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Secret Service vulnerabilities, identified years before the Trump assassination attempts, remained unaddressed despite multiple warnings from government investigations. The consequences of this institutional neglect became tragically apparent in 2024.
Independent studies conducted in 2014 by both Congress and the White House revealed a Secret Service in disarray, struggling with operational limitations and leadership that concealed rather than solved problems. While experts recommended enhanced agent training and new leadership appointments, these issues persisted and, in some cases, deteriorated further.
Former Secret Service agent Richard Starpoli says that the Secret Service is unprepared and complacent and they have learned nothing. That is why what happened in Butler happened and what happened at the golf course happened and he says that it doesn’t look like they’re changing… pic.twitter.com/5Vti7wDDYB
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) December 10, 2024
The agency continues to face significant staffing shortages, leading to widespread agent exhaustion and declining workplace satisfaction. The situation has prompted many experienced agents to depart, creating a concerning demographic shift within the organization. Currently, 40% of the Secret Service workforce consists of agents with five years or less experience, a dramatic increase from 13% in 2015.
This inexperience played a critical role in the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt on July 13. An independent review panel commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security discovered that a relatively inexperienced agent was responsible for developing the security plan for the rally. The agent in question had joined the service just four years prior and had only become part of the protective detail in 2023.
“If an agent with this little experience was responsible for planning Butler, that means there was nobody else,” Jonathan Wackrow, a security executive and former supervisor on then-President Barack Obama’s Secret Service detail, told the Post. “Now we are introducing hope as a strategy. And that is just plain dangerous.”
Acting Secret Service Director Rowe confirms he knew the foreign threats on Trump’s life before the Butler rally, yet STILL didn’t give him presidential level security protection.
Trump was almost assassinated because of this negligence. What a FAILURE.
pic.twitter.com/8UbwRf9ZjP— Rep. Richard Hudson (@RepRichHudson) December 5, 2024
The incident resulted in Trump sustaining a bullet graze to his ear, one fatality among the spectators, and two others wounded.
Training deficiencies have also persisted. Despite a 2014 White House recommendation that agents protecting the president should spend 25% of their time in training, government records indicate that actual training time has remained between just 3% and 7%.
A recently formed task force investigating the assassination attempts has proposed several reforms, including reducing the agency’s responsibilities for protecting foreign dignitaries during election periods and potentially relocating the Secret Service outside the Department of Homeland Security. Their comprehensive 180-page report, released December 10, provides one of the most detailed analyses of both the July incident in Pennsylvania and a subsequent attempt in Florida two months later.
