(WASHINGTON) — Many mistakes were made on the day the Secret Service attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, but an independent review of the Department of Homeland Security found systemic problems within the organization and found that without agency reforms, “another butler can and will happen again”.

Following the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tasked a group of four former law enforcement and national security officials with examining what went wrong steps and how they recommend the Secret Service move forward after the attempt on the former president’s life. .

“The Secret Service is not operating at the elite level necessary to carry out its critical mission,” said the letter addressed to Secretary Mayorkas and included in the report. “The secret services have become bureaucratic, complacent and static, even as risks have multiplied and technology has evolved. »

The independent panel includes former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, former Assistant Attorney General Mark Filip, former Maryland State Police Superintendent David Mitchell and former Deputy National Security Advisor Fran Townsend.

The independent panel’s scathing 35-page report says the findings illustrate “deeper concerns” within the U.S. Secret Service.

“The Group observed that many of the intelligence personnel involved in the events of July 13 appear to have done little self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions or opportunities for “improvement,” the report said. . “July 13 represents a historic security failure by the Secret Service, which nearly resulted in the death of a former president and current candidate and resulted in the death of a rally attendee.”

The panel said even “superficial” reflection would have been meaningful.

The Secret Service faces “corrosive cultural attitudes” regarding resource events – a “do more with less” attitude, according to the report.

The report also reveals a troubling “lack of critical thinking” on the part of Secret Service personnel “before, during and after” the assassination attempt.

“A striking example of this is the fact that staff had been briefed on important information regarding a long-range threat by a foreign state actor against former President Trump, but failed to ensure that the building of the “AGR was secure despite its proximity to the rally scene and the obvious wide-angle line-of-sight issues it presented,” the report said.

Other cases “revealed a surprising lack of rigor in taking into account the specific risks posed to certain protected persons”.

The report says, for example, that Trump, although not officially the Republican nominee at the time, had essentially clinched him months before and that the Secret Service’s approach was therefore formulaic “rather than ‘an individualized risk assessment’.

The failure to take ownership of the planning of the Butler rally and the lack of cohesion with state and local law enforcement in planning the events, the lack of experienced officers to perform “certain critical security tasks”, lack of audit mechanisms to learn from mistakes. on the ground, a lack of training infrastructure and a lack of agents feeling comfortable expressing themselves.

In particular, the operational tempo of younger agents who emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic was slower than in most election years, and thus these agents did not gain as much field experience as agents would normally have.

The panel is calling for new leadership within the Secret Service – saying the agency needs a change with people outside the agency.

“Many of the issues that the Committee has identified throughout this report, particularly with respect to the Committee’s ‘deepest concerns,’ are ultimately attributable, directly or indirectly, to the culture of the Service,” the report says. “Renewed leadership, with new perspectives, will help the Service resolve these issues.

Other recommendations made by the panel include a restructuring of the agency’s protective office, new training initiatives, new, more reliable communications technologies and an assessment “of the Secret Service’s approach to how it funds protected persons to ensure that it is risk-based.” and not too formal or dependent on the title of the beneficiary to determine resources.

“The Group also recognizes the courage and selflessness demonstrated by Secret Service agents and officers who put themselves in harm’s way to protect their protégés, including in Butler after Crooks shot former President Trump and others. However, courage and altruism, however honorable they may be, are not enough on their own to fulfill the infallible protection mission of the secret services.”

Specifically as of July 13, the panel’s findings are consistent with the Secret Service’s Mission Assurance Review released last month.

Some of the findings are the absence of law enforcement to secure the AGR building from which Thomas Matthew Crooks ultimately shot, the failure to mitigate the line of site of this building, the presence of two communications rooms, the failure of anyone to meet Crooks despite having spotted him. 90 minutes before Trump took the stage, the failure to brief the former president on details and the drone detection system was not working.

The committee recommends that the Service have integrated communications, mandatory situation reporting upon arrival of a protected person, better counter-drone technologies, and an advanced on-site risk mitigation line.

A footnote in the report says the second assassination attempt on Trump did not impact the group’s work but could have strengthened the report.

The committee recommends that the Service implement the Butler reforms no later than March 31, 2025, and the broader reforms by the end of 2025.

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