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It’s been just over two months since a would-be assassin fired shots at former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa. One bullet grazed Trump’s ear, and another killed Corey Comperatore.
Since the shooting, all eyes have been on the Secret Service and what went wrong in Butler. Congressional hearings led to the resignation of Kimberly Cheatle, the now-former director of the agency, yet so many questions remain unanswered.
On Friday, the Secret Service released a report on the events of July 13. It’s the first extensive statement the agency has made about the assassination attempt, and it lays the blame at both federal and local authorities.
« A five-page document summarizing the Secret Service report’s key conclusions finds fault with both local and federal law enforcement, underscoring the cascading and wide-ranging failings that preceded the July 13 shooting at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally where Trump was wounded in the ear by gunfire,” the Associated Press reports.
“It’s important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13th and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another mission failure like this again,” Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe Jr. said in a statement accompanying the report.
The AP report notes that the Secret Service admitted that it was aware of the security challenges the venue would pose and blames “communications deficiencies” for the failure of the Secret Service and local police to stay on the same page.
