An independent panel is calling for an overhaul of the U.S. Secret Service after reviewing the agency’s handling of the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
In a 52-page report released Thursday, the panel of experts commissioned by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas criticized the Secret Service for its “do more with less” culture and a general “lack of critical thinking.”
“The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved,” the panel said in a letter accompanying the report.
“The work of the Independent Review Panel uncovered not only numerous mistakes that led to the events of July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, but also deeper, systemic issues that must be addressed with urgency.”
The bipartisan panel included Mark Filip, deputy attorney general under former President George W. Bush; Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security secretary under the Obama administration; Frances Townsend, Bush’s Homeland Security adviser; and former Maryland state police superintendent David Mitchell.
The group’s investigation found that several security breakdowns and failures on the part of the Secret Service enabled the attempt on Trump’s life. Among those failures were the absence of agency personnel to secure the AGR building—on which would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks perched—and failure to mitigate the line-of-sight threat that the building posed to the rally stage.
Other problems included the isolation of Secret Service’s communications from those of local law enforcement, the failure of the agency’s drone detection technology, agents’ and law enforcement’s failure to confront Crooks before he opened fire, and the fact that Trump’s security detail was not informed about Crooks and the potential threat he posed.
Law enforcement spotted Crooks more than 90 minutes before he fired eight shots in Trump’s direction, grazing the former president’s right ear and killing rallygoer Corey Comperatore. Two other attendees, James Copenhaver and David Dutch, were critically wounded.
As the shots rang out, Trump’s security detail ran to the stage and surrounded him to create a “body bunker,” per Secret Service protocol.
While commending the agents for their quick response, the panel noted that during Trump’s extraction from the stage, the upper portion of his body remained exposed “for critical seconds” at a time when it wasn’t clear if there were other gunmen in the area.
Such security failures exposed deeper concerns about the Secret Service’s operations, the panel said. Those include insufficient training, “corrosive cultural attitudes” regarding resourcing and when to speak up and share vital information, and an overall lack of clarity about which agency has overall security ownership of a protectee’s event site.
To remedy these problems, the experts recommended a “refreshment of leadership” with a new Secret Service director, selected from outside the agency rather than within.
“Although experience within the Service is laudable and important, and some members of a future leadership team will likely be Secret Service veterans, the events of Butler suggest that there is an urgent need for fresh thinking informed by external experience and perspective,” they wrote.
The panel also recommended that the Secret Service refocus on its core protective mission and ensure that all operations are prioritizing that goal.
Concerning non-protective work such as cyber crime investigations, “the Panel expresses extreme skepticism that many of the Service’s non-protective (investigative) missions meaningfully contribute to the Service’s protective capability and is concerned that they may materially distract from it,” the report stated.
“If the remediation and reform dialogue around the failures of July 13 devolves into a discussion about how much additional money the Service should receive, critical lessons from July 13 will have been lost,” the experts said.
“Put otherwise, even an unlimited budget would not, by itself, remediate many of the causes of the failures on July 13.”
Rowe said the agency respects the panel’s work and will review the report’s recommendations, but added that the agency is “not waiting to act.”
“We have already significantly improved our readiness, operational and organizational communications and implemented enhanced protective operations for the former president and other protectees,” Rowe said.
“This includes making changes to better integrate with our state and local law enforcement partners and augmenting our protection with support from the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies.”
He added that the Secret Service is developing a plan for a “fundamental transformation” to ensure the agency remains focused on its mission.
“This plan focuses on increasing and retaining the agency’s personnel, modernizing our technology, and building a training plan that is sustainable now and into the future,” Rowe said, noting that the agency’s newly enhanced protective model requires additional resources.
He said the Secret Service is working with Congress to increase the agency’s budget.
