The News
The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has opened an investigation into how the Secret Service handled security on the day a gunman attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, the department said Wednesday.
President Joe Biden had already ordered an independent review of security at the Pennsylvania rally, and congressional committees have moved quickly to launch investigations into what went wrong. On Tuesday, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said her agency was “totally responsible for the design and implementation and the execution” of security on Saturday.
SIGNALS
Trump shooting gives FBI chance for Republican redemption
The FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt on Trump could help repair the agency’s fraught relationship with the former president and the GOP. The FBI has consistently been in Trump’s crosshairs; he fired then-Director James Comey in 2017 and blamed the agency for the Russia probe into him. Republican lawmakers then took up the fight in 2022 by honing in on the “weaponization” of the federal government — including the FBI. Given that the agency wasn’t involved in security on the day of the shooting at Trump’s rally, the FBI “might be perceived as the good guys,” a former agency official told Politico, possibly boding well for its relations with GOP lawmakers.
Secret Service bears brunt of criticism for security lapses
The Secret Service is under intense scrutiny for its “worst security breach since the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan,” The Washington Post wrote. Early reports suggest the Secret Service may have left key responsibilities to local authorities and then suffered a communication breakdown with them. In conjunction with security lapses over the past several years due to staffing shortages, Trump’s attempted assassination has ramped up pressure on the agency to explain its plan to protect current and future presidents as political polarization worsens. “There’s going to be a massive realignment” in the agency, a former agent told Reuters. “This cannot happen.”
Local police hope they aren’t made scapegoat
The Secret Service doesn’t “get to blame other people” for the security lapses, a former police chief who worked event security for former US presidents told The Associated Press, but local law enforcement officials are still concerned they’ll be condemned for the security lapse. The Secret Service worked with the Butler County Sheriff’s Office to secure the perimeter ahead of the rally, and agency Director Kimberly Cheatle’s recent public comments appear to cast blame on local police officers. Such “injudicious” statements will cause “an erosion of this trust” between the Secret Service and local law enforcement, the director of a union that represents Secret Service agents told CNN, adding that agents were “let down by a management plan.”