A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report details significant security lapses by the U.S. Secret Service during the first assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally one year ago.
Commissioned by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the report found that the Secret Service had received classified intelligence about a threat to Trump’s life ten days before the event but failed to distribute it to other relevant agencies. It also highlighted a series of procedural and planning errors—such as misallocated resources, insufficient training, and widespread communication breakdowns—that nearly enabled the attack.
“One year ago, a series of bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps led to one of the most shocking moments in political history,” Grassley said in a statement obtained by Fox News. “The Secret Service’s failure on July 13 was the culmination of years of mismanagement and came after the Biden administration denied requests for enhanced security to protect President Trump. Americans should be grateful that President Trump survived that day and was ultimately reelected to restore common sense to our country.
Trump—whose campaign had requested enhanced security measures that the Biden administration declined—was grazed in the right ear while speaking to the crowd. Secret Service agents immediately converged on him, but he famously rose to his feet during the evacuation, raised his fist, and urged the stunned audience to “Fight, fight, fight.”
Cory Comperatore, a rallygoer who shielded his family, was killed, and two others were wounded. The 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Crooks, was killed by counter-snipers as he crouched on a nearby rooftop.
Other key findings in the report, per Fox News:
- Ten days before the event, high-level Secret Service officials were briefed on a classified threat to Trump. “Once those officials reviewed the intelligence, they could have then requested that personnel within their chain of command be briefed on the specific information.” Officials failed to share this information, leaving federal and local law enforcement entities planning and staffing the event unaware of the active threat, including members of the Donald Trump Protective Division. Local law enforcement officials told the GAO they would have requested additional assets for the Butler rally, had they known.
- The Secret Service agent who was responsible for “identif[ying] site vulnerabilities,” was new to her role. The Butler event was “her first time planning and securing a large outdoor event as the site agent.”
- At the time of the Butler event, the Secret Service lacked a formal policy for communicating a protectee staff’s requests for changes to security plans. A Trump campaign staffer had asked the Secret Service advance team, who was unaware of the active threat to Trump, not to use large farm equipment to address line-of-sight concerns near one of the buildings so as not to interfere with campaign press photos. The advance team complied, a decision which may have given Crooks a clearer shot at the stage from his rooftop perch.
- Secret Service officials denied the Donald Trump Protective Division’s request for enhanced counter Unmanned Aerial Surveillance (cUAS) equipment at the Butler event, as “these resources had already been allocated for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.” Fortunately, senior officials with knowledge of the threat against Trump stepped in to approve counter sniper assets for the rally, a decision which was described as “inconsistent” with agency practices for making resource decisions.” Absent this last-minute decision, Trump “would likely not have received the counter sniper assets that ultimately took out [Crooks],” the GAO wrote.
