The US Secret Service possesses “deep flaws” that require urgent resolution to prevent further assassination attempts like the one at Donald Trump’s rally, according to a critical report.
An independent panel investigating the 13 July shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, released its findings on Thursday. The report described the organization as “bureaucratic, complacent, and static.”
The 52-page document called for a leadership overhaul and identified numerous “specific failures and breakdowns” that facilitated the attack against the Republican presidential candidate.
The Secret Service has acknowledged its shortcomings, and its director resigned weeks after the incident.
In a statement on Thursday, acting director Ronald Rowe indicated that the agency would carefully review the new report.
“We have already made significant improvements to our readiness, operational and organizational communications, and enhanced protective operations for the former president,” he stated.
However, in an internal memo to staff, Acting Director Rowe expressed “reservations” about the recommendations, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
“I am deeply concerned about the unintended impact on agency morale,” he wrote.
The independent report, drafted by state and national law enforcement officials, praised the agents for risking their lives to protect many of the nation’s highest-ranking officials but noted several leadership and cultural failures.
These issues included a “troubling lack of critical thinking” among staff and a reluctance to “speak up.”
The report described the agency’s problems as “systemic or cultural” and called for “fundamental reform,” including the removal of some top leaders “as soon as possible.”
“Without that reform… another Butler can and will happen again,” the panel wrote to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the organization.
President Joe Biden ordered a bipartisan review of the protective agency after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at his campaign rally by firing from a nearby rooftop.
The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight shots at the rally, killing one man and leaving Trump with a bloody ear. The Secret Service shot and killed Crooks.
On Thursday, the panel recommended “a mandate that all outdoor events are observed by overhead technology.”
Another gunman was spotted near the former president outside of the Trump International Golf Course in Palm Beach, Florida, in September.
Police arrested him after noticing the tip of a rifle protruding from shrubbery a few hundred yards away from Trump, who was inside the golf course.
