Independent panel issues scathing report on Secret Service and recommends leadership overhaul after Trump shooting

An independent panel of former law enforcement officials appointed under Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recommended a complete overhaul of Secret Service leadership after reviewing the agency’s security failures that led to the near assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania this summer.

In one of the most scathing reviews of the agency to date, the panel lambasted the Secret Service for its culture of “do more with less” and the general lack of “critical thinking” that permeated agents during and in the lead up to the Butler rally where Trump was shot and one rallygoer was killed.

“The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved,” the panel wrote in its report released Wednesday.

The panel – led by Mark Filip, deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush; Janet Napolitano, the secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama; and others – recommended leadership in the agency be replaced with outside individuals who could change the culture of the Secret Service, including the “present sense of complacency within the Service.”

“Many of the issues that the Panel has identified throughout this report, particularly regarding the Panel’s ‘deeper concerns,’ are ultimately attributable, directly or indirectly, to the Service’s culture. A refreshment of leadership, with new perspectives, will contribute to the Service’s resolution of those issues,” the panel wrote.

The agency is currently led by acting Director Ronald Rowe, who – though not named directly in the report’s recommendation for leadership change – comes from inside the ranks of the agency and was appointed after Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in the wake of the near assassination.

In a call with reporters Thursday morning, one member of the panel said the recommendations aren’t meant to be implemented immediately.

“I don’t think anybody was intending that you would fire acting director Rowe and the leadership team now. It wouldn’t be in the country’s interest or the service’s interest. That is one of the longer-term recommendations,” the member said.

In a statement Thursday after the report was issued, Rowe said he “remains steadfast” and said the agency has already “significantly improved” many facets flagged in the report.

The report heavily criticized the agency for failing to properly secure the Butler rally site, including by not establishing line-of-sight blockades, not securing the group of buildings the shooter accessed, not responding to reports of the shooter as a suspicious person over an hour before Trump was shot, and a myriad of other failures from the agency and local law enforcement.

These failures, the panel said, were part of a lack of critical thinking among Secret Service personnel responsible for security that day.

Another recommendation by the panel included the need for the agency to shed some of its other responsibilities not related to security, including its investigative work, some of which focuses on financial crimes the agency was established to combat.

“The Panel expresses extreme skepticism that many of the Service’s non-protective (investigative) missions meaningfully contribute to the Service’s protective capability and is concerned that they may materially distract from it,” the report says.

Mayorkas said he would review the panel’s finding but added in a statement he has “the utmost confidence in the men and women of the United States Secret Service” and commended Rowe “for his leadership and for proactively undertaking security enhancements, including those informed by the Secret Service’s Internal Mission Assurance Review.”

The panel also noted the Secret Service’s failure to adequately ramp up Trump’s security after learning of an assassination threat from “a foreign state actor” to the former president, as well as his already high-profile status as a former president and current Republican front-runner for the 2024 election. CNN previously reported that authorities had obtained intelligence about a plot by Iran to assassinate Trump in the weeks before the attempted assassination of the former president at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July.

Other agency failures identified in the report included a lack of experience among those who led the site security for the rally that day.

“The site agent assigned by the Trump detail to coordinate with the Pittsburgh field office to conduct site advance work and site security planning for the Butler rally only graduated from the Service’s academy in 2020,” the panel noted, “had only been on the Trump detail since 2023, and had engaged in minimal previous site advance work or site security planning and certainly nothing to the level of the July 13 Butler rally.”

The panel also addressed communication failures during the Butler rally between the Secret Service and local law enforcement officers who reported the shooter’s movements and suspicious activities – like looking at the stage with a range finder – throughout the day.

The panel noted that while the Secret Service says it is working on creating a more integrated communications system, the federal government has been aware of and created remedies for these issues, which were recognized decades ago in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

While the panel praised agents for acting to protect Trump after he was shot and quickly taking out the shooter, the report added that “bravery and selflessness alone, no matter how honorable, are insufficient to discharge the Secret Service’s no-fail protective mission.”