Donald Trump’s near assassination presents the biggest crisis for the Secret Service in decades. How was a 20-year-old lone shooter able to take up an exposed firing position on an open rooftop not much more than a football field away from the former president?
Scrutiny will focus on the Secret Service’s advance work to secure buildings near the Butler, Pa., including one belonging to American Glass Research where Thomas Matthew Crooks was perched when he shot at Trump, reports the Wall Street Journal.
“The reality is there’s just no excuse for the Secret Service to be unable to provide sufficient resources to cover an open rooftop 100 yards away from the site,” said Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant Secret Service director. “And there’s no way he should’ve got those shots off.”
A Secret Service sniper shot and killed Crooks moments after he filed multiple rounds. Crooks used an AR-style rifle that had been purchased by his father. Authorities found explosive devces in the car he had been driving.
One spectator was killed and two were critically injured. The gunman acted alone and wasn’t on the FBI’s radar before the shooting, said FBI agent Kevin Rojek.
Investigators were trying to determine Crooks' ideology. They were working to gain access to his cellphone and other electronic devices .
In advance of events, the Secret Service visits nearby businesses and buildings and works with local law-enforcement officials to monitor and safeguard structures outside the security perimeter.
On Saturday, four counter-sniper teams—two from the Secret Service and two from local law enforcement—were deployed at Trump’s rally.
Robert Pugar, an off-duty police officer who attended the rally, said that with all the top-notch security technology available today, “how did somebody get 130 yards away without being recognized? “We couldn’t even park within a mile. So how does somebody get on the very first building away from the stage, on the rooftop?”
The Secret Service plans to “participate fully” in an independent review of the assassination attempt, Director Kimberly Cheatle said Monday, reports The Hill.
Cheatle said the agency would also work with Congress “on any oversight action” committees plan to take.
“The Secret Service is working with all involved Federal, state and local agencies to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again,” Cheatle said.
The Secret Service regularly trains for a variety of scenarios, “including the worst-case scenario of an assassination attempt against one of its protectees,” said Charles Marino, who served as a supervisory agent on President Biden’s Secret Service detail during his vice presidency.
Donald Mihalek, a retired senior Secret Service agent, called the attempted assassination historic, drawing parallels to the 1912 shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee. Roosevelt, then a former president who was running for a third term in the White House, was shot while heading to a campaign event. He survived.
Former Secret Service agent Melanie Burkholder, told Scripps News that, "The question becomes how did this person penetrate a perimeter? Why wasn't that building secure? Why wasn't it swept and maintained secure throughout the event, knowing a rifle could potentially assassinate a former president?"
She added, "That's the biggest question. Were the resources requested? Were they denied? Did they go unregarded? What happened? And then how was it communicated to the counter snipers to train on him? How did that get communicated? That is a missing piece ... I think we have basic questions that need to be answered, and someone needs to be held accountable."
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She added that the Secret Service relies on local partners to do some of that work. "There's only about 7,500 Secret Service agents, that's not enough to fulfill our mission. So, we rely heavily on local law enforcement, sheriff's departments, military to supplement our security details," she said.
Trump allies accused President Biden and his supporters of using rhetoric that led to the assassination attempt. The Washington Post quoted Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) as saying, "The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs, “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), another Trump ally, said, "Let’s be clear: This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse.
Chris LaCivita, a top adviser to Trump’s campaign, blamed the attack on efforts by Trump’s political enemies to disrupt his candidacy. “[W]ell of course they tried to keep him off the ballot, they tried to put him in jail and now you see this …” LaCivita wrote on X before deleting the post.
LaCivita pointed to words Biden used earlier in the week when he told donors about shifting his campaign to attack Trump’s policy record, including his record on abortion and Project 2025, a document drafted by some former Trump advisers. “So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bull’s eye,” Biden told donors. LaCivita told the Post he doesn’t think Biden “or anyone else” should use words like that.