It’s been just over two months since a would-be assassin fired shots at former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. One bullet grazed Trump’s ear, and another killed Corey Comperatore.
Since the shooting, all eyes have been on the Secret Service and what went wrong in Butler. Congressional hearings led to the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle, the now-former director of the agency, yet so many questions remain unanswered.
On Friday, the Secret Service released a report on the events of July 13. It’s the first extensive statement the agency has made about the assassination attempt, and it lays the blame on both federal and local authorities.
"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,” the Associated Press reports.
“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 report.
The AP report notes that the Secret Service admitted that it was aware of the security challenges the venue would pose and blames “communications deficiencies” for the failure of the Secret Service and local police to stay on the same page. The agency discovered that local police weren’t aware of two communication posts, and various agencies were communicating by different means, making interagency cooperation more complex than necessary.
Related: Congress Mulls More Secret Service Funding After Second Attempt on Trump's Life
There were also difficulties in securing lines of sight on Trump. The Secret Service also failed to secure some of the buildings around the fairground where the rally took place.
“The report also revealed there was no discussion with the Secret Service advance staff about positioning a local sniper team on top of the AGR roof and the ‘lack of due diligence’ in the construction of the secure perimeter should have been focused on more acutely,” ABC News reports.
The Secret Service ran into problems with its drone system as well, citing technical difficulties. Local police were relaying information via cell phones, while Secret Service personnel were using radios, complicating communication.
“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 stated.
Trump’s security detail was also reportedly unaware of what agencies were lending support to rally security. The former president’s protective personnel “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.” The AP notes that “Had they known, the report says, they could have made the decision to relocate Trump while the search was in process.”
“A local tactical team was stationed on the second floor of a building in the complex from which Crooks fired,” the AP adds. “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 report didn’t lay blame at specific individuals and didn’t address whether anyone had been disciplined. However, the fact that the shooting happened along with last week’s foiled assassination attempt in Florida shows that something needs to change.
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Read the report summary below:
U.S Secret Service July 13 Mission Assurance Report Summary by PJ Media on Scribd
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