U.S.
Senate panel calls for Secret Service changes, and a budget evaluation
By
The Washington Post September 25, 2024
Maria Sacchetti and Jacqueline Alemany
The Washington Post September 25, 2024
Former President Donald Trump is rushed off stage by Secret Service agents after being grazed by a bullet during a campaign rally on Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (Anna Moneymaker, Getty Images/TNS)
A Senate committee investigating the July 13 shooting at a Donald Trump rally is urging Congress to evaluate the Secret Service’s budget and require that the agency provide security to U.S. leaders and political candidates based on the threats they face, and not whether they are in office, according to a preliminary report to be released Wednesday.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee included these and other recommendations in a 134-page report that details the operations and communication failures that allowed a 20-year-old gunman to climb atop an unsecured roof at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pa., and fire eight shots at the stage, killing an attendee and wounding Trump and two others.
The Secret Service has said it is seeking a significant increase to the agency’s $3 billion annual budget to hire more agents, update equipment, and increase training after the Pennsylvania shooting and a potential attack against Trump in Florida on Sept. 15.
The bipartisan Senate panel appeared divided over how much more money to give the agency amid concerns that some agents denied responsibility or “deflected blame” for the security failures at the rally. Senators suggested that Congress require the Secret Service to record its radio transmissions at “all protective events.”
“The thing that was frustrating as we dug into this event is that everybody pointed at each other,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the committee chairman, at a briefing on the report Tuesday.
“There was no one point of contact who said, ‘Yes, I signed off on this plan and it met all the criteria.’ People were critical of the plan, and when we asked, ‘Who’s in charge?’ everybody said, ‘It wasn’t me, it was somebody else,’” Peters said. “That’s simply unacceptable. There needs to be someone who’s there, who signs off on it and has checked all the boxes, and will be held accountable if there’s a spectacular failure.”
Secret Service acting director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. has accepted responsibility for the lapses on July 13 and said the agency immediately boosted security for Trump, one of more than 40 top officials and dignitaries under the agency’s protection. On Friday, Rowe released a brief internal review detailing some of the agency’s failures at the rally. He has praised agents for thwarting the apparent attempt against Trump in Florida.
At the briefing Tuesday, the Senate committee’s top lawmakers differed over whether additional funding could fix the Secret Service’s operational woes.
The Senate over the weekend included $232 million in emergency funding for the Secret Service in a three-month stopgap spending agreement that would extend federal funding to Dec. 20 and avoid a government shutdown. The House is expected to vote on the measure as soon as Wednesday.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that the Secret Service’s mistakes on July 13 were a result of “human error — not a lack of resources.” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said lawmakers had already increased the agency’s staff and budget.
“The Secret Service over 10 years has had their budget increased by 65 percent from $2 billion to $3.3 billion,” Johnson said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he agreed that “bad behavior should be corrected” in the protective agency. He also said the preliminary report pointed to a clear need for more funding.
For instance, he said, the report found that Trump’s Secret Service detail in Pennsylvania lacked a countersurveillance unit that might have increased security at the outer perimeter of the rally, in the area where 20-year-old suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks gained access to an unsecured roof.
The Senate report noted that Trump lacked a countersurveillance unit for the rally, where up to 15,000 attendees were expected, while first lady Jill Biden had such a unit for an indoor event in Pittsburgh expected to attract about 410 attendees. One Secret Service official told the committee that such a unit was “not a typical asset for an advance for a former president” such as Trump.
The disparities in coverage between the candidate and a sitting president, who both faced threats, has worried some lawmakers. The House voted unanimously on Friday to ensure that top presidential and vice-presidential candidates get the same protection as incumbents, based on the threats they are facing.
Another troubling finding, Blumenthal said, was the discovery that several agents’ radios were not working at the rally and that the Secret Service’s counter-drone system was inoperable for hours before Trump took the stage in Butler.
The counter-drone technology might have spotted Crooks flying his drone before the rally, enabling officers or agents to investigate for a possible threat. But the Senate investigators found that the agent in charge of that system at the Butler rally had only three months’ experience working with that equipment, lacked knowledge about it and spent hours on the phone with tech support trying to get it to work.
The Senate committee is leading one of multiple investigations into the Butler rally shooting as well as the incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where authorities said a man armed with a rifle and a scope hid in a tree line at the golf course for up to 12 hours, about 300 to 500 yards from where Trump was playing, the report said.
An agent spotted the man, identified as Ryan Routh, and opened fire, and the man was arrested on weapons charges soon afterward. Routh was indicted on Tuesday and charged with attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate, among other charges, which could carry a penalty of life in prison.
Also investigating the July 13 attack are an independent panel ordered by President Joe Biden, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general and a bipartisan House task force that will hold its first hearing Thursday.
The Senate committee report is based on more than 2,800 Secret Service documents and interviews with about a dozen agents and supervisors, as well as with local law enforcement officials who were involved in the planning and security for the July 13 rally.
Many of the findings were already known, such as the failure to open clear lines of communication between agents and local law enforcement at the rally, agents’ failure to ensure that the roof where Crooks fired from was adequately covered, and a lack of leadership and planning in the advance team that set up the event.
Several agents, including a Secret Service sniper, were aware that law enforcement was searching for Crooks in the crowd at the rally but did not warn agents guarding Trump to take him off the stage, the report found.
The Secret Service failed to provide enough resources for the rally. Rowe has said Trump was then receiving more protection than any other former president and that his protection has increased since the attacks to the highest levels, similar to a sitting president.
Trump did not receive the full protection agents asked for that day, the report said, such as ballistic glass and a counterassault team liaison, the Senate report said.
However, the rally marked the first time a Secret Service countersniper team was assigned to a protectee other than the president, vice president or a presidential candidate who had been formally nominated by his or her party — Trump was days away from being officially nominated.
The Senate report said the Secret Service added the counter-snipers in response to “credible intelligence” of an undisclosed threat unrelated to Crooks, and the report said that decision “potentially saved lives.” After Crooks fired shots, a countersniper shot and killed him.