The Secret Service received a warning about a possible attempt on President Donald Trump’s life 10 days before he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, but failed to alert the local law enforcement agencies tasked with securing the event, according to a government report released on Saturday.
The Government Accountability Office report, requested by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), highlighted various security lapses made by the Secret Service in the run-up to the attempted assassination of then-candidate Trump on July 13, 2024.
In that incident, a 20-year-old shooter fired eight shots, with one grazing Trump’s ear. The shooter also hit and killed Corey Comperatore, a rally attendee, and injured two others. A counter-sniper fired back at the shooter, killing him.
Grassley called the information released in the report “a comprehensive overview of the failures that occurred prior to and on July 13th.”
The report blasted the Secret Service for failing to share the information that Trump might have been in danger with state and local officials. It also criticized the Secret Service for not having a process in place to share classified information with other law agencies when a threat was not deemed an imminent threat to life.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) reacted to the report on Fox News ib Saturday, suggesting that, “This type of negligence, in my opinion, is not accidental, it’s intentional… The angle in which the president was shot from was actually left, in my opinion, open, and this reeks of an inside job.”
The report also exposed a laundry list of other procedural and planning errors, including misallocation of resources and a lack of training.
“One year ago, a series of bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps led to one of the most shocking moments in political history,” Grassley said in a written statement. “The Secret Service’s failure on July 13th was the culmination of years of mismanagement and came after the Biden administration denied requests for enhanced security to protect President Trump.”
Grassley added that the 98-page report cleared a path for the Secret Service to improve going forward.
Senior-level Secret Service officials knew about the potential threat on Trump’s life, though the information was not specific to the July 13 rally or a specific gunman, the report found.
“Nonetheless, due to the Secret Service’s siloed practice for sharing classified threat information, Secret Service and local law enforcement personnel central to developing site security plans for the rally were unaware of the threat,” the report read. “According to Secret Service officials, this information was not more broadly shared across the Secret Service because in part, the information was highly classified, and the Intelligence Community did not include information at a lower classification level to share. However, the Secret Service’s siloed information sharing practices, such as requesting that only personnel within an individual’s chain of command be briefed on threat information, contributed to members of the advance team not receiving relevant information.”
The GAO recommended making several changes to Secret Service policy to “require it to proactively share threat information internally could help ensure its agents and partners will have information needed to provide effective protection.”
The Secret Service said on Thursday it was punishing six agents involved in the Butler fiasco, with suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days without pay. The six agents had been placed on restricted duty after the rally while the agency conducted a lengthy internal review. Last year’s incident was the first assassination attempt since 1981 on a current or former president.
There were immediate demands for changes at the Secret Service, and the agency’s competency was called into question.
One clear failure that was identified in the numerous reviews that have taken place since the shooting was a lack of accountability surrounding who was in charge that day. Security for the event had been a joint responsibility between Trump’s personal security detail and agents in the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh office. Reviews found that agents did not adequately communicate with one another or with the local law enforcement officials who were also on hand.
In all, the GAO report made eight recommendations to the Secret Service on ways to course correct.
BONDI DISMISSES CHARGES AGAINST DOCTOR ACCUSED OF FALSIFYING VACCINE RECORDS
They include: creating a checklist or guide so agents know what their roles are in securing an event; employing methods to establish potential tactics adversaries may use against a protectee; developing a process to ensure actionable threat information is shared with individuals developing the site security plan; developing a list of assets that may be requested to secure protectees, along with circumstances under which the assets are likely to be provided; developing and implementing a process that manages risks by consistently sharing known risk information when making resource allocation decisions for a protected event; documenting initial and periodic refresher training requirements for authorized Secret Service operators; documenting requirements for the new Aviation and Air Security Division; and developing a policy, before 2026, to require Secret Service personnel conduct a capability assessment to identify potential audio and data communication challenges along with mitigation measures prior to a large protectee event.