The head of the Secret Service said Friday that the protective agency failed to properly plan and execute its duties prior to former President Donald Trump’s near-assassination at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania July 13 — and vowed that those responsible would be “held accountable.”
“This was a failure on the part of the US Secret Service,” acting director Ronald Rowe told reporters following the release of an internal review of that day’s events.
Rowe explained that the agency shoulders “the main responsibility of building the site plan” for any of the former president’s or other protectees’ events — but had not given “clear guidance or direction to our local law enforcement partners” for the Butler, Pa., rally.
“There was complacency” among some of the Secret Service agents preparing the Butler Farm Show grounds security footprint, Rowe added, and a communication breakdown due to some messages being “siloed” from either the federal or local teams.
Agents were only notified of shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’ presence on the roof of the AGR building adjacent to the rally site seconds before the would-be assassin opened fire — after having made an “assumption” that local officers were overseeing the area.
The roof was the responsibility of federal agents on the ground that day, but no Secret Service official had told local law enforcement agents to cover it, according to the five-page review first obtained by the Washington Post.
“It was about not giving state and locals clearer direction about what needed to be done at the AGR building,” Rowe said Friday.
The report goes further, explaining that “the local tactical team operating on the second floor of the AGR building,” — which included a window directly behind the roof Crooks used as his sniper’s position — “had no prior contact with Secret Service personnel before the rally.”
“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,” the report adds. “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.”
Instead of housing all security personnel in one command room, Butler County Emergency Services and Secret Service were in separate places, and an “overreliance on mobile devices” meant that the federal counter-snipers were the last to learn about Crooks before he became a threat.
“Some local police entities supporting the Butler venue had no knowledge that there were two separate communications centers on site (i.e., the Secret Service security room and the Butler County Emergency Services Mobile Command Post),” the report states. “As a result, those entities were operating under a misimpression that the Secret Service was directly receiving their radio transmissions.”
“Issues were [also] encountered the day of the visit with respect to line of sight concerns, but they were not escalated to supervisors,” Rowe also noted.
A member of Trump’s protective detail had also tried to fly a drone over the rally site beforehand, but experienced “technical difficulties.”
“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,” according to the report.
Since Trump’s near-assassination, the threat environment has become “tremendous,” according to Rowe, meaning the agency has “significantly increase[d] our security footprint” with the use of more bulletproof glass around protectees and other technologies.
On Sunday, another would-be assassin, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, posted up along the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach in Florida for nearly 12 hours waiting for the former president to play a round.
Routh never got off a shot after being spotted by a Secret Service agent performing a sweep ahead of Trump on the course — who immediately fired on the gunman.
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“The advance agent, who was part of the first element, whose goal was to sweep ahead, did his job,” he said. “That young man is a very young agent early in his career. His vigilance, his reaction is exactly how we trained and exactly what we want our personnel to do.”
“There were counter-sniper elements that were present with the former president on the golf course in proximity; there was an entire counter-assault team that was there in proximity; there was also a jump team in proximity,” Rowe also disclosed.
Routh was later apprehended and was hit with a pair of federal weapons charges.
Asked several times whether the 45th president was receiving the same level of security coverage as President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, Rowe responded that the “highest levels” of the sitting president’s detail were also “being provided to the former president’s detail.”
That assurance was only for the Secret Service, Rowe noted, whereas US presidents have other coverage through the Department of Defense and in coordination with federal and local law enforcement partners.
While claiming his agency needed “additional resources” to maintain its security levels for all protectees, Rowe told reporters that all “assets were approved” before the Butler rally.
He also dismissed the necessity of a bill that passed the House earlier Friday forcing the agency to provide equivalent security to presidents, vice presidents and major candidates for both those offices.
Vice presidential candidates JD Vance and Tim Walz have both already been granted “high levels of Secret Service protection,” Rowe said.
The Butler near-assassination is also being investigated by Senate and House committees, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and its Office of Inspector General.
