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Senate panel faults Secret Service over Trump shooting attempt

Chris Johnson, CQ-Roll Call on

Published in News & Features

A Senate committee says the U.S. Secret Service remains unaccountable for failures a year after the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee used its final report to take the Secret Service to task for refusing to answer for the failures at the rally and faulting the agency for not having fired a single person involved in the planning and execution of the event.

The shooting took place on July 13, 2024, when Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, Pa., fired multiple shots at Trump, including one that grazed his ear. Crooks was shot and killed at the site.

Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., said in a statement the shooting was the result of failures of Secret Service that the agency has yet to answer for. The report was released Sunday.

“The United States Secret Service failed to act on credible intelligence, failed to coordinate with local law enforcement, and failed to prevent an attack that nearly took the life of a then-former president,” Paul said in a statement. “Despite those failures, no one has been fired. And we only know what little discipline was handed out because I issued a subpoena. That’s unacceptable.”

The report comes out after 17 transcribed interviews with Secret Service personnel and a review of more than 75,000 pages of documents produced from federal, state, and local law enforcement entities, the report says.

Much of the report is consistent with the interim committee findings in September 2024, which found the Secret Service fell short in coordination with local law enforcement and drone operations that would have helped ensure the area was safe.

“This was not a single error,” the report says. “It was a cascade of preventable failures that nearly cost President Trump his life.”

The Secret Service formally disciplined six personnel, the report concludes, and for some of those individuals the disciplinary decision came down as recently as June 2025. In two instances, the final disciplinary decision was reduced from the original recommendations, the report says.

 

One agency leader who was forced to depart early was former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned shortly after she testified before Congress and defended the agency amid scrutiny from lawmakers in a House committee hearing.

U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran acknowledged receipt of the report in a statement.

“The U.S. Secret Service has received the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s final report and will continue to work cooperatively with the committee as we move forward in our mission,” Curran said. “Following the events of July 13, the Secret Service took a serious look at our operations and implemented substantive reforms to address the failures that occurred that day.”

Trump counts the shooting at Butler as but one attempt on his life. Another shooter was arrested after firing rounds near Trump near his golf course in West Palm Beach. Fla., and revelations came out during the 2024 election that Iran had sought to assassinate Trump.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during an appearance on Newsmax on Sunday that he spoke with Trump near the anniversary of the shooting in a half-hour conversation about the attempts on his life.

“We have some of the most patriotic, faithful people who serve in that agency, but their job is critically important,” Johnson said. “They have to make sure that these lapses never occur again. And we’re watching that with very careful oversight from the House and Senate side, both, and…we’ve got to make sure that there is accountability for the things that happen.”

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©2025 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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