Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force Finds ‘Failures’ with Secret Service Leadership, Planning

The Task Force on the Attempted Assassination Of Donald J. Trump has released its final report. It found that “failures were made in the planning, implementation, and leadership” by the United States Secret Service.

The press release stated that “Today the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination Donald J. Trump published adopted report text, Final Report of Findings, and Recommendations.” The Task Force unanimously approved the report text on December 5. It highlights failures in planning, execution and leadership by the Secret Service and law enforcement partners. The Task Force’s approved report makes 37 recommendations that are both related to the July 13 security failures and structural changes that Secret Service and Congress should consider to strengthen security measures in the future and prevent similar failures.

The Task Force’s report explained that, during the five-month investigation period, “the Task Force conducted interviews, gathered and analyzed evidence and held hearings regarding the assassination attempts on July 13, at Donald Trump’s Butler rally in Pennsylvania and September, while Trump was playing golf at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.

The Task Force stated in its report that “the full record of evidence clearly demonstrates failures in advance preparation by the Secret Service, and its law-enforcement partners, in the days leading up to the July 13th campaign event in Butler Pennsylvania, as well as failures of execution on the actual day of the event.” The Task Force’s report also identifies pre-existing conditions, and leadership failures which set up the tragedy.

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The Task Force stated that there was not a “single moment or decision” that enabled Thomas Matthew Crooks “to nearly assassinate” the former president, but that there were “various failures” in planning, execution and leadership on the day of and before the rally, which created an “environment in which the Former President” and rallygoers “were exposed to grave danger”:

The Task Force concluded that the tragic events that occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania could have been prevented and shouldn’t have happened. Thomas Matthew Crooks did not assassinate former President George Bush in a single moment or by a single decision. The failures of planning, execution and leadership that occurred on or before July 13, 2024 and the preexisting circumstances that undermined effectiveness of human and material resources deployed that day combined to create a dangerous environment for the former president and everyone else at the campaign event. The events of September 15, 2024 in West Palm Beach (Florida) demonstrated that properly implemented protective measures could foil an assassination attempt.

The Task Force stated that “there were several decision points which, if handled in a different way, could have prevented Crooks firing eight shots at Butler rally,” including the “failure of securing a high-risk zone immediately adjacent to venue”.

The report continues: “The failures which led to the tragic events on July 13 were not isolated to either the campaign itself or the days before it.” Preexisting problems in leadership and in training created a climate in which these specific failures could occur. Secret Service personnel who had little or no experience in advance-planning roles were given considerable responsibility, despite that the event on July 13 was held in a high-risk outdoor location with numerous line-of-sight issues and specific intelligence regarding a long range threat.

Josh Hawley, R-MO, revealed previously that whistleblowers claimed that many of the agents assigned to Trump’s Butler Rally were Department of Homeland Security employees who had completed “a brief online training session.”

The Task Force report comes months after Trump suffered a “bullet that penetrated the upper portion” of his right hearing during his Butler rally, after Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from the roof of a nearby office building.

Ryan Wesley Routh, who was hiding in the bushes at the Trump International Golf Course West Palm Beach where Trump played golf on that particular day, was arrested by a U.S. Secret Service agent after he saw his AK-style rifle barrel through the fence.

Breitbart’s Alana Matrangelo reported that the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office revealed later that backpacks, a rifle AK style with a scope and a GoPro camera were found where Routh was hiding.