An internal Secret Service review found “multiple operational and communications failures” by the agency in the lead-up to the July assassination attempt on former President Trump in Butler, Pa.
The initial findings indicated numerous gaps in planning, ranging from an unclear chain of command between the agency and local law enforcement partners at the rally to an inability for them to easily communicate across different radio frequencies.
It also found some staff did not follow Secret Service protocol — raising questions over future disciplinary actions.
The findings had Ronald Rowe, the Secret Service’s acting director, calling for a “paradigm shift” in how the agency carries out its protective security responsibilities during a Friday press conference.
“This was a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service. It’s important that we hold ourselves accountable for the failures of July 13, and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another failure like this again,” Rowe said.
“While some members of the advance team were very diligent, there was complacency on the part of others that led to a breach of security protocols.”
The Secret Service on Sunday thwarted a second apparent assassination of Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., where a man with a gun allegedly stalked the former president. A Secret Service agent saw the man and fired shots, and a suspect was later arrested.
That incident has sparked more finger-pointing in Congress.
“What has become clear to me is we need a shift in paradigm and how we conduct our productive operations. As was demonstrated on Sunday in West Palm Beach, the threat level is evolving and requires this paradigm shift,” Rowe added, referencing the second attempt on Trump’s life over the last 60 days.
The initial findings build upon known shortcomings with the Secret Service’s planning and response to a shooting that left two wounded and one rally attendee dead. Trump was also wounded in the ear in the attack.
“A consistent theme gathered from state and local law enforcement personnel who helped secure the Butler rally was the presence of communications deficiencies,” the five-page document states.
“Some local police entities supporting the Butler venue had no knowledge that there were two separate communications centers on site. … As a result, those entities were operating under a misimpression that the Secret Service was directly receiving their radio transmissions.”
There was also poor planning between Secret Service and local law enforcement, with the federal agency unaware a local department had asked others to assist that day, meaning they “had no prior contact with Secret Service personnel before the rally.”
The Secret Service said the investigation will now move into an “accountability phase” that will review the conduct of individual employees and could include disciplinary action or firings.
Rowe told reporters Friday that the agency “identified deficiencies in the advanced planning” while the report found that “lack of due diligence in site construction was evident.”
“These employees will be held accountable, and this agency has among the most robust table of penalties in the entirety of the federal government. And these penalties will be administered according to our disciplinary process,” he said.
Still, he declined to provide specifics about what that would look like or who would be disciplined, only denying reports that some agents had been asked to retire.
Rowe was also largely mum about what it would take to carry out the paradigm shift he envisions, even as he highlighted an accelerating threat environment that is “not going to evaporate anytime soon” and stressed the need for the agency to be prepared for the 2028 Olympics.
“We have finite resources the way we are structured, with some of our classified assets, with some of our personnel and some of our programs that are definitely designed to support the president and vice president – we’ve now expanded that to include the former president. And so while we can do this… we are burning through a lot of assets and resources,” Rowe said.
“We are not capitalizing on a crisis.”
But he would not share details about what he was seeking from Congress to support a shift,saying “out of respect for the confidentiality of those discussions, I’m not going to disclose a number.”
“I am certainly engaged in these discussions, and I feel like at the end we will get there, because we have no other choice,” he said.
Updated at 5:06 p.m. EDT