Hawley Releases Damning Report on Security Failures Leading Up to First Attempt on Trump’s Life

Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) released a whistleblower report Monday on the law-enforcement failures leading up to the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump two months ago. The report was released one day after a suspect was apprehended in Florida for trying to kill Trump on his golf course in Florida.

The Secret Service’s failures to secure Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13 were extensive and constituted one of the most consequential security debacles in U.S. history. Chief among them was law enforcement’s apparent choice to leave the rooftop of the American Glass Research (AGR) building unguarded, allegedly because of heat, before gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed atop the building to carry out the attack, Hawley’s report states.

The report is based on whistleblower allegations brought to his office in the wake of Crooks’s rampage. Before the report was published, Hawley sent multiple letters to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, questioning him about the most shocking details from the whistleblowers who contacted his office.

Overseeing the Secret Service’s security operations at the rally was an unnamed lead agent who apparently has a history of incompetence and who directed the placement of certain items around the stage of the Trump rally that impaired visibility. The individual is allegedly known to be a low-quality agent and failed an examination on the way to becoming a Secret Service agent.

Secret Service intelligence units were not at the Butler rally. If they had been there, they could have prevented or mitigated the communication breakdown between federal and local law enforcement, Hawley’s report says, a major allegation that he has not previously publicized.

Ahead of the rally, the Secret Service’s counter-surveillance division did not conduct its typical inspection of the site and did not have a presence at the Butler campaign rally. A whistleblower told Hawley’s office that the counter-surveillance division would have arrested Crooks for carrying a rangefinder. The same whistleblower alleges that acting director Ron Rowe personally requested cuts to the counter-surveillance division, a claim Rowe has denied.

At a congressional hearing in July, Rowe admitted to the Secret Service’s mistakes on the day of the Trump rally, including a decision to reject an offer from local law enforcement for drone support after the Secret Service was unable to fly its own. Hours before the shooting, Crooks flew a drone around the perimeter of the Trump rally for roughly 11 minutes, the FBI has determined.

According to the report, a whistleblower with direct knowledge of the Butler planning process said that the rally was not slated to receive any additional security because Trump is not a sitting president or vice president. These additional resources would have included counter-snipers and counter-surveillance personnel.

The Trump rally was considered to be a “loose” security environment, meaning that Department of Homeland Security personnel failed to police the area immediately surrounding the stage and were not placed at intervals around the perimeter, Hawley’s report asserts. Extra DHS personnel without the necessary training to work campaigns were pulled away from the department’s investigative team and reassigned to the Trump rally, a whistleblower told Hawley’s office.

Up to this point, Hawley says, the Secret Service and DHS have not answered questions about the lead agent overseeing the Trump campaign rally, resources allocated to the Trump campaign, and the Secret Service’s lack of counter-sniper coverage on the AGR building.

The Secret Service’s mishaps are the subject of multiple ongoing investigations and continue to receive considerable scrutiny. The FBI is leading the investigation into Crooks’s planning and actions on the day of the shooting. After interviewing roughly 1,000 people and combing through his devices, the FBI has not established a motive for Crooks’s attack, even though he frequently looked up public figures online.

A second assassination attempt on Trump took place this past weekend when suspected gunman Ryan Wesley Routh lurked on the perimeter of Trump’s Florida golf course with a firearm and a GoPro in order to carry out his plan. His attempt was foiled when a Secret Service agent spotted Routh and fired at him, causing the alleged assailant to run away.

He was soon caught and is now facing federal gun charges, on top of his prior lengthy criminal rap sheet. Law enforcement does not believe that Routh fired a shot or had Trump in his line of sight. Routh spent approximately twelve hours at the site and got roughly 400 feet away from the former president. A Trump supporter in 2016, Routh since 2019 has donated exclusively to Democratic politicians, and he has repeated Democratic slogans on his erratic social-media accounts.

He became strongly pro-Ukraine and gave multiple interviews about his purported attempts to recruit volunteer soldiers from around the world for Ukraine. In his manifesto, Routh called for Iran to assassinate Trump and apologized for once supporting him.