A shocking photo captured by Doug Mills, a former White House Press Corps colleague, reveals a bullet flying near President Trump’s head during an assassination attempt on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Secret Service denied at least nine requests for increased security leading up to the incident, according to a Senate Homeland Security Committee report released Wednesday. These resources were denied “at times without explanation,” which contributed to the near assassination of President Trump by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Crooks fired shots at Trump from a rooftop situated just 130 yards away from the rally stage, resulting in the death of an attendee and injuries to others. The Senate report states that the USSS C-UAS operator requested additional equipment and personnel for the event, but all nine requests were denied without proper explanation.
In addition to the denied resources, Trump’s security detail also requested “Counter Assault Team liaisons” to assist with their coordination efforts prior to the rally, but this request was also denied by the Secret Service. The report found that counter snipers were only assigned to President Trump’s detail at the Butler rally after credible intelligence of a threat was identified by officials ahead of the event; however, these snipers did not have clear lines of sight.
The Senate report cites several communications failures, faulty technology, planning missteps, and lack of coordination between local and federal law enforcement agencies as contributing factors to the security lapses on July 13. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Chairman of the committee, stated in a press release that “what happened on July 13 was an accumulation of errors that produced a perfect storm of stunning failure.
The report goes on to detail how Thomas Matthew Crooks was spotted by attendees and flagged by Secret Service agents more than an hour before he fired shots at Trump. Two months later, Ryan Wesley Routh was apprehended and charged after a Secret Service agent spotted his “AK-47 style rifle with a scope” protruding from the bushes on the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In response to the Senate report’s findings, acting Director Ronald Rowe of the U.S. Secret Service acknowledged that there was “a failure on the part of the United States Secret Service.” He emphasized the importance of learning from mistakes made during the July 13 incident to ensure that such failures do not occur again in the future.