Did anyone actually believe the Secret Service would get its act together after the Butler, Pa., debacle a year ago? If you did, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. A new bombshell report from the General Accountability Office (GAO) exposes a level of incompetence and bureaucratic indifference that would be laughable if it hadn’t nearly cost President Donald Trump his life.
Ten days before the attempted assassination at Trump’s rally, the Secret Service had classified intelligence warning of a threat to the president’s life.
Did they sound the alarm? No.
Notify local law enforcement? No.
Alert Trump’s protective detail? No.
They sat on it—as if it were just another day at the office—leaving everyone else in the dark.
Per the GAO, “the Secret Service had no process to share classified threat information with partners when the information was not considered an imminent threat to life.” GAO offered eight recommendations to improve USSS functionality; chief among them is a recommendation for USSS to proactively share threat information among USSS personnel and its law enforcement partners.
The report further exposes a litany of USSS procedural and planning errors, including misallocation of resources, lack of training and pervasive communication failures, all of which contributed to an unsecure environment and ultimately allowed for Thomas Matthew Crooks to fire a near-fatal shot at President Trump and take the life of a spectator.
Local police told the GAO they would have beefed up security if they’d known. But hey, why bother protecting a sitting president when you can drown in red tape and “process”?
The report lays bare a shocking series of failures by the U.S. Secret Service, from gross misallocation of resources and inadequate training to widespread breakdowns in communication. These preventable mistakes created a dangerously non-secure environment—one that allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to fire a near-fatal shot at President Trump and claim the life of an innocent spectator.
But it gets worse. Trump’s team specifically requested enhanced counter-drone surveillance—an obvious necessity in today’s world of high-tech threats. The Secret Service flat-out denied it, claiming those assets were already tied up for the Republican and Democrat conventions. In other words, the sitting president was given second-tier protection because the bureaucracy was too busy playing politics.
At the eleventh hour, senior officials finally approved counter-sniper teams—the very units that took down the would-be assassin. According to the GAO, that last-minute, “inconsistent” decision may be the only reason Trump is still alive today.
“One year ago, a series of bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps led to one of the most shocking moments in political history,” U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 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.”
As PJ Media previously reported, six Secret Service agents have been suspended—but that’s just window dressing. What about the senior officials who withheld threat intel? Are they still collecting government paychecks? If the same people who failed to act are still in charge, why should anyone believe this system has been fixed? The American people deserve real accountability—not another polished cover-up.
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