Bipartisan report on Trump shooting identifies Secret Service tech issues and 'preventable' mistakes

WASHINGTON — The Secret Service made a series of "foreseeable" and "preventable" mistakes in the lead-up to the first attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in July that allowed a gunman to fire shots that killed a Trump rally attendee and grazed the Republican presidential nominee's ear, senators in both parties charge.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a joint interim report in their investigation of the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting Wednesday that responsibilities weren’t clearly defined ahead of the July 13 rally and that personnel they interviewed who were responsible for planning have “deflected blame.”

While the Secret Service has acknowledged "ultimate responsibility" for the failure to prevent Trump’s being struck by a bullet, the report says key Secret Service personnel "declined to acknowledge individual areas of responsibility for planning or security as having contributed to the failure to prevent the shooting that day."

The report also highlights the types of technological issues that are common within massive federal bureaucracies like the Secret Service.

Among the errors identified by the report: The Secret Service knew that snipers with local law enforcement planned to set up inside the building where the shooter ultimately fired from, rather than on the roof. Communications were siloed, and the Secret Service "did not ensure it could share information with local law enforcement partners in real time," the report says.

Another example in the report: After a sniper with local law enforcement texted the leader of the Secret Service counter-sniper team about the man who would soon fire shots at Trump, it took seven minutes for the Secret Service