The problems of the secret services go beyond money; include planning and communication failures

An independent panel that looked into a series of mistakes made by the US Secret Service during former President Donald Trump’s July 13 rally in Pennsylvania said money is not the solution to the protection agency’s problems.

The Department of Homeland Security’s independent review board said a fight over funding would undo any lessons learned from that day’s failures. The panel’s findings come as lawmakers consider budgeting additional money for the Secret Service.

“Additional resources would help, but if the remedial and reform dialogue surrounding the failures of July 13 devolves into a discussion of how much additional money the Service should receive, the essential lessons of July 13 will have been lost,” he wrote the panel. “The July 13 failure likely would have occurred regardless of the Secret Service’s current budget level. In other words, even an unlimited budget would not, by itself, fix many of the causes of the July 13 failures.”

The Secret Service’s budget has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, from about $1.8 billion in fiscal year 2014 to more than $3 billion, according to the data. budget documents. Secret Service personnel grew by nearly 25 percent over the same decade to more than 8,100 employees. That includes about 3,200 special agents and 1,300 uniformed officers, according to the agency’s website.

The panel’s report condemned the agency for six critical mistakes that day that ultimately allowed a 20-year-old man to fly a drone over the site of the campaign rally hours before he shot Trump, striking him in the ear, killing one firefighter present and injuring two others. The critical report also made recommendation to improve the Secret Service.

“The July 13 assassination attempt was not the work of a foreign adversary prepared to lead a multidimensional attack and willing to sacrifice itself in the process,” according to the report. “Rather, a young local Pennsylvanian who apparently conceived and executed his assassination plot within days of the former president’s rally being publicly announced managed to evade the Secret Service’s protective mission with striking ease.”

While the extra money would certainly help protect more people, a lack of resources was not the problem, the panel found.

“An influx of funds, without more, will not address the problems revealed on July 13,” according to the report.

More clearly: “The July 13 failures are not primarily attributable to the amount of Secret Service personnel.”

In September, Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. had said the same thing.

“While reviews and investigations are ongoing, we do not believe the security failure on July 13, 2024 was the result of a lack of resources,” he wrote in a letter obtained by Roll call.