Today, new details have emerged regarding the first assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, which took place on July 13, 2024, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The internal Secret Service report has revealed significant communication failures that contributed to the agency’s inability to prevent the shooting. The gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, fired eight rounds from an AR–15–style rifle, striking Trump in the ear, injuring others, and killing one man before being shot and killed by Secret Service counter-snipers.

Crooks Rifle
The FBI has finally released an image of Crooks rifle that he used to try to kill President Trump. As SOFREP noted earlier, it is a DPMS Panther Arms model A-15 chambered in 5.56. Attachments are as follows: An Atlas R-One, Aero Precision Picatinny rail, AEMS optics attached to that rail, and a Magpul collapsible stock. The white marking on the weapon are from the FBI.

The report highlighted multiple security lapses, including poor coordination between federal and local law enforcement, which operated on different radio frequencies. This made it difficult to relay crucial information about Crooks’ suspicious behavior before he opened fire. Notably, the Secret Service was not alerted to a drone Crooks had flown over the venue earlier in the day, which could have provided an early warning of the impending threat.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald L. Rowe cited simple “complacency” as one of the root causes of the nearly successful assassination attempt. Rowe stated that agents would face disciplinary actions, but declined to say how many agents would be affected or what actions they would face.

Unfortunately, the five-page report, which you can read in its entirety above, doesn’t tell us much we don’t already know. Lack of proper communication played a big part in what happened that day. Regarding that, the report states:

“Some local police entities supporting the Butler venue had no knowledge that there were two separate communications centers on site (i.e., the Secret Service security room and the Butler County Emergency Services Mobile Command Post). As a result, those entities were operating under a misimpression that the Secret Service was directly receiving their radio transmissions.”

Wonderful, the locals thought they were relaying information to the Secret Service, but they were not because the Secret Service was on another frequency, and local law enforcement was not aware of that. That’s pure amateur hour, folks. Never should have happened.

Despite concerns raised about the venue’s security due to potential attack vantage points, no action was taken before the event. The Secret Service has since faced bipartisan criticism, and its director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned shortly after the incident. The Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump continues to investigate the failures, with hearings planned to address the systemic issues within the Secret Service that allowed this attack to occur.