‘Deep Flaws’ at Secret Service Exposed: Independent Panel Calls for Reform After Trump Assassination Attempt

An independent panel tasked with looking into the July assassination attempt against President Trump has found that “deep flaws” within the Secret Service led to the attack and is calling for “fundamental reform” of the agency.“[The breakdowns] reveal deep flaws in the Secret Service, including some that appear to be systemic or cultural,” reads a report from the panel posted online by the Department of Homeland Security. “The Secret Service must be the world’s leading governmental protective organization.”“The events at Butler on July 13 demonstrate that, currently, it is not,” the report concludes.The findings by the four-member panel released Thursday highlight how the group found and identified “numerous mistakes” in the lead-up to the assassination attempt against Trump during his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to CBS News. The panel also points out “deep systemic issues that must be addressed with urgency” within the agency.“The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission,” the members said in a letter that accompanied the report. “Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again.”The review found a half-dozen failures that led to the attack, including not enough personnel to secure the building where gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks had set up his sniper perch.Agents also failed to address the line-of-sight threat from the building and had communication issues with local law enforcement. The panel also cites the Secret Service’s failure to confront the shooter even though he was spotted 90 minutes before the shooting and “deeper concerns,” including a “lack of clarity” on who has ownership of overseeing security for the site and a “troubling lack of critical thinking.”“The particular combination of repetitive suspicious behavior in a close-in location, the possession of a rangefinder and its use to range the stage, and only intermittent visual contact with him (in other words, Crooks was not being continuously monitored and surveilled) represents information that should have triggered a police or other law enforcement encounter, and such an encounter likely would have averted the subsequent sequence of events,” reads the report.Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that his agency will “fully consider” the report’s findings.“These actions will be responsive not only to the security failures that led to the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt but, importantly, to what the Independent Review Panel describes as systemic and foundational issues that underlie those failures,” he said.

‘Deep Flaws’ at Secret Service Exposed: Independent Panel Calls for Reform After Trump Assassination Attempt

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