How Secret Service failed again and again to stop Trump assassination attempt: From calling tech support for drone to missing chance to warn ex-prez
The US Secret Service agents in charge of Donald Trump’s July 13 rally failed at nearly every opportunity before and during the former president rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a scathing 94-page Senate report on the July 13 sniper attack released Wednesday.Perhaps no moment is more emblematic than the detail about how a poorly trained Secret Service agent had to called a 1-800 tech support hotline to get support to fly a drone that could have spotted Crooks and his efforts to case the grounds, officials said.A scathing 94-page Senate report released Wednesday — by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations — found a slew of missteps and miscommunications that allowed gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to wound Trump and two other supporters, and kill fireman Corey Comperatore, 50.“Multiple foreseeable and preventable planning and operational failures by USSS contributed to [Thomas] Crooks’ ability to carry out the assassination attempt of former President Trump on July 13,” the preliminary report read.“These included unclear roles and responsibilities, insufficient coordination with state and local law enforcement, the lack of effective communications, and inoperable C-UAS systems, among many others.”The Secret Service agent in charge of flying a counter-drone at the Butler rally ran into technical difficulties, officials found, leading him to rely on a toll-free tech support hotline for help.The agent admitted that he had less than an hour of training on how to operate the drone, with another agent giving him only a brief rundown before leaving him in charge.The issue caused the deployment of the counter-drone to be delayed for hours.
That gap allowed Crooks to fly a drone of his own to survey the area without being noticed, according to the Senate report.Even after agents and law enforcement were made aware of a threat to the former president — they did not act to warn Trump and g...