Independent panel issues scathing report on Secret Service and recommends leadership overhaul after Trump shooting

The Secret Service’s security failures that led to the near-assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania this summer were reviewed by an independent panel of former law enforcement officials appointed under the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. It then recommended a complete reshuffle of the Secret Service leadership.

It did, however, expose the Secret Service to some of the organization’s harshest criticism. It said the Secret Service was permeated with a “do more with less” culture, and a general lack of “critical thinking” that was representatively characteristic of the Butler event and before it, where it was shot A Trump gun killed a rally attendee.

“Despite the fact that hazards have multiplied and technology has evolved, The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static,” the group said in its assessment published on Wednesday.

It was recommended by the panel that the leadership in the agency be replaced with individuals from outside the agency who have the ability to change the culture of the Secret Service, including the “present sense of complacency within the Service.” The panel was led by Mark Filip, who served as the deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush; Janet Napolitano, who served as the secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama; and other government officials.

Many of the problems that the Panel has identified throughout this report, particularly those that pertain to the Panel’s ‘deeper concerns,’ are ultimately related, either directly or indirectly, to the culture of the Service. According to the panel’s writing, this rejuvenation through new leadership perspectives is what will eventually help in settling those issues.

Now left in the hands of acting Director Ronald Rowe, after the near-assassination of one and the subsequent resignation of Director Kimberly Cheatle have left the agency. Although Rowe is not named directly in the report’s suggestion for leadership change, he comes from within the ranks of the agency and was appointed after Cheatle quit.

The agency was heavily criticized in the report for failing to properly secure the Butler rally site. This included failing to establish line-of-sight blockades, failing to secure the group of buildings that the shooter accessed, failing to respond to reports of the shooter as a suspicious person more than an hour before Trump was shot, and a multitude of other failures on the part of the agency and local law enforcement.

As a result of a lack of critical thinking on the part of Secret Service officials who were responsible for security on that particular day, the panel stated that these failures occurred.

Another proposal made by the group was that the agency should be relieved of some of its other tasks that are not related to security. These responsibilities include the agency’s investigative work, part of which is focused on financial crimes that the organization was formed to tackle.

“The Panel expresses extreme skepticism that many of the Service’s non-protective (investigative) missions meaningfully contribute to the Service’s protective capability and is concerned that they may materially distract from it,” the study said. “The Panel is concerned that they may materially distract from,” the report continues.

As well as Trump’s already high-profile status as a former president and the current Republican front-runner for the 2024 election, the panel also considered the failure of the Secret Service to adequately increase Trump’s security after learning of an assassination threat from “a foreign state actor” directed toward the former president. CNN has previously reported that authorities had gathered evidence regarding a conspiracy by Iran to assassinate Trump in the weeks prior to the attempted assassination of the former president at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July. The event took place in July.

One of the other problems that were found in the report was that the individuals who were in charge of the site security for the event on that particular day lacked experience.

“The site agent assigned by the Trump detail to coordinate with the Pittsburgh field office to conduct site advance work and site security planning for the Butler rally only graduated from the Service’s academy in 2020,” the panel noted, “had only been on the Trump detail since 2023, and had engaged in minimal previous site advance work or site security planning and certainly nothing to the level of the July 13 Butler rally.”

The panel also discussed the gaps in communication that occurred between the Secret Service and local law enforcement officers during the Butler event. Throughout the day, police tracked the gunman’s movements and various suspenseful scenes, including occasional binoculars of the platform

The Secret Service reported that a unified communications system was being prepared; Nevertheless, the commission reported that this is the federal government that was aware of these problems long ago and still solutions and these ate the consequences of this terrorist attack in September 11 after the appearance of; It happened decades ago.

“Courage and selflessness alone, no matter how noble, are insufficient to meet the failed Secret Service mandate of security safeguards,” the report said, even as the commission praised agents who rushed Defending Trump when he was shot and quickly removed assassin.