Secret Service missed 'multiple opportunities' to prevent Trump assassination attempt: watchdog

The Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions about Thomas Crooks on a nearby roof before shots were fired at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally, according to a Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General report covered by Fox News on 2 July.

The 64-page watchdog report, per the Fox News account, examined the 13 July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump and found the agency failed to warn the protective detail that the suspect had a range finder and a long gun. Command posts sat 257 yards apart with poor radio connectivity; a counter-drone system malfunctioned, allowing a drone to fly undetected for nine minutes before the rally; and a line-of-sight vulnerability from the AGR building, 155 yards away, was identified but never blocked after trucks intended to obstruct the view were rejected by campaign staff for photo reasons.

The report concluded that the Secret Service's “overall lack of policy and processes coupled with limited intelligence sharing” set the conditions for the attack, in which rally attendee Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed, two others were critically injured, and Mr Trump was grazed in the ear. Former agent Paul Eckloff told Fox News: “Communications was a problem... They never should have accepted the risk.” The Straits Times also reported the watchdog's finding on the 102 missed radio calls.

Background

The Butler shooting was the closest a gunman has come to killing a US president or major-party nominee since the 1981 attempt on Ronald Reagan, and it triggered the most searching scrutiny of the Secret Service in decades. The agency's director resigned within days amid bipartisan congressional anger, and successive reviews — internal, congressional and independent — documented failures of planning, communication and coordination with local police at the Pennsylvania fairgrounds site.

The inspector general's report joins that body of findings with the most granular accounting yet of the radio traffic: 102 transmissions concerning the man who would climb onto a roof within rifle range of the stage, none of which produced a warning to the detail protecting the candidate. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper moments after opening fire; his motive has never been publicly established.

What comes next

The watchdog recommends mandatory threat-communication protocols, enhanced counter-drone training, and formal documentation of line-of-sight vulnerabilities, per Fox News. The Secret Service's response to the findings is not carried in the material supplied; agencies typically answer inspector general recommendations in writing, and whether the service accepts and implements all of them — and on what timetable — is the next thing to watch, along with any congressional hearings the report may prompt.