US Secret Service has ‘deep flaws’, scathing report says

In a statement on Thursday, its acting director Ronald Rowe said the agency would carefully examine the new report.

“We have already significantly improved our readiness, operational and organisational communications and implemented enhanced protective operations for the former president,” he said.

In the report, which was drafted by state and national law enforcement officials, the panel praised the agents who risk their lives to protect many of the country’s highest-ranking officials but noted several leadership and cultural failures.

These included a “troubling lack of critical thinking” among staff and a reluctance to “speak up”.

The agency’s issues, the report said, were “systemic or cultural” and it called for “fundamental reform” including removing some of its top leadership “as soon as possible”.

“Without that reform… another Butler can and will happen again,” the panel wrote to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the organisation.

President Joe Biden ordered a bipartisan review of the protective agency after a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, by firing from a nearby rooftop.

The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight shots at the rally, killing one man and leaving Trump with a bloody ear. The Secret Service shot and killed Crooks.

On Thursday, the panel called for “a mandate that all outdoor events are observed by overhead technology.”

Another gunman was spotted near the former president outside of the Trump International Golf Course in Palm Beach, Florida in September.

Police arrested him after noticing the tip of a rifle poking through shrubbery a few hundred yards away from Trump who was inside the golf course.