New GAO report exposes Secret Service failures at Trump rally in Butler

A new report from the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) outlines the U.S. Secret Service’s security failures during the first attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., one year ago.

The report, ordered by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reveals that the Secret Service received classified intelligence regarding a threat to Trump’s life 10 days before the rally, but failed to share the information with other key agencies. It also identified a series of procedural and planning mistakes, including “misallocation of resources, lack of training and pervasive communication failures” that led to the near assassination.

“One year ago, a series of bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps led to one of the most shocking moments in political history,” Grassley said. “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 but was denied by the Biden administration, was grazed in the right ear while addressing the crowd. Secret Service agents swarmed him, but he famously rose to his feet as he was being hustled to safety, raised his fist in the air and exhorted horrified onlookers to “Fight, fight, fight.” One man in the crowd, Cory Comperatore, was killed protecting his family, while two others were injured. A 20-year-old local man, Thomas Crooks, was shot dead by counter snipers as he crouched on the roof of a nearby building.

“There were mistakes made, and that shouldn’t have happened,” Trump told his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on Fox News. 

‘ABSOLUTE BARE MINIMUM’: CALLS FOR MORE ACTION AFTER SECRET SERVICE AGENTS SUSPENDED FOR SECURITY FAILURE

The GAO is the U.S. government’s primary auditor. Its nearly year-long probe is the longest review of the attempted assassination to date. Key findings include:

• 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.

Fox News confirmed ahead of the one-year anniversary of Trump’s first attempted assassination that six Secret Service agents were suspended without pay after 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at Trump during a rally in western Pennsylvania last summer. 

SECRET SERVICE CHANGES THE AGENCY HAS MADE POST-TRUMP BUTLER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Supervisors and line-level agents were given suspensions ranging from 10 to 42 days without pay in February, the Secret Service confirmed to Fox News.

And the news comes as Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., approved a subpoena to the FBI and Justice Department for more information on the Butler assassination attempt. 

Johnson, who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was a co-author of the bipartisan Senate Homeland Security Committee report on the assassination attempt last year.  

On the House side, the assassination attempt task force released its final report on Dec. 5, 2024, highlighting the “significant failures in the planning, execution, and leadership of the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners.”

The report concluded the shooting was “preventable,” identifying poor advance planning, lack of coordination with local law enforcement and poor Secret Service coordination by the U.S. Secret Service. It proposed 37 “actionable recommendations related both to the security failures on July 13 and to overarching structural changes” the Secret Service should adapt to increase safety measures moving forward. 

Both Senate and House reports followed congressional testimonies, including from acting FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe, who acknowledged the agency’s “failure” in Butler. 

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from the agency less than a week after the attempted assassination of Trump amid mounting pressure, taking “full responsibility for the security lapse.”

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One day after Butler, the FBI announced its federal investigation into the shooting, calling it an assassination attempt and a potential act of domestic terrorism. 

Fox News’ Alexis McAdams and Alex Miller contributed to this report.