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A series of Secret Service failures related to the planning and execution of security operations “directly contributed” to the attempt on the life of former President Donald Trump at a July 13 rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, a Senate panel found.
The Secret Service never went on the rooftop where Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at Mr. Trump or even entered the building on the AGR International complex before the shooting, even though agents were aware the location adjacent to the rally site on the Butler Farm Show grounds would have a direct line of sight to the former president.
That was one of many “foreseeable, preventable” security failures of the Secret Service, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and its permanent subcommittee on investigations said in an interim report on its investigation into the assassination attempt.
The committee’s interim report is nearly 100 pages and details “planning, communications, intelligence sharing, and related security failures” before and on the day of the rally.
Those failures, the panel concluded, “directly contributed to Crooks’ ability to carry out the assassination attempt and kill and injure people in Butler, PA that day.”
Crooks fired eight rounds, grazing Mr. Trump in the ear, killing one rallygoer, 50-year-old firefighter Corey Comperatore, and severely injuring two others, David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, before he was killed by a Secret Service countersniper.
The committee has not been able to interview the countersniper who took the kill shot but did interview his partner, one of 12 Secret Service personnel interviews the panel conducted in its investigation to date.
The Secret Service released summary findings Friday from its internal investigation, which is nearing its conclusion. A bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt is planning to release an interim report as soon as next week.
Several of the Senate panel’s preliminary findings align with the Secret Service’s assessments:
• The agency failed to provide local law enforcement officials with clear instructions, particularly for covering the AGR rooftop.
• Communications between the Secret Service and local law enforcement were siloed. As a result, critical information about early suspicion and sightings of Crooks was not relayed in a timely fashion or at all.
The committee also revealed several new pieces of information:
SEE ALSO: Senate probe raises questions about bullets fired at Trump’s Butler rally
• A Secret Service countersniper saw local law enforcement running toward the AGR building with their guns drawn shortly before shots were fired, acknowledging that “elevated” the threat level. The countersniper did not alert Mr. Trump’s protective detail to remove him from the stage. He told the committee that “did not cross [his] mind.”
• Secret Service personnel involved in the planning identified multiple line-of-sight concerns near the rally site, including the AGR building. They proposed positioning large trucks or heavy equipment between the stage and nearby buildings to mitigate line-of-sight concerns but did not use them to block the line of sight from the AGR building to the stage.
• The advance agents did not request a countersurveillance unit, which could have helped patrol the outer perimeter, including the AGR building. First lady Jill Biden had a countersurveillance unit for an indoor event in the same region of western Pennsylvania that day. Her event had 410 expected attendees, compared with 15,000 anticipated for Mr. Trump’s rally.
• The Secret Service denied requests for additional resources for the Butler rally, including counterassault team liaisons to help coordinate tactical assets and extra counter-drone systems and personnel. The counter-drone system the Secret Service did have on-site initially failed and was not operational when Crooks flew a drone over the site in the hours before the rally.
The committee’s findings on the denial of additional resources contradict comments from Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe, who has said all assets requested for the Butler rally were approved.
The report does not clear up confusion surrounding conflicting accounts about who was responsible for covering the AGR International complex outside the official security perimeter, in particular, the rooftop that Crooks accessed to fire at Mr. Trump.
A member of the Butler Emergency Services Unit told the committee that local law enforcement told the Secret Service in a site walk-through two days before the rally that it did not have the “manpower” to lock down the AGR building.
Secret Service advance agents told the committee that state and local law enforcement were responsible for covering the AGR building because it was in the outer perimeter. The agency’s lead advance agent and countersniper team leader did not go into the AGR building or on the rooftop.
“None of the USSS Advance Agents shared planning documents with state or local law enforcement, or requested state or local operational plans — and those plans reveal no post-standers or patrol assigned to cover the AGR building or roof,” the committee report said.
The committee said the Secret Service knew local law enforcement countersnipers planned to set up inside the AGR building and “did not express objections or concerns about that placement.”
The Secret Service’s countersniper team was positioned on top of two barns on the farm show grounds inside the perimeter, just behind the stage. Trees partially obstructed the line of sight to the stage for the countersnipers on the barn closest to the AGR building, but they did not notify their team leader and assumed he was aware of it from the planning.
The July 13 rally was the first time in the 2024 election cycle that a Secret Service countersniper team had been assigned to one of Mr. Trump’s campaign events, which the Secret Service previously acknowledged.
The decision to provide countersniper coverage was made the first week of July in response to “credible intelligence” of a threat, the Secret Service’s assistant director for the office of protective operations told the committee.
Most other Secret Service personnel the committee interviewed, including the intelligence advance agent and the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office who led the security planning, said they were unaware of any credible intelligence of a threat.
Overall, the committee found the Secret Service team involved in securing the rally “lacked a clear chain of command” as the personnel it interviewed “denied individual responsibility for planning or security failures, deflected blame, and could not identify who had final decision authority for the rally.”
Although the panel has also interviewed some local law enforcement officials, it said the preliminary findings in the report focus only on the Secret Service’s failures. “They do not consider the extent to which other agencies or individuals may have contributed to these events, if at all,” the report said.
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