An independent panel called Thursday for new leadership at the Secret Service, hired mostly from outside the agency, saying it needs a major shake-up or security failures such as the July 13 shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania “can and will happen again.” The bipartisan panel, ordered by President Biden to review the Secret Service after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., said the protective agency had become “bureaucratic, complacent and static,” reports the Washington Post. The panel expressed gratitude for agents who risk their lives to protect top officials but found significant leadership and cultural failures that put officials at risk, including a lack of critical-thinking skills.
The panel recommended that the administration replace the top leadership “as soon as practicable.” The panel wrote that “the Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission. Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again." “The panel believes this is a very important report and series of reforms that we trust will be taken extremely seriously given the critical mission of the service,” said Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, speaking for all four panel members. “As we say in the report, this is a zero-fail mission. For any failure endangers not only the life of the protectee but also the fundamentals of our government itself,” she said. Panel members said some of the proposed reforms could be addressed quickly, while others would take time and require the cooperation of Congress, the White House and the Secret Service itself. The recommendations are among the most sweeping changes proposed for the Secret Service in its 159-year history. The agency began protecting presidents at Congress’s request after the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley.
Commentaires