The US Secret Service has “serious flaws” that need to be urgently addressed or more assassination attempts like those at Donald Trump’s rallies will happen again, a shocking report says.
An independent panel investigating the July 13 shooting released its findings Thursday and said the organization had become “bureaucratic, complacent and stagnant.”
In the 52-page report, it called for an overhaul of its leadership and said “a number of specific failures and breakdowns” led to attacks on the Republican presidential nominee.
The Secret Service has acknowledged its failings, with its chief resigning weeks after the shooting.
Ronald Rowe, the agency’s acting director, said in a statement Thursday that the agency will carefully review the new report.
“We have significantly improved our preparedness, operations and organizational communications and implemented enhanced protective operations for the former president,” he said.
In the report, drafted by state and national law enforcement officials, the panel praised agents who risked their lives to protect many of the country’s most senior officers, but also pointed to some leadership and cultural failures.
These included a “disturbing lack of critical thinking” by employees and a reluctance to “speak up.”
The report said problems at the agency were “systemic or cultural” and called for “fundamental reforms” including removing some of its top leadership “as soon as possible.”
The group wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the group: “Without this reform…another Butler can and will happen again. .
President Joe Biden ordered a bipartisan review of protective agencies after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, by shooting from a nearby rooftop.
Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots at the rally, killing one man and leaving Trump bleeding from his ear. The Secret Service shot and killed Crooks.
On Thursday, the group called for “mandatory observation of all outdoor activities using high-altitude technology”.
In September, another gunman was spotted near the former president outside the Trump International Golf Course in Palm Beach, Florida.
Police arrested Trump after they noticed they found the tip of a rifle in the bushes hundreds of yards away on the golf course.
