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Panel says agents tasked with protecting the former president at Butler still do not understand their mistakes
Future attempts on Donald Trump and other politician’s lives are inevitable because of Secret Service failings, a report into the Butler rally shooting has found.
A panel appointed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned that “another Butler can and will happen again” without a fundamental overhaul of the law enforcement agency.
It said that Secret Service agents tasked with protecting Trump at the Pennsylvania rally still did not understand their mistakes, and that “bravery” could not make up for a lack of “critical thinking” amongst inexperienced agents.
The report also noted that agents did not know who was in charge of security at the July 13 event, causing failures that almost resulted in the assassination of the former president.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old using his father’s gun, managed to graze Trump’s ear as he fired at the Republican while he addressed a crowd in Butler.
Corey Comperatore, a local firefighter, was killed in the shooting, while two other attendees at the rally were seriously injured.
The Secret Service failed to secure a building some 150 yards from the rally stage where Crooks took up position.
Nobody questioned the gunman even though he was spotted 90 minutes before the shooting, or detect a drone he flew to survey the site.
“The Secret Service must be the world’s leading governmental protective organisation. The events at Butler on July 13 demonstrate that, currently, it is not,” the report said.
It noted that personnel at the event had seemingly “done little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions, or opportunities for improvement”, despite the “historic security failure”.
“Many personnel struggled to identify meaningful examples of either type of observation – what went wrong and what could be done better in the future to prevent a similar tragedy from reoccurring,” it continued.
The panel said this was as a result of agents being inadequately trained, incompetent, under-resourced, badly led and burned out by the volume of work.
It praised the work of agents who risked their lives to protect Trump but warned: “Bravery and selflessness alone, no matter how honourable, are insufficient to discharge the Secret Service’s no-fail protective mission.”
Agents committed another security blunder as they shielded Trump with their bodies and evacuated him offstage.
“During the extraction of former president Trump from the stage to his armoured vehicle, upper portions of the former president’s body were visibly exposed for critical seconds during a time when no one knew definitively whether there were additional shooters in his vicinity,” the report said.
Crooks had already been shot dead within seconds of opening fire by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
Protections for the former president were hampered by the fact that agents did not know who was in overall control of securing the rally site.
Those interviewed by the panel variously suggested that different agents from field offices in Pittsburgh and Buffalo, and various officials from Trump’s personal security detail, were in charge.
The Secret Service, which protects presidents and multiple high-target government officials, is failing to operate at an “elite level” because it is “bureaucratic” and “complacent”, the report warned.
It also criticised the service’s “do more with less” mentality but argued that the rally shooting would have occurred even with an “unlimited budget”.
“The failure of July 13 likely would have occurred regardless of budget levels at the current Secret Service,” it added.
Roland L. Rowe, the acting director of the Secret Service, said the agency would “carefully examine” the report but insisted it was not “waiting to act”.
“We have already significantly improved our readiness, operational and organisational communications and implemented enhanced protective operations for the former president and other protectees,” he said in a statement.
“This includes making changes to better integrate with our state and local law enforcement partners and augmenting our protection with support from the US Department of Defence and other agencies.”
Mr Rowe added that the agency was in the process of drawing up a plan to drive “fundamental transformation within the Secret Service”.
“We acknowledge that July 13 did not occur because of a lack of resources, however, our enhanced protective model implemented after July 13 requires additional people, equipment, and asset capabilities,” he said.