The Homeland Security Department’s (DHS) inspector general is investigating how the Secret Service handled security at the campaign rally where former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt.
A brief statement posted to the independent watchdog’s website on Wednesday said the objective of the inquiry was to evaluate the Secret Service’s “process for securing” the campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. DHS is the Secret Service’s parent agency.
The office also said in a press release that it “initiated a review of USSS Counter Sniper Team preparedness and operations” with the objective “to determine the extent to which the Secret Service Counter Sniper Team is prepared for, and responds to, threats at events attended by designated protectees.”
Questions have been raised about how a shooter, identified as a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man named Thomas Matthew Crooks, managed to get onto a nearby rooftop and begin shooting from roughly 150 yards away with an AR-style rifle before the Secret Service could stop him.
A bullet ripped through Trump’s right ear. Secret Service personnel then rushed to the former president to offer him protection and killed the shooter. One rallygoer was killed, and two others were injured in the attack.
President Joe Biden has announced an “independent review of national security” and the FBI is investigating the shooting as “potential domestic terrorism,” with the agency saying it has gained access to the shooter’s phone, conducted a search of his home and vehicle, and conducted dozens of interviews.
While Congress is briefed by the Secret Service this week, Director Kimberly Cheatle, who was appointed to the role by Biden in 2022, is expected to testify about the attack in a public hearing before a House panel on Monday. House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) subpoenaed her on Wednesday.
Cheatle is already facing calls to resign from Republican lawmakers, but in an interview with ABC News, she declared that she would not step down even as she took responsibility for what she described as the “unacceptable” shooting.
“The buck stops with me,” Cheatle told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas on Monday. “I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary.”
Cheatle further stated that the Secret Service was responsible for the “inner perimeter” at the rally, while the agency “sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter” of the area.
“There was local police in that building” on which the shooter staged the attack, Cheatle said, adding that “there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”
She said that particular building “has a sloped roof, at its highest point. And so, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. And so, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.”
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