The Secret Service had multiple failures that led to a sniper nearly taking former President Donald Trump’s life at a campaign rally on July 13, according to a summary of an internal agency review released Friday.
According to a summary of the Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility’s initial mission assurance report, the Secret Service’s advance team, which first surveyed the rally site, failed to address or mitigate concerns it came across.
The summary said the Secret Service and local law enforcement partners saw the Butler Farm Show site as a “challenge,” and that advance personnel and multiple supervisors with oversight of the security plan “recognized line of site concerns.”
However, the report said measures to alleviate these concerns were not carried out on July 13, 2024, as intended.
“There was a lack of detailed knowledge by Secret Service personnel regarding the state or local law enforcement presence that would be present in and around the” AGR complex — from where the sniper, Thomas Matthew Crooks, climbed atop to fire at Trump.
The report also said there was a “lack of knowledge regarding the specific footprint of resources” that would secure the inner perimeter — which the Secret Service staff would monitor — and the outside perimeter, which included the AGR complex and which local law enforcement would monitor.
The report said:
The construction of the protected site, along with line of site mitigation to address the vulnerabilities created by the open grounds of the AGR complex, should have been a key objectives of the site advance. The lack of due diligence in site construction was evident. Advance personnel should have reported any discrepancies or lack of clarity to detail and field office supervisors.
The report also said the Secret Service was not even aware of all the local law enforcement who would be involved in securing the outer perimeter and thus, never met with those entities.
Some of those local law enforcement entities included the local counter sniper team that had occupied the second floor of the AGR building. The report said they had no contact with the Secret Service before the rally.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe previously suggested at a congressional hearing that the local counter sniper team should have been able to see Crooks crawling into position to fire at Trump, and some reports have said members of that local team left their positions for various reasons.
The report does not address if those reports were accurate but said there was no discussion with the Secret Service advance team about putting the local counter sniper team on the roof from where Crooks fired and that the local team was “not opposed to that location”:
Multiple law enforcement entities involved in securing the rally questioned the efficacy of that local sniper team’s positioning in the AGR building, yet there was no follow-up discussion about modifying their position. There was also no discussion with Secret Service advance personnel about positioning that team atop the AGR roof. Local sniper support were apparently not opposed to that location.
During a press conference Friday, Rowe said it was ultimately the Secret Service’s fault.
“As I’ve said, this was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service. It’s important that we hold ourselves accountable for the failures of July 13,” he said, adding:
Secret Service has the main responsibility of building the site plan. We cannot abdicate or defer our responsibilities to others. Advance team personnel have an obligation to ensure that each site meets the protective requirements and principles of Secret Service methodologies.
“The Secret Service did not give clear guidance or direction to our local law enforcement partners,” he said.
The report also said the Secret Service failed to set up a system to communicate with local law enforcement before and on the day of the rally.
For example, there were two separate communication centers on the site: the Secret Service security room and the Butler Emergency Services Mobile Command Post.
“Some local police entities supporting the Butler venue had no knowledge that there were two separate communications centers on site As a result, those entities were operating under a misimpression that the Secret Service was directly receiving their radio transmissions,” the report said.
Secret Service agents and local law enforcement were also using “different radio frequencies” that were “not conducive for quickly sharing real-time information.”
The report also said there were “multiple standard conduits of communication that were not in operation on July 13, 2024, which if present would have increased the probability of pertinent information or context being conveyed,” it said.
That gap in information meant that local law enforcement sharing details about Crooks did not make it to all Secret Service personnel and particularly Trump’s personal protective detail, who might have prevented him from walking onstage. The report said:
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. This failure was especially acute in terms of the FPOTUS/RPN’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. If this information was passed over Secret Service radio frequencies it would have allowed FPOTUS/RPN’s protective detail to determine whether to move their protectee while the search for the suspicious suspect was in progress. Vital information was transmitted via mobile/cellular devices in staggered or fragmented fashion instead of being relayed via the Secret Service radio network.
The report also noted gaps in physically colocating law enforcement officers with the Secret Service.
Furthermore, the report said that contrary to some reports, there were Secret Service counter snipers and counter assault assets at the rally but that the counter sniper asset arrived “later during the advance week.”
“Having all members of the advance team present to engage local law enforcement counterparts beginning with the initial formal police meeting and onwards provides more time and opportunity to begin nuanced conversations and planning,” the report said.
The report went on to say there was a Secret Service drone dedicated to the rally but that “there were some technical difficulties experienced by the advance personnel with that system.”
“It is possible that if this element of the advance had functioned properly, the shooter may have been detected as he flew his drone near the Butler Farm Show venue earlier in the day,” the report stated.
Lastly, the report said there was an “overextension” of Secret Service due to the “high operational tempo” of the presidential campaign season and the “addition of new protectees” stretching “an already busy organization.”
“The site in Butler was chronologically inserted between two National Special Security Events,” it said, referencing a NATO ministerial meeting hosted by Washington days before the rally and the Republican National Convention days after.
The report said there will be a follow-up supplemental report to provide recommendations for agency leadership and that the review was separate from the ones being conducted by Congress, the independent review panel convened by the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General.
Rowe said during the press conference that there would be actions taken against some personnel, but he declined to say what they were, and against whom.
“The mission assurance review has identified deficiencies in the advance planning and its implementation by Secret Service personnel. These employees and this agency has among the most robust table of penalties in the entirety of the federal government,” he said.
“And these penalties will be administered according to our disciplinary process. Due to federal regulations, they cannot get into personnel matters as they are proceeding,” he said, adding he was “not going to get into employee disciplinary matters.”
Rowe said it was clear the agency needed a “shift in paradigm and how we conduct our protective operations.”
He referenced the second assassination attempt against Trump, at his West Palm Beach golf course last Sunday, and he said the shift would move the agency from a position of response to a state of readiness.
Trump’s former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany blasted Rowe’s announcement of a “paradigm shift.”
“I am sick of hearing Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe promise a ‘paradigm shift’ in presidential protection!” she posted on X.
“After TWO assassination attempts, President Trump does not have time to wait for a ‘paradigm shift’”:
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