One year after the assassination attempt on President Trump, questions about how the attempt was handled by officials are still unanswered.
The Secret Service suspended six personnel without pay or benefits after the assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania last year.
On July 13th, 2024, a gunman opened fire at a Trump campaign rally in Butler, injuring President Trump and killing a rally attendee. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Secret Service Deputy Director Matt Quinn said in a recent interview that the personnel’s penalty ranged from 10 to 42 days of leave without pay or benefits. The personnel were placed into restricted duty or roles with less operational responsibility when they returned, according to Quinn.
“We are laser-focused on fixing the root cause of the problem,” said Quinn.
Quinn defended the agency’s decision not to dismiss any personnel following the security failure. “We aren’t going to fire our way out of this. We’re going to focus on the root cause and fix the deficiencies that put us in that situation,” he said in a recent interview.
“Secret Service is totally accountable for Butler. Butler was an operational failure, and we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again,” he continued.
To combat the failure, the Secret Service introduced a new sleet of military grade drones and mobile command posts that allow agents to communicate over radio directly with local law enforcement.
Following the assassination attempt in Butler and another thwarted attempt in West Palm Beach a few weeks later, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned and several investigations and congressional hearings into the matter took place.
A bipartisan House task force released a 180-page report that detailed significant security lapses that occurred in Butler. The report described the oversights as “not isolated to the campaign event itself.”
The report found that “preexisting issues in leadership and training created an environment” in which such failures could occur. These issues included giving significant responsibilities to agency personnel with little to no experience in advanced planning roles, as well as a lack of planning and coordination between the agency and local law enforcement entities.
One year after the assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, questions regarding the deadly security failure have been left unanswered. No motive from the shooter has been identified. He was able to climb onto a roof and take eight shots before being killed by Secret Service. Probes into the Secret Service have revealed significant safety oversights that the agency is attempting to correct for future events.
