Spotlight falls on a Secret Service in crisis after failure to spot shooter on roof
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump marks the biggest security crisis for the Secret Service in decades, prompting a torrent of questions about how the shocking shooting could happen.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump marks the biggest security crisis for the Secret Service in decades, prompting a torrent of questions about how the shocking shooting could happen.
The agency will likely face several investigations into the events in Pennsylvannia.
Congressman James Comer (R. Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said within hours of the shooting that his panel was opening a probe, and he called on the Secret Service’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, to appear on July 22.
Individual agents showed tremendous bravery, he said, but added: “There are many questions and Americans demand answers.”
Secret Service officials didn’t participate in a law-enforcement press briefing late Saturday night, where authorities said they would conduct an exhaustive investigation to determine what went wrong.
“We’re not in a position to start second-guessing how or why or anything at this point,” Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said. “It is incredibly difficult to have a venue open to the public and secure against any possible threat, against a very determined attacker.”
The Secret Service regularly trains for a variety of scenarios, “including the worst case scenario of an assassination attempt against one of its protectees,” said Charles Marino, who served as a supervisory agent on President Biden’s Secret Service detail during his vice presidency.
Marino said a follow-up investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation would likely centre on security planning for the rally, “including a review of resources and how the shooter was able to assume an elevated position of attack outside of the secure event area without being detected and eliminated prior to shots being fired.”
Donald Mihalek, a retired senior Secret Service agent, called the attempted assassination historic, drawing parallels to the 1912 shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee. Roosevelt, then a former president who was running for a third term in the White House, was shot while heading to a campaign event. He survived the attempt on his life.
Typically, the Secret Service has an advance team to assess a location ahead of a campaign event to make a security plan, Mihalek said. Agents will take physical measures of the area, determine the necessary personnel and work with counter snipers to examine nearby buildings and their distances to where the president or the presidential candidate will be.
Mihalek said outdoor events like the one in Butler can be challenging. “You can’t shut a whole town down,” he said.
The campaign season makes the job even tougher, he said. While a president’s schedule is typically well mapped out, a candidate’s schedule can be erratic with last-minute events added to the campaign trail. That gives the Secret Service less time to plan, Mihalek said.
Saturday’s events marked perhaps the biggest security crisis for the Secret Service since President Ronald Reagan was shot leaving the Washington Hilton in 1981 by John Hinckley Jr. Reagan spent 12 days in the hospital after being struck under the armpit.
Greg Gitschier, a former Secret Service agent, praised the speed at which agents moved between Trump and the direction of the shots.
“I thought the agents reacted very well, very quickly,” Gitschier said. “They surrounded him and covered him up, they tried to get him in the armoured limo, as he’s holding his hand up pumping his fist and everything. Knowing him, I don’t know if they’re going to keep him down, but obviously they’re going to increase his security, and make it a little bit harder for people to have long-range exposure to him.”
The spotlight will now fall on Cheatle, the Secret Service director, a veteran of the agency who took the helm in 2022, following a turbulent period in which it faced controversies related to its handling of phone records from the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
A government watchdog said the agency deleted many of the text messages sent during a two-day period surrounding the Capitol attack that could have shed light on security lapses and Trump’s actions during the riot. The Secret Service said some employees’ phone data were lost during what it called a pre-planned technology change, and has denied any wrongdoing.
Cheatle returned to the Secret Service after working as a senior director at PepsiCo North America overseeing facilities, personnel and business continuity.
In her previous stint at the Secret Service, she was the first woman to serve as assistant director of protective operations. Her appointment to lead the Secret Service made her the agency’s second female director. When he appointed her director, Biden said he and first lady Jill Biden got to know Cheatle while she served on his security detail during his vice presidency.
“She has my complete trust,” said the president in 2022.
The Wall Street Journal
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