Reports from the chairmen of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security committees have found that Secret Service failures led to the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump, the New York Post reported. The lawmakers are examining what led up to the shooting at a Butler, PA, rally last year.
Trump was blindsided by the bullet that grazed his ear, narrowly missing a kill shot to the head, during a campaign rally on July 13, 2024. From the moment it occurred, it was clear that the Secret Service was not doing its job that day to protect the then-candidate.
Now Congress is investigating, and so far Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Rand Paul (R-KY) believe there was "inexcusable negligence" leading to a "cascade of preventable failures" that almost cost Trump his life. One user on X, formerly Twitter, rightly called this "the biggest security scandal since JFK" was assassinated.
🚨 NEW: “A cascade of preventable failures nearly killed President Trump,” says Senate report.
The Secret Service knew. Civilians warned them. They did nothing.
No one has been fired.
This is the biggest security scandal since JFK. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/cCQ88idZWJ
— Rod D. Martin (@RodDMartin) July 13, 2025
There were numerous inadequacies in security planning and execution that day, which nearly proved fatal for Trump. Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to get nearly the perfect kill shot because of them, and the failures largely fall to the Secret Service.
In fact, Crooks was able to fly a drone around the Butler Farm Show Grounds to find the perfect spot to position himself because anti-drone technology was down and being repaired by someone not trained to do so. His drone went "undetected" as it circled "the event site hours before the rally" so he could find his perfect unobstructed position.
He was also stopped at the entrance to the fairgrounds because he had a rangefinder device, commonly used for measuring shooting distance. Crooks was identified as a suspicious person "at least 25 minutes" before taking his shot, but it's unclear why that didn't hinder his movements around the venue.
Perhaps it was because communications equipment failures and spotty cell phone service at the rural location hindered information exchange between local and federal officials on site. The Secret Service had at least 10 days' notice that there was a threat made to Trump's life ahead of that day, but did not disseminate the information.
"[T]he Secret Service had no process to share classified threat information with partners when the information was not considered an imminent threat to life," Grassley's report said. The threat reportedly came from Iran, but no additional protection measures were taken.
At the time of the shooting, Trump was not only the GOP presidential nominee, but he was also a former president. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, along with the Secret Service, now agree that his status should have afforded him additional protections.
As Paul's report noted, there were "at least" 10 requests to the Secret Service for additional protection that were either ignored or denied. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned over the incident, claimed that it was untrue despite the evidence to the contrary. Lawmakers are demanding some accountability for these failures.
"What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was not just a tragedy—it was a scandal. The United States Secret Service failed to act on credible intelligence, failed to coordinate with local law enforcement, and failed to prevent an attack that nearly took the life of a then-former president," Paul said.
Likewise, Grassley said he was releasing his report to provide "a clear path forward for the Secret Service to improve, so it can prevent another Butler from ever happening again." It remains to be seen whether they will be held accountable for this incident that could have altered the trajectory of American history forever.
What happened that day in Butler was a massive failure that could have killed Trump and incited civil unrest. Several failures put Trump squarely in the crosshairs of an assassin's gun that would have cost him his life had God not miraculously spared his life.