The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general is currently investigating the Secret Service following its failure to prevent former President Donald Trump from being nearly assassinated at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. A notice regarding the investigation was discreetly posted on the DHS’s website, stating that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) is evaluating the Secret Service’s process for securing former President Trump’s event.
Although there has been no formal announcement of the investigation or information on when it started, President Joe Biden directed a review of the security for the rally. Congress is also looking into the matter, which involves how 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to climb onto the roof of a building used by local law enforcement working with the Secret Service as a staging and lookout point, carrying an AR-style rifle and allegedly firing eight bullets at Trump as he spoke on a stage 135 meters away. One bullet ripped through Trump’s ear before he took cover and was protected by members of his personal Secret Service detail before being taken off the stage.
Before Trump was ushered off, he stopped, raised his fist, and yelled, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in a display of courage and defiance while bleeding from his ear. A Secret Service counter-sniper allegedly killed Crooks after he fired, but questions remain as to how Crooks was able to climb onto the roof despite being allegedly detected by local law enforcement and called in as a suspicious person to a Secret Service command center, even confronted by local law enforcement officers before firing at Trump.
Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle has stated that “the buck stops with me,” but she has refused to resign amid calls from Republicans for her to do so.