State and local law enforcement testified before lawmakers Thursday about the Secret Service’s failure to secure the area during the July assassination attempt on former President Trump in Pennsylvania.
A Senate committee investigating the July 13 shooting at a Donald Trump rally is calling for Congress to reevaluate the Secret Service’s budget and mandate that security for U.S. leaders and political candidates be based on threat assessments rather than their office status.
A bipartisan Senate investigation released Wednesday revealed that multiple Secret Service failures ahead of former President Trump’s July rally, where a gunman opened fire, were “foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.”
Public confidence in the Secret Service has plummeted following the July assassination attempt on former President Trump, according to a Gallup poll released Monday, with ratings of the agency’s performance sinking by 23 percentage points.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. is calling on Congress to invest significantly more in the agency after two apparent assassination attempts against former President Trump.
The US Secret Service is set to lose another high-ranking official this week, as Michael Plati, the assistant director responsible for protective operations, retires.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has authorized additional military support for the Secret Service to enhance security for presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the upcoming election, according to separate statements from the Pentagon and the Secret Service on Thursday.
Several agents from the U.S. Secret Service’s Pittsburgh Field Office have been placed on administrative leave after the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Trump in Butler, Pa.
