The US Secret Service has “deep flaws” that need to be addressed quickly or more assassination attempts like the one at Donald Trump’s rally will happen again, a damning report says.
An independent task force tasked with investigating the July 13 shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, released its findings Thursday, saying the agency had become “unfair, callous and stagnant.”
It called for a review of its leadership in a 52-page report, saying “a number of failures and certain irregularities” led to the attack on the Republican presidential candidate.
The Secret Service has already admitted its failure, and its director resigned a few weeks after the shooting.
In a statement on Thursday, its acting director, Ronald Rowe, said that the organization will thoroughly examine the new report.
“We have greatly improved our preparedness, communications and operations and organization and have carried out enhanced security operations for the former president,” he said.
In the report, which was written by federal and national law enforcement officials, the team praised the diplomats who risked their lives to protect many of the country’s top officials but noted many failures of leadership and culture.
This includes a “worrying lack of critical thinking” among employees and a reluctance to “speak up”.
The agency’s problems, the report says, are “systemic or cultural” and it calls for “significant change” including removing some of its senior leadership “immediately”.
“Without that change… another Butler can and will happen,” the group wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the agency.
President Joe Biden ordered a bipartisan review of the defense agency after a gunman tried to kill Trump at his campaign rally by shooting from a nearby rooftop.
The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight times at the meeting, killing one man and leaving Trump with a bloody ear. The Secret Service shot and killed Crooks.
On Thursday, the panel called for “a mandate for all outdoor events to be monitored by high-tech.”
Another gunman was spotted near the former president outside the Trump International Golf Course in Palm Beach, Florida in September.
Police arrested him after seeing the tip of the gun go into a tree a few hundred meters from Trump who was inside the golf course.
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