Trump rally shooting a security ‘failure,’ Homeland Security chief says

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Monday that the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump was a security “failure,” but he stopped short of assigning blame, and declared his “100 percent confidence” in the U.S. Secret Service and its director amid deepening scrutiny of the agency.

The shooting Saturday was the first time since the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 that a U.S. leader has been attacked while under Secret Service protection. The agency’s apparent failure to secure the rooftop used by the gunman - one of the most basic preparations for public speaking events - has raised questions about staffing, strategy and leadership. The strains are occurring as the agency shifts focus to safeguarding the Republican National Convention.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mayorkas said that in the aftermath of the weekend’s violence in western Pennsylvania, the Secret Service adjusted its protective measures for Trump, President Biden, Vice President Harris and others, and that security details would be provided to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. along with Trump’s newly announced running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).

Additionally, officials will assemble a team to conduct an independent review of the apparent lapses Saturday, Mayorkas said.

“We need to move with swiftness and urgency, because this is a security imperative,” he told reporters, adding that the work should commence within “days.”

Mayorkas said the review would be led by someone outside of the Department of Homeland Security and “externally of the government, so that no question of its independence can be raised.” Their findings will be made public, he said.

“It’s very important,” he added, “that this independent review have the confidence of the people.”

Mayorkas said it would examine the actions of Secret Service and other law enforcement personnel “before, during and after the shooting.” The incident left one rallygoer dead and two others injured, officials have said. Trump has said he was struck by a bullet that “pierced” his right ear.

“An incident like this cannot happen,” Mayorkas told CNN earlier in the day. “We are speaking of a failure.”

Mayorkas, along with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other Biden administration officials, face pressure to explain whether mistakes in security planning for Trump’s rally might have allowed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire from an unsecured rooftop 450 feet away.

Cheatle has not spoken publicly since the attack, though in a statement Monday she said the agency would cooperate fully with an independent review and “work with the appropriate congressional committees on any oversight action.”

The U.S. Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Biden appointed Cheatle as director in 2022 and noted that she had served on his security detail when he was vice president.

Lawmakers are launching inquiries of their own into the assassination attempt. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday that Cheatle will testify to lawmakers July 22.

Johnson said he spoke to Mayorkas hours after the attack and pressed the DHS secretary to explain why the Secret Service wasn’t using surveillance drones to monitor the rally from above. “Where were the drones?,” Johnson said, speaking on the Brian Kilmeade show. “You would have obviously seen someone on a rooftop.”

Johnson said he and other GOP lawmakers were consulting with former law enforcement officials to formulate a list of questions for Mayorkas and other Homeland Security officials.

Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chairman and ranking minority-party member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Monday that the panel will conduct a bipartisan investigation of the shooting. The senators plan to hold a hearing “to examine security failures” that led to the shooting, the committee announced.

The House Oversight committee will receive a briefing on the assassination attempt Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the planning.

[Rifle used by Trump rally shooter was bought by his father 11 years ago, person familiar says]

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and ranking minority-party member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) were briefed Monday morning by FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. Those briefings have been described as preliminary.

The Secret Service agents who protected Trump and killed his attacker have been widely praised for acting quickly and decisively. But it’s unclear how Crooks was able to gain access to a nearby roof with an AR-style rifle.

Leon Panetta, a former CIA director and defense secretary during the Obama administration, said the Biden administration should urgently assess the failures at the Trump rally to prevent another attack in the coming months, as the nation remains deeply divided in the lead-up to November’s election.

“Somebody’s got to head up this investigation as quickly as possible,” Panetta, now a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, said in a telephone interview. “We’re not at the end of a political campaign, we’re at the beginning of a political campaign. We’ve got to quickly learn what went wrong and make sure that we’ve corrected it.”

When he was White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration, Panetta said, he would meet with the Secret Service before presidential events to ensure they had considered every possible scenario and prepared for contingencies.

“Just the mere fact that he appeared on top of a roof with a rifle and had the time to sit and fire tells you something went badly wrong,” Panetta said. “I don’t know how the hell you could have let that happen.”

Bill Bratton, a former New York police commissioner and a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, said he expected the FBI-led criminal investigation to take priority over the administrative probe into the Secret Service’s actions. Authorities must conclusively and urgently determine if the shooter acted alone - which Bratton said appears increasingly likely - or in concert with any terrorist organizations, he said.

“What was the motivation?” he said. “That’s what they’re wrestling with at the moment.”

Bratton praised the Secret Service agents who protected Trump during the attack. But he said the agency’s preparations before the rally appear “deficient” and “not the Secret Service’s finest hour.”

“Nobody is questioning the bravery and the actions after the event began to unfold, the Secret Service putting their bodies between the sniper and the president,” he said. “It’s the run-up that’s really going to be the focus. There’s a potential for people to lose their positions as a result of this, certainly.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Cheatle has Biden’s support and confidence.

Mayorkas said he did not believe that anyone had been reassigned or removed from Trump’s security detail.

Emilio T. Gonzalez, a former Army intelligence officer and Homeland Security official, said the shooting revealed flagrant flaws in the Secret Service’s planning and resources. He said he thought much of Trump’s security detail should be replaced since the shooting.

“This was terribly, terribly organized from a security perspective,” Gonzalez, who supports Trump, said in an interview.

“This guy should never have been that close to President Trump. His Secret Service protection should have been airtight, and it wasn’t,” he added. “Then the question is: Why wasn’t it?”

Matt Viser, Jacqueline Alemany, Abigail Hauslohner, Carol D. Leonnig, María Luisa Paúl and Leo Sands contributed to this report.