Secret Service missed 'multiple opportunities' to prevent Trump assassination attempt: watchdog
Secret Service missed 102 radio warnings and failed to block a known line-of-sight risk at the campaign rally, OIG said
By Louis Casiano Fox News
Published July 2, 2026 6:43pm EDT | Updated July 2, 2026 6:49pm EDT
The U.S. Secret Service "missed multiple opportunities" to prevent or disrupt the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump as he spoke to supporters during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General said in a report released Thursday.
The 64-page document detailed several lapses in security that allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to get a line of sight of Trump as he stood on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the July 13, 2024, event.
"The Secret Service’s overall lack of policy and processes coupled with limited intelligence sharing and poor collaboration and communication with protectee staff and state and local law enforcement set the conditions that led to missing opportunities to prevent and detect the attempted assassination," the report states.
Among the OIG's findings was a failure to warn Trump's protective detail that Crooks had a range finder and a long gun and had climbed onto the roof of a nearby building due to a lack of communication between the Secret Service and local law enforcement.
Instead, they operated out of separate locations 257 yards apart with intermittent and highly limited radio connectivity between them.
As a result, the Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions regarding an increasingly intense search for a suspicious individual, including alerts that the suspect was on the roof with a long gun.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/secret-service-missed-multiple-opportunities-prevent-trump-assassination-attempt-watchdog
