A Department of Homeland Security report released Thursday called for "fundamental reform" within the Secret Service in response to the July 13 assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, warning that "Butler can and will happen again."
"The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission. Without that reform, the Independent Review Panel believes another Butler can and will happen again," a review panel of four former law enforcement and national security officials wrote in a letter to DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas assigned the panel in July to investigate the Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt, which left Trump with a bloody ear, killed one rally attendee, and wounded two others.
"The Secret Service does not perform at the elite levels needed to discharge its critical mission," the panel continued. "The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved."
The 35-page DHS report comes amid mounting scrutiny of the Secret Service following two assassination attempts on Trump in the last three months. An interim Senate report in late September concluded that a series of "stunning" operational and communication failures by the Secret Service "directly contributed to" 20-year-old Thomas Crooks being able to take multiple shots at Trump in Butler.
"Every single one of those failures was preventable and the consequences of those failures were dire," said Sen. Gary Peters (D., Mich.), chairman of the Senate investigations committee.
According to the DHS panel, Secret Service personnel displayed a troubling "lack of critical thinking … before, during and after" the assassination attempt.
"Many of the Secret Service personnel involved in the events of July 13 appear to have done little in the way of self-reflection in terms of identifying areas of missteps, omissions, or opportunities for improvement," the report reads.
The four-person panel included former DHS secretary Janet Napolitano, former deputy attorney general Mark Filip, former Maryland State Police superintendent David Mitchell, and former deputy national security adviser Fran Townsend.
"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," the panel said, adding that "a refreshment of leadership, with new perspectives, will contribute to the Service's resolution of those issues."