A scathing report from the American Senate has berated the United States Secret Service (USSS) for what it has called a "shocking breakdown" in security around the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally last year.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), under the leadership of Senator Rand Paul, published its final report on Sunday, detailing a series of egregious failures by the Secret Service that permitted a shooter to fire at Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024.
The gunman entered the roof of the American Glass Research building, which bordered the site where the rally was taking place, and opened fire—wounding four others, including Trump—and shooting firefighter Corey Comperatore to death. The report also showed that the assailant had been warned to the Secret Service about 25 minutes prior to the attack, allegedly seen with a rangefinder and engaging in suspicious activity.
This wasn't merely a tragedy—it was a scandal," said Senator Paul. "The United States Secret Service had failed to take action on credible intelligence, had failed to coordinate with local police, and had failed to prevent an attack that almost took the life of a then-former president.
The Senate investigation was bipartisan, conducted by both HSGAC and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). Their conclusions are a chilling portrait of institutional failures in the USSS, ranging from disregarded threat reports to a deficiency of firm leadership.
"Yet no one has been terminated," Paul added, expressing his criticism about what he characterized as a lack of accountability. "And we know only because I subpoenaed the information how little discipline was administered. That is unacceptable. This was more than one misjudgment. It was an entire collapse of security at all levels—driven by bureaucratic apathy, insufficiency of clear protocols, and a stunning failure to respond to explicit threats."
The report further outlines how the Secret Service continuously denied or failed to meet key security requests throughout the 2024 campaign cycle. These included requests from the Donald Trump Division (DTD) for increased resources including counter-sniper staff, counter-assault teams (CAT), and state-of-the-art counter-drone equipment.
"USSS documents submitted to the Committee reveal that USSS Headquarters denied or left unfilled no less than 10 requests made by the Donald Trump Division (DTD) for added resources during the 2024 campaign," the report reads.
In its conclusion, the Senate report highlights that the Butler shooting was not a result of an isolated failure but a sequence of preventable mistakes. "This was not an individual mistake," the report states. "It was a cascade of preventable failures that came very close to costing President Trump his life."
The Committee is currently demanding tangible reforms and the adoption of more stringent accountability procedures in the Secret Service in order to avoid future violaions of presidential security.
