Multiple Secret Service personnel from the Pittsburgh Field Office and one member of former US President Donald Trump’s security detail involved in the advance planning for Trump’s July 13 rally have been reassigned to administrative duties and ordered to work from home, a source familiar with the matter told CNN on Friday.
The move comes as the Secret Service continues to face criticism for the security failures that allowed a gunman to fire eight rounds at the former President, piercing Trump’s ear and leaving one rallygoer dead at the rally last month in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Secret Service has been under immense pressure from lawmakers to discipline or fire those involved in the preparation for the rally. Acting Deputy Director Ronald Rowe had told lawmakers he intended to wait until after the investigation was complete before issuing any disciplinary action, according to CNN.
The agency is undergoing multiple inquiries including an internal review, congressional investigations and an independent commission empaneled by the Department of Homeland Security.
“This was a Secret Service failure,” Rowe told reporters during a news conference earlier this month – a clear shift in tone from when the agency previously pointed blame on locals for their failure to keep eyes on would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks that day. “That roof should have been covered.”
Days after the assassination attempt on Trump, the inspector general of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) opened an investigation into the Secret Service’s planning of the rally.
“The US Secret Service is committed to investigating the decisions and actions of personnel related to the event in Butler, Pennsylvania and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The US Secret Service’s mission assurance review is progressing, and we are examining the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure,” Anthony Guglielmi, Chief of Communications for the US Secret Service, said in a statement Friday.
“The US Secret Service holds our personnel to the highest professional standards, and any identified and substantiated violations of policy will be investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility for potential disciplinary action. Given this is a personnel matter, we are not in a position to comment further,” he added.
An eyewitness to the attempted assassination told the BBC after the incident that he had witnessed “a guy crawling, bear-crawling, up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us. So we're standing there, we're pointing at the guy crawling up the roof."
They could clearly see the rifle the gunman carried. "The police are down there, running around on the ground. We're like, 'Hey man, there's a guy on the roof with a rifle.' And the police are like, 'huh, what?' Like they didn't know what was going on. We're like, 'Hey, right here on the roof, we can see him from right here! We see him! He's crawling!"
A video posted to X showed onlookers noticing the gunman and attempting to alert police to the danger for a significant period of time before he opened fire.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)