After the attempted assassination of President Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, various agencies and congressional committees immediately began investigations. The reports are trickling in, and all of them agree on a singular fact: the Secret Service failure was titanic and avoidable.
Last week, a bipartisan Department of Homeland Security panel made up of former senior law enforcement and government officials warned that without extensive reforms at the agency, then “another Butler can and will happen again.” The group noted the agency’s communications failures, both internally and with local law enforcement. Agents on the ground also had no plan to secure key buildings around the rally venue.
Ultimately the panel recommended that the Secret Service bring in outside leadership, and reduce its role in investigating financial crimes to focus first and foremost on its protective mission.
On Monday, the House task force investigating the assassination attempt found similar failures, also highlighting that, unbelievably, Secret Service personnel failed to conduct a joint meeting with state and local partners the day of the rally. The Secret Service “did not give clear guidance to the relevant state and local agencies about managing areas outside the secure perimeter,” the report notes, “and there was no joint meeting the day of the rally” between all the security forces working the event.
House investigators likewise found that the communication breakdown delayed the law enforcement response. Shockingly, the Secret Service and its state and local partners had separate command posts without a radio link between the two. Poor cell phone service also made it difficult to transmit information, resulting in a 25 minute delay between an officer texting that he spotted Crookes with a rangefinder, and that information being delivered.
These reports come after a lengthy Senate report was issued last month documenting systemic Secret Service failures leading up the shooting.
I hate to sound like a broken record here, but this is why funding fights matter. Oversight and investigations are important but only truly result in change when they have the power of congressional appropriations behind them – and by that I mean, Congress uses their power of the purse to demand change.
It’s a heavy lift, but these are heavy matters. Institutions won’t fix themselves until they are made to. They cannot be shamed, they can only be compelled.
Last week, Gallup released the results of its annual poll on Americans’ trust in the media and other institutions. If you are corporate media, the results are grim. The media is now the least-trusted civic and political institution surveyed by Gallup. To give you an idea of how bad it is, more Americans now trust Congress than they do the media (as well as the Supreme Court, local and state governments, and the executive branch). If Congress is out-polling you, you know things are rough.
Sincerely,
Rachel Bovard
Vice President of Programs
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