The U.S. Secret Service admitted to numerous failures on Friday during the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe said during a press conference that the Secret Service was solely responsible for protecting the president and presidential candidates and that it needed to be able to fulfill its mission without support from the Department of Homeland Security.
“The Secret Service did not give clear guidance or direction to our local law enforcement partners,” he said.
“There were communication deficiencies between law enforcement personnel at the site. For example, the Secret Service did not co-locate its security room with local law enforcement, there was an over-reliance on mobile devices, resulting in information being siloed.”
Rowe laid out a timeline of events that demonstrated how these issues caused inaction by the Secret Service in the moments leading up to Trump being shot by the would-be assassin.
“With respect to diligence, line of sight issues were acknowledged but not properly mitigated,” he said. “Issues were encountered the day of the visit with respect to line of sight concerns, but they were not escalated to supervisors. While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols.”
Rowe added that the Secret Service agents who failed that day would be “held accountable” through a “robust table of penalties” that would be administered.
He said that in light of the events of July 13 and the second assassination attempt on Trump on Sunday, the agency would be undergoing a transformational “paradigm shift” in how it approaches its mission.
“The paradigm shift will be a driving force to move the Secret Service from a state of reaction to a state of readiness,” he said. “And the vision is for the Secret Service to be more agile, with the ability to escalate protection to the highest levels for numerous protectees for undetermined periods of time. But in order to do this, we need additional personnel, technical assets, and equipment for the sustainment of immediate and future needs.”
Post a Comment