By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE
A bipartisan Senate report released Wednesday blasts the U.S. Secret Service for several significant failures that led to the near-fatal assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler County, Pennsylvania, over the summer.
The bipartisan report indicates that security knew the shooter was on the roof minutes before Trump was shot.
Meanwhile, a bill that would increase the Secret Service protection for former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, now awaits President Joe Biden’s signature.
The new Senate report lays out a litany of failures from the Secret Service, including failure to delegate responsibilities to agents and officers, failure to keep the key buildings cleared, failure to work will with local law enforcement, who were helping with security, and more.
The report includes a list of failures, including that the Secret Service did not properly respond after the would-be assassin was identified as a suspicious person over an hour before Trump took the stage.
A stunning paragraph from the report lays out the gravity of some of the mistakes:
“Approximately two minutes before shots were fired, the USSS Security Room, located on the rally grounds, was told that there was an individual on the roof of the AGR building,” the report said. “Shortly before shots were fired, a USSS counter sniper observed local officers running towards the AGR building with guns drawn.”
Critics have blasted the agency from its poor planning of the event, its slow and clumsy response and its unwillingness to share details publicly after the incident. The former head of the Secret Service resigned after a disastrous Congressional hearing on the issue where lawmakers from both sides took her to task.
The report also said an inexperienced agent had trouble getting the drone working and spent hours calling a tech support hotline for help. The agents apparently also had problems with their radios, something that is common, according to the repot.
“From planning missteps, to the siloed and flawed communication to the lack of effective coordination between law enforcement, to the breakdowns in technology, the Secret Service’s failures that allowed an assassination attempt on former President Trump at his July 13 rally were shocking, unacceptable, and preventable – and they led to tragic consequences,” said Chairman Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.
Has anyone considered drafting a report on the Senate? Should be a cake walk as they suck. Why should such a collection of beat-offs be able to criticize another government agency’s ‘just shy of 99%’ success rate?