The breadth of known Secret Service errors that led up to Donald Trump’s first near-assassination in July widened on Wednesday with the release of a report by the US Senate that found there was no one clearly in charge of decision-making for security at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that day – causing “foreseeable, preventable” failings before the former president was shot.
The catalogue of security errors that allowed a would-be assassin to fire seven rounds at Trump at the election rally include failing to set up sight-line barriers around the outdoor rally area, the absence of a plan to secure the building the shooter took aim from and general communication chaos.
A bullet clipped the former president’s ear, while one rally-goer was killed and two others were badly wounded.
An agent with only informal training with drone equipment called a toll-free tech support hotline for help, delaying security operations involving surveillance drone equipment, according to a preliminary summary of findings made public on Wednesday.
A request ahead of time for additional unmanned security assets was denied, the report said. Thomas Crooks, 20, fired at Trump before being killed by government snipers.
“Multiple foreseeable and preventable planning and operational failures by [the Secret Service] contributed to Crooks’ ability to carry out the assassination attempt of former president Trump on July 13,” the preliminary report said.
“These included unclear roles and responsibilities, insufficient coordination with state and local law enforcement, the lack of effective communications, and inoperable C-UAS systems, among many others,” it continued, referring to equipment such as drones, or counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
The Secret Service chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, said: “The weight of our mission is not lost on us and in this hyper-dynamic threat environment, the US Secret Service cannot fail.
“Many of the insights gained from the Senate report align with the findings from our mission assurance review and are essential to ensuring that what happened on July 13 never happens again,” Guglielmi added.
The Secret Service has already openly admitted failures, both to the US Congress and in press conferences, and the head of the service at the time quit after the Butler shooting.
The bipartisan Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee found that key resource requests were also denied, and some were not even made. Secret Service advance agents did not request a surveillance team for the rally’s 15,000 attendees.
About 155 law enforcement officers were at the Butler rally on 13 July, compared with 410 security personnel dispatched to guard the first lady, Jill Biden, who was in the state about an hour away.
The report found that many of the problems identified by the committee “remain unaddressed” by the Secret Service.
“Overall, the lack of an effective chain of command, which came across clearly when we conducted interviews,” said the Connecticut Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday. “It was almost like an Abbott and Costello farce, with ‘who’s on first?’ finger-pointing by all of the different actors.”
But the central failure to secure a roof of a nearby factory within shooting distance of the rally stage, from where the shots were fired, remains unanswered. The first reported sighting of would-be assassin Crooks was at 4.26pm, more than 90 minutes before Trump would begin speaking.
At 5.38pm, a Beaver county sniper, stationed inside the building from which Crooks would later shoot atop its roof, sent photos of Crooks to the local team’s group chat, but Secret Service counter-snipers on a roof close to where Trump was due to speak were not notified.
“What I saw made me ashamed,” said the acting Secret Service director, Ronald Rowe Jr. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”
The report was released as investigators investigate a second domestic assassination attempt on the former president, as well as an apparent Iranian plot to kill him.
In the second domestic attempt, Ryan Routh, 58, was arrested on 15 September, suspected of pointing a rifle through the fence at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the former president was playing.
On Tuesday, federal prosecutors filed a charge of attempted assassination against Routh, on top of previous charges.
