The Secret Service has now released a fully unclassified report about its investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler on 13 July.
The report details numerous failings, including allowing line-of-sight risks that allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to get a clear shot at the former president.
“Multiple Secret Service personnel mistakenly assessed these line-of-sight risks to the former president as acceptable, leading to inadequate elimination,” the report states.
“Site advance personnel failed to recognize gaps in the site’s construction and failed to notify their chain of command that potential line-of-sight concerns were not fully mitigated.”
The report also details how the shooter was allowed to access the roof of the AGR building, despite Secret Service and law enforcement receiving multiple reports of his presence and suspicious behavior, including the use of a sniper’s range finder.
Secret Service agents “did not command the appropriate dispatch of personnel, either Secret Service or state/local law enforcement partners, to the area of the AGR building after learning about a suspicious individual with a range finder.”
According to the report, the Secret Service has now implemented a raft of measures designed to improve security for Donald Trump and other political candidates. These measures include increasing Trump’s level of protection commensurate to that of a sitting president; expanding the use of unmanned aerial systems for monitoring sites and countering other unmanned aerial systems; improving communications among agents and with local law enforcement; incorporating the use of other federal units; and deploying tactical ballistic countermeasures such as bulletproof-glass shields at outdoor rallies.
The full list of measures is as follows:
1. The agency is providing the highest levels of Secret Service protection to the Vice President and former President Trump, commensurate to the level of the President.
2. Increased the staffing levels of specials agents assigned to former President Trump’s protective detail.
3. Expanded the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for aerial observation at venues.
4. Expanded the use of counter unmanned aerial systems to mitigate the use of a UAS as a kinetic attack vector.
5. Addressed radio interoperability by requiring, and ensuring through appropriate supervision, the co-location of Secret Service personnel with state and local public safety counterparts at unified command posts.
6. Deployed Secret Service and Department of Defense personnel to assist in the development of radio communications networks, with redundancies, at Secret Service-protected campaign sites.
7. Implemented agreements with federal partners to secure additional federal law enforcement personnel and assets to support Secret Service protective operations when the agency’s personnel and assets are temporarily committed to other protective visits.
8. Expanded Secret Service tactical coverage, augmented by other federal tactical units, to support protective operations for the Vice President, former President Trump, and others.
9. Expanded use of ballistic countermeasures at Secret Service-protected campaign sites.
10. Expanded use of technical countermeasures and technologies to enhance the security of former President Trump and his residence.
11. Effected multiple organizational changes to better align enabling technologies with the appropriate operational level in the agency and to leverage research and development of emerging technologies to give the Secret Service a technical advantage over its adversaries.
The report ends by saying that “the Secret Service will continue to make further changes and implement viable recommendations that it receives from various entities. The agency is devoted to the mission entrusted to us and will work vigilantly to restore the trust bestowed upon us by the people we protect, the Congress, and the American people.”