A series of “stunning security failures” let a gunman open fire at former President Donald Trump during an assassination attempt that was “preventable and should not have happened,” a bipartisan House task force said Monday.
A 53-page interim report on the July 13 shooting cited lapses that included “no joint meeting” of the Secret Service, state police and local law enforcement on the day of Trump’s outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Secret Service also didn’t “give clear guidance to the relevant state and local agencies about managing areas outside the secure event perimeter” that had been identified as posing security risks, the task force said.
That allowed shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to position himself on the roof of an American Glass Research building with an AR-15-style rifle and a clear sight line to the stage.
“While there was a local sniper team inside the AGR complex, they understood their assignment to be overwatch of the rally site — not securing the AGR roof and property,” according to the report.
In addition, there were “several pivotal moments” at which authorities could have stopped Crooks, who exhibited “increasingly suspicious behavior” before climbing onto the roof, the report said.
The task force’s investigation into what it called the “stunning security failures” also found that moments before Crooks began shooting, a local law enforcement officer radioed that he was on the roof with a gun.
“There is no evidence, to date, that this information reached the former President’s detail, and he remained on stage,” according to the report.
Crooks fired eight rounds, hitting Trump’s right ear and killing rally attendee Corey Comperatore and wounding two others, before a Secret Service sniper killed him with a single gunshot to the head, the report said.
“Put simply, the evidence obtained by the Task Force to date shows the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened,” according to the report.
Then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on July 23, one day after getting grilled by members of the House Oversight Committee and acknowledging the agency’s “colossal failure.”
Monday’s report didn’t single out any officials for blame but at least five agents in the Secret Service’s Pittsburgh office, including the agent in charge and another assigned to protect Trump, were reportedly placed on administrative leave after the shooting.
The task force plans to release a final report by Dec. 13 and it’s also investigating a foiled, second attempted assassination of Trump on a Florida golf course on Sept. 15.
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