A year after assassination attempt, Secret Service discipline ‘far too weak,’ Senate report says

The Secret Service’s “cascade of preventable failures” in Butler, Pennsylvania, nearly cost President Trump his life last year, and the disciplinary penalties were “far too weak,” a Senate report has concluded.

The report, released Sunday on the anniversary of the July 13 rally in Butler, wrapped up the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s investigation into the Secret Service’s “stunning failures” that led to the deadly sniper-style attack in which Mr. Trump was shot in the ear.

The committee describes “a disturbing pattern of communication failures and negligence that culminated in a preventable tragedy.”

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman, “was able to evade detection by the country’s top protective agency for nearly 45 minutes” because of limited coordination among security partners, line-of-sight vulnerabilities that were flagged and not addressed and other failures, the report said.

No one at the Secret Service was fired.

The report was yet another black eye for the Secret Service after a series of scandals in recent years involving agents using prostitutes and getting into alcohol-fueled altercations in foreign countries.

In another failure at the Butler rally, the Secret Service received classified intelligence about a threat to Mr. Trump 10 days before the assassination attempt but did not share it with agents and law enforcement partners running security at the event, the Government Accountability Office said last week.

The Senate report also highlighted the failure of intelligence sharing. Its conclusions about the Secret Service’s shortcomings were similar to the GAO report and other reviews by a bipartisan House task force, an independent review panel and the Secret Service’s internal review.

One bright spot in the otherwise critical reviews was that Secret Service agents successfully thwarted a second assassination attempt against Mr. Trump in September. Agents spotted a gunman perched outside Mr. Trump’s Florida golf club and stopped him before he could fire any shots.

In Butler, Crooks fired eight rounds, grazing Mr. Trump’s ear, killing one rallygoer and injuring two others before a Secret Service countersniper killed him.

“What happened was inexcusable and the consequences imposed for the failures so far do not reflect the severity of the situation,” the Senate committee said.

Kimberly Cheatle, under pressure from Congress, resigned as Secret Service director a few weeks after the Butler rally.

Before her resignation, Ms. Cheatle testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that no assets requested for Butler were denied.

The Senate committee report said her testimony was false and cited two instances in which assets were denied for the Butler rally. Mr. Trump’s security detail requested enhanced counter-unmanned aerial system assets and a counterassault team liaison, both of which were denied because of a lack of manpower.

In total, the committee found at least 10 asset requests from Mr. Trump’s detail during the 2024 campaign that Secret Service headquarters denied or left unfulfilled.

Six Secret Service agents faced disciplinary action after lengthy internal reviews, which the committee said do not reflect the breadth of accountability needed.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican and the committee’s chairman, had to subpoena the Secret Service earlier this month to obtain information on what disciplinary action was taken. Six employees received suspensions without pay ranging from 10 to 42 days.

“The American people deserve better,” the report said.

The committee did not name the six people who were disciplined but described their roles.

The special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office, which was responsible for the majority of the planning for the Butler rally, was suspended for 14 days without pay.

Three others in the Pittsburgh office were suspended without pay: 10 days for the assistant to the special agent in charge, 14 days for the lead advance agent, and 14 days for the site counterpart.

Those Pittsburgh agents were relegated to telework status as the Secret Service internal review unfolded, along with the protective intelligence advance lead agent, who was not among those suspended because he resigned in September.

A member of Mr. Trump’s protective detail who served as the site agent for the Butler rally was recently suspended for 42 days without pay. In December, the agent had been reassigned from Mr. Trump’s detail to the Miami field office. The agent was relegated to restricted duty status for more than seven months.

The leader of the four-member countersniper team that worked the Butler rally was suspended without pay for 35 days and remains on restricted duty status.

He and the lead advance agent received shorter suspensions than initially recommended.

The committee said other agents involved in providing security for the rally should have been disciplined, particularly the agent who ran the security room. That agent failed to relay information he obtained regarding a suspicious person with a range finder, who later turned out to be Crooks, to agents on Mr. Trump’s detail who could have prevented him from taking the stage.

The security room agent told the committee that he relayed the information about the suspicious person to another agent in the room to pass along to the countersniper team.

The Secret Service did not find that the security room agent violated any agency policies. The agent retired last month.

The committee also questioned the Secret Service’s implementation of the disciplinary actions. It said two of the suspensions were not completed until after Mr. Paul subpoenaed the information.

Mr. Paul decided to close the committee’s investigation despite outstanding information requests to the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Sen. Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the committee’s permanent subcommittee on investigations, is continuing his investigation after recently subpoenaing the FBI for records about Crooks, security camera footage and forensic reports.