What to know about the Secret Service, a year after it failed to protect Trump

Washington: One year has passed since a lone gunman fired shots at Donald Trump during a campaign rally in a quiet Pittsburgh suburb. The bullet could have been lethal if a fraction of an inch closer. It grazed his ear. A rally attendee was killed, and two others were injured.

The attempted assassination on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, shocked the world. And it washed away a 43-year stretch since a former or current president was wounded in an attempt on his life.

The Secret Service came under withering criticism, and the episode was perceived to be one of the worst failures in the history of the agency. The House and the Senate formed panels to review what went wrong. And the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service's parent agency, ordered up an independent assessment.

"The Secret Service must be the world's leading governmental protective organization," the assessment said. "The events at Butler on July 13 demonstrate that, currently, it is not."

The agency spent months looking internally. As findings trickled out, it became clear that the Secret Service had systemic problems that went back years: recruiting and holding onto experienced agents; poor communications about planning, especially for outdoor events; fatigue from long hours; thin staffing in a grueling campaign season; complacency from a long streak of seeming success.

Here is what we now know about what happened and what has changed:

A Young Shooter With a Plan

On a sweltering evening on the edge of fairgrounds fortified by law enforcement, a quiet, unassuming 20-year-old man climbed onto a roof with a rifle and fired off eight bullets at Trump. Seconds later, a Secret Service countersniper killed the would-be assassin with a single shot.

More than an hour earlier, a local officer had snapped pictures of someone behaving suspiciously and shared them on a group chat with his colleagues. Over the next 40 minutes, the pictures and messages with varying details about the man bounced around different law enforcement group chats, but in silos rather than simultaneously to all involved.

The Secret Service command post learned 25 minutes before the shooting that there was a suspicious person on the ground. By that time, local officials were trying to find a man they had seen with a range finder. Despite their efforts, the man, Thomas Crooks, managed to evade the uncoordinated manhunt and climbed onto the roof of a nearby building.

"He's on the roof! He's got a gun!" a spectator shouted a few seconds before Crooks fired the first three shots at Trump, who was speaking to his supporters. Then it was chaos, with shouts to "get down" before the candidate was whisked to safety.

Communication Breakdowns

The multiple reviews into the assassination attempt were largely in agreement: The Secret Service and its local law enforcement partners did not adequately prepare.

"This was a failure of imagination," Ronald L. Rowe Jr., the agency's acting director, told lawmakers two weeks after the shooting. "A failure to imagine that we actually do live in a very dangerous world where people do actually want to do harm to our protectees."

The agency and its partners did not develop their plans together, leaving unclear who was responsible for making sure no one was on the roof where Crooks would ultimately perch. When those assigned to protect the president walked the Butler site in the days leading up to the event, they did not do so as a group and their instructions ended up conflicting. The Secret Service did not have a top person in charge of the security operation, which later led to finger-pointing.

On the day of the campaign event, representatives from the multiple law enforcement agencies were not standing next to one another so they could share information coming in from their individual teams. Some Secret Service agents' radios were not working.

Changes Made, but More Needed

The security failures laid bare in the multiple reviews generated a spate of recommendations for change. The Secret Service said it has been working through them, and of the 46 suggestions from Congress, it has completed nearly half. Among those are updating policies to assign one person to be in charge during protective operations: the top agent on the personal protective detail. Had that been the case a year ago, it would have meant Sean Curran, who lunged to protect Trump in Butler, was the person most accountable for security at the fairgrounds.

Still, a new report from the Government Accountability Office, requested by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, found that while the agency added details to its policies so agents had more clarity, there isn't a central internal site where agents have access to them.

The report also found that the Secret Service does not have a way to share classified threat information with its law enforcement partners. In the case of Butler, the agency did not share intelligence about an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump with some of its own agents charged with developing the security plan.

"It is vital for the Secret Service to proactively share threat information internally and with local law enforcement partners, including potential trends and tactics adversaries may use," the report said.

Threat Level Remains High

A year later, the agency has a new cast of leaders. Curran is now the agency's director.

The head of the Secret Service at the time of the shooting, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned in the weeks following the shooting after a disastrous appearance before a congressional committee. But no one has been fired as a result of the failures in Butler. Six agents involved in securing the site face unpaid suspensions of 10 to 42 days, the agency disclosed in recent weeks. A young and inexperienced agent on Trump's detail at the time received the longest suspension.

Recruiting has jumped by 250 per cent, the agency said. In one of his first projects as director, Curran hired action movie director Michael Bay, a personal friend, to make a splashy recruitment video to air at the Super Bowl.

Whether the agency is ready to prevent another assassination attempt is unclear.

A year ago, some former Secret Service agents said that the more than 40 years without an assassination attempt wounding a current or former president most likely had more to do with luck than the agency's abilities.

The threat landscape for Trump remains high, the agency said recently, adding that it investigates all threats against him.