A year ago on Sunday, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump nearly lost his life to a bullet from a 20-year-old man hiding on the rooftop of a nearby building during the Republican’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Three-hundred sixty-five days later, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a finalized report of their findings into the attempted assassination that injured three, including Trump, and took the life of former Buffalo Township Fire Chief Corey Comperatore.
The report emphasizes a key point: the failures of the United States Secret Service.
The incident in Butler “can only be described as stunning failures by the United States Secret Service (USSS)” by allowing “then-former President Donald J. Trump to be shot on July 13, 2024,” the report, headed by chairman of the Senate committee, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, said in its opening.
“This report reveals a disturbing pattern of communication failures and negligence that culminated in a preventable tragedy. What happened was inexcusable and the consequences imposed for the failures so far do not reflect the severity of the situation.”
Last week, Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn told media outlets that six Secret Service agents were suspended following what has been called a security failure in Butler last year.
Paul told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on the anniversary of the shooting that suspension is not enough retribution.
“They weren’t going to discipline anybody until I subpoenaed and asked them what they had done. But in the end, no one was fired,” Paul said.
During congressional hearings, when members of the Secret Service were questioned on who was accountable for ensuring the roof where the gunman ended up was secured, Paul said, “Nobody was in charge. Everybody said, ‘Oh, she was in charge of the roof, or he was in charge of the roof.’ No one would actually admit to being in charge of security for Butler.”
The report highlighted eight evidence-based findings through their investigation:
- The Secret Service either rejected or did not fill several requests for additional personnel, equipment and resources essential for protecting Trump during the campaign.
- No personnel involved in planning or security for the Butler rally were dismissed. Only six agents received formal discipline, with some not being punished until mid-2025. In two instances, the penalties were less severe than initially suggested.
- Former Director Kimberly Cheatle provided inaccurate information to Congress by stating that no security requests made for the Butler rally were rejected.
- Although Secret Service leadership received a briefing on threats and approved the use of counter-snipers at all of Trump’s outdoor rallies, no counter-snipers were deployed at the July 9 event in Doral, Florida.
- The responsibilities of Secret Service agents involved in advance planning were vague and not well specified.
- Agents did not relay crucial information about a suspicious individual to Trump’s security team, which might have prevented him from going on stage.
- Vital threat intelligence regarding Trump’s safety was not relayed to the agents assigned to protect him at the Butler rally.
- Before and during the event, significant gaps existed in coordination and communication between the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement.
In response to the report, then-Secret Service director Cheatle didn’t deny that “mistakes were made and reform is needed,” per CBS News.
But she added that “At the time I provided my congressional testimony, ten days after the assassination attempt, the information provided to me by personnel from Headquarters and the Trump detail, to include the current agency Director, confirmed my statement that no requests for additional support had been denied to our agents at Butler,” Cheatle said. “Any assertion or implication that I provided misleading testimony is patently false and does a disservice to those men and women on the front lines who have been unfairly disciplined for a team, rather than individual, failure.”
Trump posted on Truth Social an interview he did with Fox News, saying that he believes he was saved that day in Butler by a higher power.
“I hope the reason I was saved was to save our country. You know, we had a country that was, I don’t say dead, because it’s too strong, but we had a country that was really very close to being finished, in my opinion, and now we have the hottest country in the world,” he said, noting that every now and then he gets a throbbing feeling in his ear where he was struck by the bullet.