TDBS SOURCE: Reuters: Watchdog faults Secret Service for missing 102 radio calls during 2024 Trump shooting
Nearly two years after the assassination attempt that shocked the nation and altered the 2024 presidential campaign, a new federal watchdog report has concluded that the U.S. Secret Service missed multiple opportunities to prevent or disrupt the attack on then-candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The 64-page report, released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, paints a troubling picture of communication failures, intelligence-sharing breakdowns, and security lapses that allowed gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to gain a clear line of sight to Trump’s rally stage on July 13, 2024.
“The Secret Service’s overall lack of policy and processes coupled with limited intelligence sharing and poor collaboration and communication with protectee staff and state and local law enforcement set the conditions that led to missing opportunities to prevent and detect the attempted assassination,” the report states.
According to investigators, one of the most significant failures involved communication between federal agents and local law enforcement. The report found that the Secret Service and local officers operated from separate locations approximately 257 yards apart and had only limited radio connectivity. As a result, critical information about a suspicious individual near the rally site was not effectively shared with Trump’s protective detail.
The report says the Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions connected to the search for Crooks, including warnings that he had been observed on a rooftop with a long gun.
Because those warnings never reached the agents directly protecting Trump in a timely manner, the former president remained on stage as the threat escalated.
Crooks ultimately fired eight shots from the roof of a nearby building. Trump was struck in the ear and survived. Rally attendee Corey Comperatore was killed while shielding family members, and two other spectators suffered serious injuries.
The inspector general also identified shortcomings in the agency’s counter-drone operations. Investigators found that Crooks flew a drone near the rally site less than three hours before the attack. The flight went undetected because of equipment problems and operator limitations. Although a counter-drone system was present at the event, the report states it was not operational when Crooks conducted his aerial surveillance.
Another major finding involved the rooftop position Crooks used during the attack. The report concluded that officials had previously identified the American Glass Research complex as a potential line-of-sight vulnerability but failed to adequately address the risk.
Former Secret Service agent Paul Eckloff told Fox News Digital that the rooftop should have been considered unacceptable from a security standpoint. “The biggest failure that is probably not addressed in the OIG report is that they never should have accepted the risk of doing it at this site,” Eckloff said. “That roof had an egregious line of sight.”
According to the report, officials had discussed using trucks already on site to obstruct the rooftop’s view of the stage. The proposal was not ultimately implemented in a way that blocked the threat, leaving Crooks with an unobstructed view of Trump’s podium from roughly 155 yards away.
The inspector general’s office issued multiple recommendations aimed at preventing similar failures in the future. Those recommendations include stronger threat communication procedures, improved coordination with local law enforcement, enhanced counter-drone training, and formal documentation of identified security vulnerabilities.
The report adds another chapter to the continuing examination of one of the most significant security failures involving a presidential candidate in modern American history.
You know, every time a government agency gets caught making a colossal mistake, we’re told the same thing.
There was a breakdown in communication. That’s Washington’s version of “the dog ate my homework.” According to this report, there were 102 missed radio transmissions. One hundred and two.
Think about this for a moment. Local officers are reportedly warning about a suspicious individual. They’re warning about a roof. They’re warning about a long gun. They’re warning about a threat moving closer and closer to the target.
And somehow all of this information is bouncing around like luggage at LaGuardia during a thunderstorm. Meanwhile, the guy they’re trying to protect is standing on stage in front of thousands of people.
The report says the roof was already identified as a problem.
Wait a minute.
The roof was known? The roof was discussed? The roof was recognized as a vulnerability? And the roof still became the shooting position?
Then there’s the drone. The shooter flies a drone over the area before the event. The counter-drone system isn’t functioning properly. The drone isn’t detected.
At this point, if this were a movie script, the studio executive would reject it for being too unrealistic. “Nobody would believe this many things went wrong at once.”
Except they did.
Look, protecting a president or presidential candidate is one of the hardest jobs in government. Nobody expects perfection. But Americans do expect competence. That’s the key word here. Competence. The Butler rally wasn’t saved by a flawless security operation. It was saved because Donald Trump turned his head at precisely the right moment.
That’s providence. And if this report is accurate, there are a lot of people who should spend less time explaining what happened and more time explaining why it happened. Because the American people deserve better than a report that reads like a checklist of everything that wasn’t supposed to happen.
One hundred and two missed warnings. Good grief.
TDBS SOURCES:
- New York Post: Secret Service member was Googling rooftop location of Trump’s would-be assassin when shots rang out in Butler, Pa.: DHS report
- Reuters: Watchdog faults Secret Service for missing 102 radio calls during 2024 Trump shooting
- NOTUS: Secret Service Risked ‘Mission Effectiveness’ With Understaffing, Watchdog Says
- House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump: Final Report of Findings and Recommendations
- FOX News Digital
