One year after the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, a new Senate report is renewing scrutiny of the U.S. Secret Service and its handling of the event.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a final report this week detailing what he called a series of critical "failures” by the Secret Service during Trump’s July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump was shot in the ear, and a rally-goer was killed when a gunman opened fire from a rooftop just outside the secured perimeter. Two others were also wounded before law enforcement fatally shot the shooter.
Paul’s report accuses the Secret Service of failing to communicate crucial information about the suspect before he climbed onto the roof. It states that if that information had been shared with Trump’s security team, the former president might have been prevented from taking the stage.
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Following the shooting, then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle called the incident the agency’s “most significant operational failure” in decades. She later resigned amid bipartisan calls for her to step down.
The report also faults Cheatle for denying multiple requests for additional staffing, assets, and resources to protect Trump during the campaign. It accuses her of falsely testifying to Congress that no Secret Service asset requests were denied for the Butler rally.
In addition, the report highlights a “severe lack of coordination and communication” between the Secret Service and state and local law enforcement from the advance planning phase through the day of the event.
Paul also criticized the agency’s response in the aftermath of the shooting. According to the report, no personnel involved in planning or executing the Butler rally were fired. Only six individuals were formally disciplined, with some receiving disciplinary action as recently as July 2025.
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