Secret Service under scrutiny after assassination attempt on Trump
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Sunday called for an “independent review” of security measures before and after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump the previous day, while directing the Secret Service to review all of its security measures for the Republican National Convention this week.
Biden’s directive, though brief and without specifics, is likely to increase the scrutiny of the decisions and possible failures of the agency charged first and foremost with protecting the lives of the country’s current and former leaders, and their families.
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Less than 24 hours after Trump was injured at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, members of Congress were promising hearings and former law enforcement officials were questioning why the warehouse roof where the would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, fired shots was not covered by the Secret Service’s security perimeter, despite being within the range of some guns.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, was herded off the stage and pronounced fine, but the gunman came shockingly close to succeeding. A spectator was killed in the shooting and two others were critically wounded.
“Congress will do a full investigation of the tragedy yesterday to determine where there were lapses in security and anything else that the American people need to know and deserve to know,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Sunday on NBC.
The chair of the House oversight committee also asked the Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, to testify at a hearing on July 22.
The demand for answers from the president and Congress will probably spur another reckoning for an agency that has had its share over the past two decades. The Secret Service has faced administrative and cultural overhauls in recent years after reports of debauchery, reckless behavior and narrowly avoided security failures. Saturday’s assassination attempt will surely be one of the most serious additions to that list.
Yet, there is little time for deep soul searching. The Republican National Convention begins this week in Milwaukee.
The Secret Service has promised a heavy presence of uniformed and plainclothes law enforcement officers from multiple agencies, as the dayslong convention has been designated a National Special Security Event. That designation is usually used for large-scale events, including the United Nations General Assembly, and allows the Secret Service to pull in additional federal resources.
The Secret Service routinely relies on local law enforcement when it plans security for events like the one Saturday. The agency is directly responsible for the security within the designated perimeter of the event. In this case, that was the venue, the audience and the protectee, according to the agency’s spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi.
The building where the gunman positioned himself was outside of the perimeter, which meant it would have been secured by local law enforcement. On Saturday, there were four countersniper teams — two teams from the Secret Service and two from local law enforcement, Guglielmi said.
Guglielmi said the events Saturday played out rapidly. Before the shooting occurred, Guglielmi said, civilians reported spotting someone suspicious to the local police. Quickly thereafter, a man was seen on the roof of the nearby warehouse opening fire.
A Secret Service countersniper saw the man after he started shooting and fired at him, killing him, Guglielmi said. The gunman, he said, was not “camped out” on the roof. An AR-15-type rifle was found lying by Crooks’ body afterward.
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