the report said.

That breakdown was especially problematic for Trump’s protective detail, “who were not apprised of how focused state and local law enforcement were in the minutes leading up to the attack on locating the suspicious subject.” Had they known, the report says, they could have made the decision to relocate Trump while the search was in process.

The report raises more serious questions about why no law enforcement were stationed on the roof Crooks climbed onto before opening fire.

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A local tactical team was stationed on the second floor of a building in the complex from which Crooks fired. Multiple law enforcement entities questioned the effectiveness of the team’s position, “yet there was no follow-up discussion” about changing it, the report says. And there was no discussion with Secret Service about putting a team on the roof, even though snipers from local law enforcement agencies “were apparently not opposed to that location.”

The tactical team operating on the second floor of the building had no contact with Secret Service before the rally. That team was brought in by a local police department to help with the event, without Secret Service’s knowledge, the report says.

The Secret Service understood in advance that the rally site, selected by Trump’s staff because it better accommodated the “large number of desired attendees,” was a security challenge because of lines of sight that could be exploited by a would-be attacker. And yet, the report said, no security measures were taken on July 13 to remove those concerns and the Secret Service lacked detailed knowledge about the local law enforcement support that would even be in place.

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The report’s executive summary does not identify specific individuals who may be to blame nor does it indicate whether any staff members have been disciplined, though The Associated Press has previously reported that at least five Secret Service agents have been placed on modified duty. The director at the time, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned more than a week after the shooting, saying she took full responsibility for the lapse.

The Secret Service’s investigation is one of numerous inquiries, including by Congress and a watchdog probe by the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general office.

Rowe has said the July shooting and Sunday’s episode, in which 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested after Secret Service agents detected a rifle poking through shrubbery lining the West Palm Beach, Florida, golf course where Trump was playing, underscore the need for a paradigm shift in how the agency protects public officials.

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