Top Secret Service officials were aware of ‘classified threat' 10 days before Butler assassination attempt and failed to tell agents, law enforcement guarding Trump
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the classified intelligence had been presented to Secret Service officials a full 10 days before the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, but the agency's 'siloed practice for sharing' sensitive information resulted in few being aware of the threat against Trump's life.
'[T]he Secret Service had no process to share classified threat information with partners when the information was not considered an imminent threat to life,' read the GAO report, released Saturday by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
The nature of the threat, described as 'highly classified' by Secret Service officials in the report, is not explained.
3 Six Secret Service agents have been suspended for failures related to the Butler assassination attempt against Trump.
AP
'Secret Service and local law enforcement personnel central to developing site security plans for the rally were unaware of the threat,' the report notes, explaining members of the agency's advance team assigned to the event in Butler did not receive the relevant information.
The special agent in charge of the Secret Service's Pittsburgh field office, which oversees the district where the rally took place, told the GAO he did not receive any information about a threat, either.
'He reported that if he had received the threat information, he would have requested additional assets, such as ballistic glass, additional drone mitigation, and a full counter sniper advance team, among other assets,' the report states.
The Secret Service had 'multiple opportunities to share this information' leading up to the rally 'but repeatedly failed to do so,' Gassley's office contends.
'One year ago, a series of bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps led to one of the most shocking moments in political history,' the senator said in a statement. 'The Secret Service's failure on July 13th was the culmination of years of mismanagement and came after the Biden administration denied requests for enhanced security to protect President Trump.'
'Americans should be grateful that President Trump survived that day and was ultimately reelected to restore common sense to our country.'
3 Thomas Matthew Crooks wounded Trump, two others and killed firefighter Corey Comperatore when he opened fire at the Trump rally in Butler last July.
Iron Clad USA / Instagram
Grassley described the 98-page GAO report as a 'comprehensive overview of the failures that occurred prior to and on July 13th.'
'More importantly, this report offers a clear path forward for the Secret Service to improve, so it can prevent another Butler from ever happening again,' he added. 'This information would not have been possible without congressional oversight, and my work will continue.'
3 Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump and rally-goers from an unguarded roof less than 200 yards from the stage.
Aristide Economopoulos
The GAO was also critical of the roles and responsibilities of agents assigned to the Butler rally, noting five of the 14 agents interviewed stated they relied on their own varying-levels of protective experience for the event and that the Secret Service advance team was not required to review the operational plans of local law enforcement.
The Secret Service's site agent at Butler, tasked with 'identif[ying] site vulnerabilities,' was new to her role, according to the report, which notes the rally was 'her first time planning and securing a large outdoor event.'
The Secret Service also lacked drones which could've helped identify the shooter because some 'had already been allocated for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions,' according to the report, which noted the ones on hand malfunctioned and were flown by inexperienced operators.
Secret Service Director Sean Curran said Saturday that his agency has reviewed the GAO report and is 'committed to implementing all recommendations and have already made substantial progress on several of them.'
'Following the events of July 13, the Secret Service took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day,' Curran said in a statement. 'The Secret Service appreciates the continued support of President Trump, Congress, and our federal and local partners who have been instrumental in providing crucial resources needed to support the agency's efforts.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Keep your shoes on
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Why the TSA waited five years after Reid's abortive shoe bombing to institute its shoes-off rule has never been clearly explained, but in all that time no one else has tried to take down a plane using explosive footwear. Nor have any passengers ever been caught with a shoe bomb in the nearly two decades after the rule went into effect. Advertisement In other words, there has never been any evidence that making millions of travelers shed their shoes contributed to anyone's safety. It was all things rather than bad people — with screening for forbidden bottles of shampoo or corkscrews or lighters as if they posed deadly threats, instead of monitoring for behavior that represents a real threat to planes and their passengers. Advertisement From the day it was created, the TSA has specialized in fighting the last war and in overreacting to one-time long shots. One Islamist radical tried to hide explosives in his shoes, so hundreds of millions of travelers had to start removing their shoes. Another would-be terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attempted to hide a bomb in his underwear, so we all had to submit to full-body scans or (for several years) pat-downs. British officials learned of a plot to I often reflected in the years after 9/11 that if Osama bin Laden's terrorists had destroyed not four airliners on that terrible day but four crowded movie theaters, then Americans would have had to radically change the way they went to the movies — advance reservations would have become mandatory, audiences would have had to get to the cineplex (with photo ID) two hours early, and X-ray equipment operated by a vast new federal bureaucracy, the Theater Security Administration, would have scanned everyone entering and leaving. But at airports there would be no interminable security lines, a box cutter in your carry-on wouldn't raise any eyebrows, and you could arrive for your flight 20 minutes before departure. We would still be as vulnerable to a hijacking-massacre as we actually were on 9/11 — but almost no one would be thinking about that because the 'last war' would have taken a different form. Advertisement Former TSA administrator And even that they aren't very good at. The government's own 'red team' tests — in which undercover inspectors try to smuggle weapons or contraband through security — have As Americans who travel abroad are aware, other countries never deemed it necessary to adopt the shoes-off rule. That includes countries in which the threat of terrorism is far more acute. In Israel, for example, security screening begins even before passengers enter the terminal, officials make a point of engaging in dialogue with almost everyone who's catching a plane, and travelers remain with their luggage until after the security check is completed. But nobody has to take their shoes off or remove their laptop from their bag to be scanned separately. Security agents there are watching for nervousness, inconsistencies, or suspicious behavior. They aren't preoccupied with confiscating bottled water or whether you're wearing a belt. Advertisement The TSA's ritualized absurdities have come at a steep cost. They waste billions of dollars annually. They consume countless hours of passengers' time. They treat everyone like a potential terrorist. To prove that no one is exempt, they have gone to the extreme of patting down Nearly a quarter-century after 9/11, there is no evidence that any of this has ever prevented a hijacking. 'TSA has played next to no role in the biggest counterterrorism stories of the past two decades,' journalist Darryl Campbell, who writes extensively about air travel and airline security, wrote in 2022. It is widely agreed that the two most effective deterrents to another hijacking have nothing to do with airport checkpoints. One was a physical change: the locking and reinforcing of cockpit doors, so that no terrorist could ever again breach the cockpit during flight. The other was psychological. The passengers on 9/11's United Flight 93, by overpowering the terrorists and forcing them to crash the plane into a field, prevented a far greater catastrophe that day — and thereby taught future travelers of the importance of fighting back. Advertisement The end of the shoes-off rule is long overdue. But it's just one small retreat in a long war of make-believe. The TSA remains fixated on creating the illusion of security rather than actually providing it. If the agency truly wants to protect travelers, it should abandon its theater of confiscated water bottles and trampled dignity and learn to focus instead on what truly keeps passengers safe. But until that happens, we can at least keep our shoes on. It's a start. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
MAGA comes for one of its own: Pam Bondi
That has parts of MAGA world, which has been obsessed with Epstein since he died by suicide in a New York jail while awaiting trial on federal child sex trafficking charges in 2019, in a twist. 'This is Jeffrey Epstein; this is the most famous pedophile in modern-day history,' Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said during an Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Greene said that Ghislaine Maxwell, a close Epstein confidante convicted of federal child sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison, had 'a little black book' of more than 2,000 names, including 'famous celebrities, world leaders, foreign leaders, and very rich businessmen.' Advertisement Among Epstein's high-profile friends were Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Trump, who once called the mysterious and mysteriously wealthy man with a private island Advertisement From Vice President But some, like far-right extremist For years, right-wing conspiracy theorists have claimed that Epstein was murdered in his jail cell to protect the identities of those who may have been blackmailed by him. Now far-right figures ranging from Before he was reelected, Trump was asked during a While Trump said that he would do so, he also hedged, claiming that he would be wary because 'you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there 'cause it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world.' (He didn't elaborate.) But he added that it would be 'interesting' to find out more about Epstein's death, which he called 'a weird situation.' Advertisement The joint DOJ/FBI memo confirmed that Epstein died by suicide. Now, neither Trump nor anyone in his administration wants to talk about the alleged Epstein client list that was before it wasn't. At a recent Cabinet meeting, he 'I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas,' the president said, referring to the catastrophic flash floods that have killed at least 120 people. 'It just seems like a desecration.' As much as Trump wants this subject buried, not all of MAGA is ready to let this go away quietly. This even led to the odd sight of Karoline Leavitt, Trump's press secretary, being From the attorney general's neglect of due process for immigrants being snatched from communities nationwide to her willingness to Renée Graham is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at
CNBC
2 hours ago
- CNBC
Global week ahead: Trade tensions cloud earnings and the G20 heads south
Earnings season always seems to roll around with alarming frequency. The newsroom approaches each quarter with a nervous energy, but this summer it feels especially heightened. Recent market records in both the U.S. and Europe, alongside an unpredictable economic environment, paint a complicated picture for the second half. It all kicks off on Tuesday with America's banking behemoths, as attention switches from the White House back to Wall Street. But U.S. President Donald Trump's policies still loom large, with Goldman Sachs predicting that, this quarter, U.S. earnings will start to show the impact of the tariffs. The investment bank's economists see "conflicting messages on the margin outlook" as companies have only announced modest price increases, despite the cost hikes associated with higher tariffs. Earnings-per-share growth is also set to come under pressure, with Goldman suggesting, "the consensus estimate among analysts sees S&P 500 companies' earnings-per-share growth decelerating to 4% this quarter relative to the same quarter last year — down from 12% in the first quarter." With the banks set to dominate next week — JPMorgan, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America are all reporting within just two days — maybe Europe can provide some optimism. As reported by CNBC's Jenni Reid, European banks just recorded their best first half since 1997. Gains were driven by strong investment banking returns — something their U.S. counterparts are also likely to capitalize on — as well as stock rallies based on both deal speculation and actual M&A. As someone who grew up in Cape Town, seeing this year's G20 meetings take place in South Africa makes me pine for the sunshine of the Southern hemisphere. Next week's meeting in Durban between finance ministers and central bank governors comes at an interesting time for the country. An Oval Office meeting between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Trump went spectacularly wrong back in May, when the latter, flanked by his South African (now former) right-hand man Elon Musk, made false claims of a "white genocide." It seems tensions have not abated. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will skip the meeting altogether, opting to head to Japan instead, according to Reuters. South Africa is also subject to a new 30% tariff rate, the only country in sub-Saharan Africa to be singled out in the latest round of announcements. It does not bode well for the G20 Leaders meeting, due to be held in Gauteng on Nov. 22-23. It remains to be seen if Trump will attend. In May, South Africa's golfing greats — who traveled to the White House with Ramaphosa — failed to win over Trump. But maybe the lure of some of the best courses in the world, along with a South African summer, could see a seasonal change in his mood toward the country later this year.
