The US congress has launched an investigation into “inexcusable security breaches” at Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania, piling pressure on the agency responsible for protecting presidents and presidential candidates.
Both Republicans and Democrats called on Sunday for an immediate investigation into the role played by the US Secret Service after what the FBI called an assassination attempt at the former president’s rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.
“We’re launching an investigation into the inexcusable security breaches in Pennsylvania,” congressman Carlos Gimenez, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote on X on Sunday. House speaker Mike Johnson also said Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle would be called to testify.
In a news conference early on Sunday morning, FBI special agent Kevin Rojek said “it was surprising” that the shooter was able to fire at the stage where Trump was speaking. “There is going to be a long investigation into what took place,” he added.
Kenneth Gray, a retired FBI special agent and now a professor at the University of New Haven, told the Financial Times he was also surprised that a shooter could access the roof of a nearby building and carry out the attack without being detected.
“It shows a breakdown in the security plan for this rally,” he said. “The fact that this shooter was able to get off an attack like this here looks like they needed additional resources.”
The Secret Service’s protection extends to former presidents and vice-presidents as well as their children under 16. It also includes major presidential and VP candidates within 120 days of presidential elections.
On Sunday morning, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said claims that the agency had turned down a request from Trump’s team for additional security were “absolutely false”.
“In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo,” Guglielmi said on X.
President Joe Biden said he had directed the agency on Sunday “to provide [Trump] with every resource capability and protective measure necessary to ensure his continued safety,” and to review security measures for the Republican National Convention, which begins on Monday in Milwaukee.
The Secret Service could not be reached for comment but a Secret Service official told a press conference on Sunday that no changes had been made to the security plan for the convention.
Known primarily for providing the president’s bodyguards, the agency’s role has mushroomed since its creation in 1865 to include advance scouting of public venues where presidents and major presidential candidates will come close to the public.
Trump thanked the Secret Service and other law enforcement personnel on Saturday for their “rapid response”. However, others focused on the agency’s apparent failings, with Johnson saying “the American people deserve to know the truth”. Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker, said: “Cheatle should be suspended immediately”.
Democrats joined Republicans in calling for explanations of how a shooter could get so close to Trump. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona candidate for the US Senate, said the attack raised “grave concerns regarding the security measures — or lack thereof — that were taken to protect a former president”.
Some Republicans laid the blame at the agency’s embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion policies, circulating a CBS interview from 2023 in which Cheatle said the Secret Service was seeking to employ 30 per cent women recruits by 2030.
Republicans had already put pressure on the Secret Service over DEI before Saturday’s attack. James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee, voiced concerns in May that it may have “lower[ed] once stricter standards as part of a diversity, equity and inclusion effort”.
Now part of the US Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service had earlier faced criticism for its role during the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Trump and other Republicans decried its decision to hand over information to the January 6 Select Committee in response to a subpoena.
On the day of that attack, Trump reportedly struggled with his Secret Service agents, demanding he be taken to join his supporters as they stormed the Congress. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Trump had wanted to be driven to the Capitol and tried to grab the car’s steering wheel as the Secret Service restrained him.
Established under President Abraham Lincoln, the role of the Secret Service was initially to combat counterfeit currency. But after the assassinations of President James Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901, the agency’s role was expanded to include protection. In 1917, Congress passed legislation making it a crime to threaten the president.
Since the Secret Service officially started protecting presidents, at least seven assaults have occurred, according to a 2023 report from the Congressional Research Service.
They include the 1981 shooting of Ronald Reagan, and an assassination attempt on George W Bush in 2005 when a grenade was thrown towards him from a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia but failed to detonate, according to the FBI.
Only one attack, the shooting of John F Kennedy in 1963, has killed a president under Secret Service protection.
However, the Secret Service does not provide information on threats so the full scope of attempts on presidents and candidates “remains a matter of conjecture,” the CRS report said.
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