Washington — The House task force investigating the assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump released a final report on its probe on Tuesday, presenting a series of recommendations to combat future security failures.
“The Task Force found that the tragic and shocking events in Butler, Pennsylvania were preventable and should not have happened. There was not, however, a singular moment or decision that allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to nearly assassinate the former President,” the 180-page report said, noting that “various failures … coalesced to create an environment in which the former President — and everyone at the campaign event — were exposed to grave danger.”
Over the course of the investigation, the task force said it conducted 46 interviews, reviewed 18,000 pages of documents and visited the incident sites in Pennsylvania and West Palm Beach.
The House voted to establish the panel following the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, where a gunman opened fire during a rally and a bullet grazed the former president’s ear. Secret Service snipers shot and killed the gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. The Secret Service came under intense scrutiny following the incident, and its director soon resigned.
The task force, made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats, also looked into a second assassination attempt on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida, which was foiled. Trump had been golfing when a Secret Service agent discovered a man with a rifle who was waiting along the tree line of the course.
The panel held its final hearing last week with testimony from Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe, who acknowledged the agency’s “abject failure” in the July shooting. Rowe outlined a series of changes he had implemented at the agency since the assassination attempt, including an aviation unit to oversee drones at events with protectees, along with shifting its Office of Investigations to the Office of Field Operations.
The report comes after the panel issued an interim report in October saying the July 13 incident was “preventable” and outlined communications and planning shortcomings. The panel said in the preliminary report that “fragmented lines of communication” allowed the gunman to “evade law enforcement” and noted that law enforcement had multiple opportunities to engage with the gunman.
Task force chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican whose district includes Butler, said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” last week that the task force’s objective since day one has been to try to help restore trust and confidence in the Secret Service. He said the agency was likely at “the lowest ebb” in its history, while acknowledging the relentless pressure on agents.
“You’ve got to be ready every single moment for anything that could possibly happen. Is that a difficult task? Yes. Is it almost impossible?” Kelly said Sunday. “But you know what’s not impossible, our dedication to the fact that we’re going to do the best we can do every single day to ensure that the American people have the faith and trust and confidence they must have in us.”
