By Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The bipartisan Task Force on The Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump has unveiled a highly anticipated report detailing its findings.
The report provides recommendations and even structural changes for the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and also suggests Congress could step in with legislative action.
The 180-page report provides a long list of “failures in planning, execution and leadership” that led up to the shooting at President-elect Donald Trump’s July 13 campaign rally in Butler, PA. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot and killed Corey Comperatore, injured others and nearly took the life of the President-elect.
“You can look at that and you can’t find any part of that from the site selection to the preparation for the event to anything that should have been put in place- none of it was done. Totally incompetent,” said Rep. Mike Kelly (R- PA), Chairman of the Task Force.
The report outlines hours of testimony, interviews and thousands of pages of documents compiled by the Task Force and provides an extremely detailed timeline of events on that day.
“How could we have been so loose that day? What was it that we weren’t looking at? The longer you look at it, the more questions come up in your mind,” said Kelly.
According to the report, some Secret Service personnel with little to no experience in advance planning roles, were given significant responsibility on July 13.
The report provides dozens of recommendations for the agency and also makes an argument for reducing the size and scope of Secret Service protectees. The report suggests the agency only focus on protecting the president and other critical U.S. leaders.
“I think they, themselves, have suffered some type of an identity crisis. They’re being asked to do more than they ever did before. We have more people that we want to protect, both our own people and then foreign diplomats that come in. There is a great strain on the size and scope of the team’s training,” said Kelly.
The shooting happened in Congressman Kelly’s district. Kelly was at the rally with his family when shots rang out and says he still has a lot of questions not just about July 13 but also about the second apparent assassination attempt on Sept. 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida, which the Task Force investigated as well.
“I’m not satisfied at all with what happened September 15. Too much of what we’ve been asking, we’ve been getting stonewalled on. Even our subpoena power can’t get there. But we’re going to need to follow that trail,” said Kelly. “I don’t know that the American people have ever been less trustworthy of the government than they are right now. And you know what? The government is giving them the reason to feel that way.”
Today, attorneys for Ryan Routh, the suspect in the second apparent assassination attempt, made arguments to delay the start of that trial until the end of 2025. The prosecution signaled openness to a “reasonable delay,” but said another year is too long.
The judge in the case is expected to provide a written ruling over when the trial should start.
