US Secret Service takes full responsibility for failings surrounding Trump assassination attempt

The US Secret Service has taken full responsibility for the failures leading up to an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump.

The new acting chief said that local police in Pennsylvania should not be held responsible for security failures leading up to the attempt on the Republican presidential candidate last month.

Director Ronald Rowe told reporters: “In no way should any state or local agency supporting us in Butler on July 13 be held responsible for a Secret Service failure.

“This was a Secret Service failure. That roof line should have been covered – we should have had better eyes on (that).”

In testimony to Congress earlier this week, Rowe had blamed the failure on local law enforcement.

The first shooting of a US president or major party candidate in more than four decades was a glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation under bipartisan congressional pressure.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for the protection of current and former U.S. presidents, faces a crisis after a gunman was able to fire on Trump from a roof overlooking the outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

Officials said that 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired the shots that wounded Trump’s right ear, killed one rally attendee and wounded two others with an AR-15-style rifle, before law enforcement snipers shot and killed him.

Much of the criticism has focused on the failure to secure the roof of an industrial building where the gunman was perched about 150 yards (140 m) from the stage where Trump was speaking.

The rooftop was declared outside the Secret Service security perimeter for the event, a decision criticized by former agents and lawmakers.

Cheatle held a top security role at PepsiCo when Biden named her Secret Service director in 2022. She previously served 27 years in the agency. She took over following a series of scandals involving the Secret Service that scarred the reputation of an elite and insular agency.

Ten Secret Service agents lost their jobs after revelations they brought women, some of them prostitutes, back to their hotel rooms ahead of a trip to Colombia by then-President Barack Obama in 2012.

The agency also faced allegations that it erased text messages from around the time of the Janueary 6, 2021, attack on the US. Capitol.

Those messages were later sought by a congressional panel probing the riot.