Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe announced Friday that his agency has nearly completed its internal review of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in July and concluded that the Secret Service's security setup for the event was destined to fail.
Rowe described the historic security lapses that led to an attempt on Trump's life during the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, as a "mission failure."
“This was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service. It is important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13, and we take the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another mission failure like this again," Rowe told reporters at a briefing about the agency's investigation into the shooting.
Rowe said the failures "made clear" that a "shift in paradigm in how we conduct our protective operations" is necessary.
When pressed on what such a shift would look like, Rowe said the Secret Service needs "to have communications that are more closely aligned to the operations" at hand.
The point was a clear reference to the Secret Service's alarming findings during its two-month review, known as a "mission assurance investigation," of the communication breakdowns before and during the Butler rally.
Local law enforcement officers did not know, for example, that the Secret Service agents protecting Trump would not receive real-time updates from them. When local officers learned that suspected shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was armed on the roof of a building in close proximity to Trump, they had no way to alert all federal personnel at the rally of the concern.
“The different radio frequencies used at the Butler Farm Show venue were not conducive for quickly sharing real-time information,” the Secret Service wrote in a summary of its review released Friday.
Additionally, no local or federal law enforcement stood guard on top of or around the perimeter of the AGR International building, allowing Crooks to climb onto its roof and open fire into the rally crowd while having an unobstructed view of the former president.
This was another result of "communication deficiencies," the Secret Service said.
Crooks got off eight shots before he was killed by a countersniper. One bullet struck the former president's ear. One rally attendee, Corey Comperatore , was killed, and two were seriously injured. The incident marked the first serious attack on a president or former president in four decades.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) has brought to light numerous whistleblower complaints about other rally missteps, two of which the Secret Service addressed Friday.
The first claim was that the Secret Service was offered the opportunity to use drone technology at the rally but denied it. The Secret Service said Friday that it had prioritized its own "unmanned aerial system" that ended up malfunctioning.
"There were some technical difficulties experienced by the advance personnel with that system," the Secret Service said, noting that "it is possible" this would have identified Crooks if it had worked properly.
A second whistleblower claim was that Secret Service agents working on the ground at the rally did not request countersniper manpower because they were discouraged from doing so, resulting in the countersniper asset arriving at the last minute.
The Secret Service said the countersniper did arrive "later during the advance week" and that having "all members" present for the initial security meetings "provides more time and opportunity to begin nuanced conversations and planning."
Rowe has repeatedly said that no assets that were requested ahead of the rally were denied.
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The acting director told reporters that the mission assurance investigation has moved into an "accountability phase" but that he would not provide further details, citing the internal nature of job action. The incident has already led to the former director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning from her position.
Rowe did not specify what the penalties on other employees would be, but he said the Secret Service is among the "most robust" of any agency.
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