Panel investigating Secret Service releases damning report

The US Secret Service has been caught in the crossfire ever since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July — the first attack on a US president since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. When Trump found himself within firing range of another would-be assassin while golfing in September, demands crescendoed for an independent evaluation of the law enforcement agency charged with protecting the president.

On Thursday, the independent, bipartisan panel created after the first assassination attempt released a 52-page report calling for new leadership because the protective agency had become “bureaucratic, complacent, and static.” While Secret Service personnel risk their lives to protect high-ranking government officials, the panel uncovered rampant cultural failures at the agency and concluded that without fundamental reform, “another Butler can and will happen again.” Among other comprehensive recommendations, they said the entire top leadership should be replaced with personnel from outside the agency “as soon as is practicable.”

The panel said that agents “deflected blame” for obvious security failures at the Pennsylvania rally and on the golf course. In Butler, they uncovered that “no fewer than nine” Secret Service agents were aware that the gunman, Thomas Mathew Crooks, was acting suspiciously before the shooting.

With the threat of increased political violence looming in the run-up to the US election, the service has boosted Trump’s security to the highest levels – equal to those of Kamala Harris — adding agents and equipment such as protective glass at his campaign events. Nevertheless, this report will likely lead to a historic overhaul of the agency over the next several months.