Independent commission determines Secret Service failures created conditions for first Trump assassination attempt

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump that took place at the July 13 Butler, Pennsylvania rally was enabled by “numerous mistakes” by the United States Secret Service (USSS) leading up to the first attempt on the GOP nominee's life by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, an independent commission has determined.

According to NBC News, the four-person bipartisan panel of former senior law enforcement and government officials also cautioned that there could be a similar failure of catastrophic proportions if the USSS does not "fundamentally reform" immediately. In a letter written by the panel to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the four panel members stated, “The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static."



"The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission," the panel added. "Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again.”’

The report also detailed the failures that led to the assassination attempt at the time. During the course of events, the leadership of Trump’s security team was never informed about a person acting suspiciously before the president took the stage or in the minutes leading up to the shooting when Crooks had crawled onto the roof.

USSS acting Director Ronald Rowe was interviewed by NBC News about the review, where he said, "We have not been sitting back waiting for reports like this to come out," he commented. "Following the horrific events of July 13, we’ve already started to make not only operational changes, but policy changes, and to ensure that we don’t have another mission failure like July 13."

Despite the words of Rowe, another would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, managed to get onto Donald Trump's golf course around 12 hours in advance of when the GOP nominee played golf later on September 15.

The four bipartisan members of the panel conducted 58 interviews that lasted multiple hours with state and federal law enforcement officials and looked over 7,000 documents in order to come to their determination. The panel traveled to Butler, Pennsylvania, and surveyed the site of the shooting. Crooks was able to get on top of a building and take eight shots at the former president, with one hitting his ear, before he was killed by a counter sniper on duty at the time for the rally.

The group further added that they found “deep flaws in the Secret Service, including some that appear to be systemic or cultural,” as well as a “lack of critical thinking among Secret Service personnel." They added that there was also an unwillingness to "speak up" when threats occur.

The panel urged the USSS agency to proceed with necessary operational reforms as soon as possible and noted, “Even an unlimited budget would not, by itself, remediate many of the failures of July 13.”