The Department of Homeland Security inspector general is investigating the Secret Service after the agency failed to prevent former President Donald Trump from nearly being assassinated at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, according to a notice on its website.
The notice stated the Office of Inspector General was evaluating the Secret Service’s process for securing former President Trump’s July 13, 2024, campaign event.
The notice was not conspicuously posted on the website, but listed in “ongoing projects” with the word “new” next to it.
There was no formal announcement of the investigation or information on when it was launched. President Joe Biden has also directed a review of the security for the rally.
Congress is also looking into the security lapses that allowed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to climb onto the roof of a building used by local law enforcement working with the Secret Service as a staging and lookout point carrying an AR-style rifle and allegedly fire eight bullets at Trump as he spoke on a stage 135 meters away.
One of the bullets ripped through the former president’s ear before he got down for cover and was blanketed by members of his personal Secret Service detail before being taken off stage.
Before Trump was ushered off, he stopped, raised his fist and yelled, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in an instantly iconic moment of courage and defiance while bleeding from his ear.
A Secret Service counter-sniper allegedly killed Crooks after he fired, but many questions remain as to how Crooks was able to climb onto the roof despite being allegedly detected by local law enforcement and called in as a suspicious person to a Secret Service command center and even confronted by local law enforcement officers before firing at Trump.
Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle has said the “buck stops with me,” but has refused to resign amid calls from Republicans to do so.
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