Bipartisan Senate committee finds Secret Service failures before Trump rally shooting were ‘avoidable’

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service’s numerous failures to act before former President Donald Trump’s July rally where a gunman opened fire were “foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events leading up to the attempted assassination that day,” a bipartisan Senate investigation released Wednesday found.

Like the agency’s internal investigation and the ongoing bipartisan House inquiry, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s interim report found numerous failures at nearly every level before the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, including planning, communications, security and resource allocation.

“The consequences of these failures have been dire,” said Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, Democratic chairman of the Homeland Panel.

» READ MORE: Secret Service report details communications breakdowns leading up to July assassination attempt on Donald Trump

Investigators found there was no clear chain of command between the Secret Service and other security agencies and no plan to protect the building the shooter climbed into to fire shots. Officers were operating on multiple separate radio channels, leading to lost communications, and an inexperienced drone operator was stranded on the rescue line because his equipment was malfunctioning.

Communication between security officers was like a “multi-stage game of telephone,” Peters said.

The report found that the Secret Service was notified of a person on the roof of the building about two minutes before the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire, firing eight shots at Trump less than 150 yards from where the former president was speaking. Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate, was hit in the ear by a bullet or shrapnel during the assassination attempt, one rallygoer was killed and two others were wounded before the assailant was killed by a Secret Service countersniper.

About 22 seconds before Crooks shot, the report said, a local officer sent out a radio alert that there was a gunman in the building. But that information was not passed on to key Secret Service personnel who were questioned by Senate investigators.

» READ MORE: Acting Secret Service Director Says He’s ‘Ashamed’ After Failed Assassination Attempt On Trump

The committee also heard from a Secret Service anti-sniper who testified that he saw officers with their guns drawn running toward the building where the shooter was, but that person said it did not occur to them to notify anyone so Trump could get off the scene.

The Senate report comes just days after the Secret Service released a five-page document summarizing key findings from a yet-to-be-finalized Secret Service report on what went wrong, and ahead of a hearing Thursday before a bipartisan House task force investigating the shooting. The House committee is also investigating a second assassination attempt on Trump earlier this month, when Secret Service agents arrested a man with a rifle hiding on the golf course at Trump’s Florida club.

Each investigation reveals up-to-date details that point to a major breakdown in the former president’s security detail, and lawmakers say they want to learn much more to prevent it from happening again.

“This was the result of a lot of human error by the Secret Service,” said Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the highest-ranking Republican on the panel.

» READ MORE: U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean Calls for Expansion of Trump Shooting Investigation to Florida Attack

The senators recommended that the Secret Service better define roles and responsibilities before any security incident, including appointing one person responsible for approving all security plans. Investigators found that many of the people responsible denied responsibility for planning or security failures and blamed others.

Planning agents questioned by the committee said “planning and safety decisions were made collectively, with no specific person responsible for approving them,” the report said.

Communication with local authorities was also needy. Local law enforcement had raised concerns about security at the building where the shooter was sitting two days earlier, telling Secret Service agents during a walk-through that they did not have enough men to lock it down. Secret Service agents then gave investigators conflicting accounts about who was responsible for security, the report said.

An internal review released last week by the Secret Service also detailed numerous communication problems, including a lack of clear guidance to local law enforcement and a failure to address line-of-sight gaps at the rally that exposed Trump to sniper fire and “complacent behavior” by some agents.

“This was a failure of the United States Secret Service. It is important that we take responsibility for the failures of July 13 and use the lessons learned to ensure that this type of failure does not happen again,” Ronald Rowe Jr., acting director of the agency, said after the report was released.

In addition to better defining event responsibility, the senators recommended that the agency completely overhaul its communications operations during protective events and improve intelligence sharing. They also recommended that Congress assess whether additional resources are needed.

» READ MORE: Will there be a government shutdown this year? Here’s where things stand.

Democrats and Republicans have disagreed on whether to give the Secret Service more money in the face of its failures. A spending bill expected to pass before the end of the month includes an additional $231 million for the agency, but many Republicans said an internal overhaul was needed first.

“This is simply a management issue,” said Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Panel’s subcommittee on investigations.