A new Homeland Security Inspector General report reveals that the US Secret Service failed to receive 102 radio transmissions from local law enforcement tracking the gunman before the July 2024 Trump rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. The report also finds the agency's anti-drone system was offline due to an untrained operator. The Secret Service received only five phone calls and three text messages about suspect Thomas Crooks.
The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's report, published Saturday, adds specific detail to the cascade of communication failures before the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The report finds that the Secret Service's anti-drone system was offline during the rally due to a malfunction, and that the sole assigned operator lacked the training to fix it, allowing gunman Thomas Crooks to fly a drone over the site for nearly nine minutes about two hours before the shooting. It further documents that local law enforcement transmitted 102 radio transmissions tracking the suspect, but Secret Service agents received only five phone calls and three text messages.
The Zioneer's thread on this story has developed across Saturday, with the earliest bulletin at 02:42 Jerusalem reporting that a watchdog found the Secret Service missed 102 radio transmissions about the gunman. A subsequent bulletin at 02:40 (technically the same time on Friday's date field, but published in sequence) added a Ynet report that the agency had failed to establish a communications room ahead of the rally. The version published at 12:33 Jerusalem expanded to include the anti-drone system failure and specific communication logs.
As The Zioneer reported on Wednesday, the FBI recently foiled a multi-stage drone and sniper plot targeting President Trump's White House UFC event—a separate incident that further underscores the persistent threat landscape and the security challenges faced by the Secret Service.
What remains open is whether the Inspector General's findings will lead to disciplinary action or changes in the Secret Service's protocols for major political events. The report itself does not name the operator of the anti-drone system or detail any internal accountability measures.
3 developments
- StrongFBI thwarts multi-stage drone and sniper plot targeting Trump's White House UFC event
- DevelopingTrump Administration Reportedly Given Advance Notice of Attack
- DevelopingFBI: TikTok used to recruit suspects in White House UFC terror plot, prosecutors say
- DevelopingState Comptroller reveals Cabinet has not received cyber defense briefings for nearly a decade
Source and signal
- Internal intake