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.

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.

Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a former military corporal, sent a letter to Cheatle on Sunday, questioning whether the Trump campaign had requested additional resources for the event and whether a proper assessment of the area had been conducted. Gallego also raised whether Secret Service protection should reconsider its denial of a detail for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a independent presidential candidate whose father was felled by an assassin in 1968.

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.

But former law enforcement officials, including those with ties to the Secret Service, are focused on why the agency’s protective perimeter did not include the nearby building where the gunman staked out such an advantageous position.

“Did we miss something? And if we did miss something, we need to stand up and take ownership of it,” said Robert E. McDonald, a lecturer at the University of New Haven who spent 20 years in the Secret Service. McDonald questioned why the Secret Service did not have countersnipers watching that building more closely.

“We’re not looking at any skyscrapers here,” he said. “They should be able to see that. And if somebody is up there, they should be able to send law enforcement personnel up there to check that out.”

When preparing for an event such as a rally, the Secret Service’s presidential detail advance teams do a walk-through of the site to determine necessary resources and manpower, according to former law enforcement officials. They also decide how expansive the security parameter around the president will be.

One former official said that perimeter is divided into three categories: the inner perimeter, which is directly around the president’s lectern; the middle perimeter; and an outer perimeter.

One former Secret Service official who has developed security plans for many presidential speeches and events said the middle perimeter around Trump should have included the nearby building and a sniper team should have been positioned on the building’s rooftop.

Law enforcement officials also questioned how long it took the Secret Service to move Trump off the stage. At one point, the Secret Service appeared to slow down to allow Trump to put on his shoes and pump his fist, something a former Secret Service official described as unusual.

“If that’s me there, no. We are going, and we are going now,” said Jeffrey James, a 22-year veteran of the Secret Service who retired in 2018 and is now chief of police at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania. “If it’s me, I’m buying him a new pair of shoes.”

Secret Service agents were privately texting and calling one another Sunday questioning why Cheatle had not been more visible to the public after the shooting. While federal and local law enforcement held a news conference detailing the shooting Saturday night, Cheatle did not appear.

Cheatle, who had served in the Secret Service for nearly three decades, worked on Biden’s protective detail when he was vice president. She was appointed to lead the agency in 2022, leaving an executive position with PepsiCo, as the Secret Service was dealing with the fallout of congressional investigations into the deletion of agents’ text messages during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Cheatle sent a memo to her agents on Sunday praising their response to the shooting.

“The attempted assassination of former President Trump in Butler, Pa., is a moment that forever will be remembered in history,” she said in the memo, which was reviewed by The New York Times. “The Secret Service moved quickly in this situation and neutralized the threat.”

But her memo did not directly address questions about the gaps in preparation and planning that allowed the gunman to get in position to fire at Trump.

“In the coming days, the Secret Service will face praise and criticism,” she wrote. “Do not get distracted by those who were not there and yet still pass judgment.”

Some members of law enforcement defended the Secret Service’s handling of the incident.

“The agents did their job,” said Cheryl Tyler, a former member of the Secret Service protective division and training instructor for the agency. “That’s a chaotic moment. It’s a stressful moment.”

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