At least five Secret Service agents have been given modified duties following the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July, a police official told the Associated Press.
They include the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office and three other agents assigned to that office, which was responsible for security planning ahead of the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to the law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the matter. One of the five agents was assigned to Trump’s security staff, the official said.
The official was not authorized to publicly disclose details of the personnel investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The agents are on leave, meaning they are not allowed to carry out any investigative or protective activities.
Fox News reported that another group of Secret Service agents, specifically assigned to Trump’s security detail, remained on duty. Trump was spared serious injuries in the shooting.
The blatant security deficiencies at the July 13 rally became the focus of fierce criticism of the security agency and local law enforcement officers who guarded the Republican candidate and his supporters on the grounds of the Butler Farm Show.
The shooting killed former firefighter Corey Comperatore and wounded Trump and two others. The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, was killed by a bullet fired by a Secret Service agent.
Multiple investigations have been launched as authorities examine a complex law enforcement failure that allowed the gunman to get close enough to shoot and wound Trump at the rally.
The shooting represented a devastating failure by the agency to fulfill one of its core missions and led to the resignation of then-Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle.
At a congressional hearing after the attack, Cheatle acknowledged that the Secret Service had received two to five reports of a suspicious person before the shooting. She also revealed that the rooftop from which Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential weak point days before the rally.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr., who took over after Cheatle’s resignation, said he “could not justify why the roof was not better secured.”
–Tribune News Service article
