Secret Service Was “Warned” Days Before Butler Rally

So let’s get this straight: the United States Secret Service—an agency that is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of law enforcement, the elite guardians of our nation’s leaders—was warned of a “credible threat” to former President Donald Trump in the days leading up to his rally on July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, and what did they do? They ignored it. Yes, you read that right. They shrugged it off like it was just another day at the office.

A damning bipartisan Senate report was released on Wednesday, and it’s not pretty. The Secret Service, the agency tasked with protecting the most important figures in this country, failed to act on multiple levels. This isn’t speculation; it’s documented failure. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs laid it all out, and their findings are as terrifying as they are infuriating. The Committee labeled the Secret Service’s failures in planning, communications, security, and resource allocation as “foreseeable” and “preventable.” That means they saw the warning signs, and they chose to do nothing.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: this was an assassination attempt on a former president, someone who represents millions of Americans, and it was completely mishandled by those who were supposed to protect him. The Committee’s findings reveal that a Secret Service Lead Advance Agent was briefed on a credible intelligence threat on July 9—four days before the rally. And what did she do? She wrote in her security planning document that there was “no adverse intelligence.” That’s right, even though she knew there was a credible threat, she told the Secret Service, law enforcement, and everyone involved that everything was fine. Move along, nothing to see here.

Oh, but it gets better. The report reveals that only two Secret Service personnel were actually aware of the credible threat before July 13. Let me repeat that: only two people knew. And of those two, only one had access to the classified information detailing the threat. Are you kidding me? How is it possible that with all the resources at their disposal, they couldn’t even communicate the seriousness of the situation within their own ranks?

Now, let’s talk about what happened on that day—because this is where it goes from negligence to outright recklessness. Thomas Matthew Crooks, a man who managed to get eight shots off, hit Trump in the ear, kill a rallygoer, and injure two others, was able to do all of that because the Secret Service didn’t bother to secure the roof of the American Glass Research building. Even though local law enforcement warned them about the threat of that rooftop, nothing was done. And it wasn’t like Crooks was some ghost that materialized out of nowhere. No, the Secret Service had two full minutes’ notice that this man was on the roof, armed, and they did nothing. Not a single protective measure was taken to remove Trump from the stage.

In fact, 22 seconds before Crooks fired his shots, a local officer put out a radio alert that there was an armed individual on the roof. Did that message reach the right people? Nope. The alert never made it to the key Secret Service personnel protecting Trump. Instead, they were kept in the dark while shots rang out at the rally.

But the failures don’t stop there. Before Crooks even started shooting, he was able to fly a drone 200 yards from the rally site, use a rangefinder to calculate the distance to Trump, and bring two explosive devices within proximity of the event. You can’t make this up—it’s like something out of a bad action movie, but this was real life.

So, what does the Secret Service have to say for themselves? One of their counter-snipers, stationed at the rally, admitted that when he saw law enforcement officers running toward the building where Crooks was located, it “did not cross [his] mind” to alert anyone to get Trump off the stage. Really? You see officers with guns drawn running toward a building where a potential assassin is located, and it doesn’t occur to you that the former president might need to be evacuated? That’s not just a failure in judgment; that’s a dereliction of duty.

The Senate Committee examined 2,800 pages of documents and interviewed dozens of agents and law enforcement officials to get to the bottom of this disaster. The conclusion? “Every single one of these actions is directly related to a failure in the U.S. Secret Service’s planning, communications, intelligence sharing, and law enforcement coordination efforts,” said Chairman Gary Peters. And let’s be clear: every single one of those failures was preventable.

So where does that leave us? A former president was nearly assassinated in broad daylight because the very people tasked with protecting him couldn’t get their act together. The incompetence, the lack of urgency, the utter disregard for a credible threat—it’s astonishing. And the consequences? One dead, two injured, and a near-fatal blow to the security apparatus that’s supposed to protect America’s leaders.

How many more warnings need to be ignored before someone in Washington wakes up? The American people deserve better. Trump deserved better. We all deserved better.