The Secret Service didn’t have a solid plan in place to protect Donald Trump at the hospital after July’s shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a report from Senator Josh Hawley.
The shooting at the former president’s July 13 rally brought fierce criticism of the Secret Service and forced the head of the agency to resign. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for answers as to how the security failure happened, and a congressional task force is continuing to investigate the shooting.
On Monday, Hawley, a Missouri Republican, released a whistleblower report that he shared with the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump to help it with its investigation. In the report, Hawley said whistleblowers highlighted that security failures continued when Trump was taken to the hospital.
Whistleblowers called the hospital “poorly secured,” according to the report, and the site agent couldn’t answer “basic questions” about security.
Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump in the ear after he opened fire during the former president’s remarks at the rally. Trump was rushed to Butler Memorial Hospital. A whistleblower alleged that the Secret Service agent in charge of hospital security “did not know what was going on.”
The Secret Service told Newsweek that it’s “aware” of Hawley’s report and “will continue to work with congressional oversight committees in both the House and the Senate.”
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump waits to speak at a press conference at Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on September 13, 2024. A whistleblower told Josh Hawley that Secret Service left Trump “poorly protected” at the hospital after the July 13 shooting at his Butler, Pennsylvania, rally.
Robyn Beck/AFP
Along with the allegation about hospital security, the whistleblowers allegedly told Hawley that the lead agent responsible for Trump’s visit to Butler failed a “key examination” during federal law enforcement training. The person was also known as a “low caliber agent,” according to the report.
Hawley also said a new allegation asserts that intelligence units that could have mitigated the poor communication between different law enforcement agencies were absent from the rally.
He called for Congress and the president to “clean house” at the agencies responsible for the shooting at the “earliest possible opportunity.”
The Secret Service’s inability to identify Crooks and neutralize the threat before Trump was shot is considered a massive security failure. At least five people have been placed on leave, and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned following a contentious congressional hearing.
Hawley criticized the lack of information about the shooting, saying in the report that the American people know “far too little about why this happened.” He also targeted the Secret Service, FBI and Department of Homeland Security for remaining tight-lipped and refusing to confirm or deny whistleblower allegations.
“Instead, it has been left to courageous whistleblowers to tell the story of what really happened. They have testified to the serious security failures pervading every level of the Butler rally operation. They have highlighted longstanding problems at these security agencies, shedding light on decadent and unserious internal cultures,” Hawley wrote.
The report was published just one day after Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested in connection with a suspected attempt to shoot Trump at his golf course in Palm Beach, Florida. A Secret Service agent spotted an AK-style rifle pointing from shrubbery lining the course and “immediately engaged” by firing in the weapon’s direction. Routh was about 300 to 500 yards away from Trump at the time, and Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw called it “not a long distance” given the type of rifle and the scope attached to it.
Trump praised his Secret Service agents for helping to keep him safe, a similar message that he sent after the Butler shooting in July. Rafael Barros, special agent in charge of the Miami Field Office, told reporters on Sunday that we “live in dangerous times” and that the “threat level is high.”
