How Secret Service tech failures aided Trump’s would-be assassin in his plot

Technology failures between members of the Secret Service on the day Donald Trump hosted a rally in Pennslyvania contributed to the Secret Service’s inability to stop a gunman from opening fire on the former president and his supporters.

Not employing a counter-drone system, communicating on different radio systems and succumbing to bandwidth issues provided gaps that the 20-year-old shooter took advantage of, officials said.

Now, leaders of the Secret Service are facing questions about those failures and how they allowed the gunman to open fire on a presidential candidate despite police already searching for him.

One issue was that the shooter, identified asThomas Matthew Crooks, used his own surveillance drone to scope out of the area of Butler County where the former president held a rally before climbing onto the roof of a nearby building with an AR-15-style rifle.

Meanwhile, the federal agency allegedly declined to use local law enforcement’s surveillance drone the night before the rally.

Although the Secret Service has its own counter-drone system, it was not functional on the day of the rally due to bandwidth problems, acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told members of Congress during a hearing.

Had the agency had the counter-drone system in place, Rowe said, “We could have perhaps found him, we could have maybe stopped him.”

When asked why the agency did not use its own satellite internet service to prevent bandwidth problems – Rowe said he had “no explanation.”

Other failures by the agency, such as not including the warehouse building where Crooks shot from as part of its security perimeter, made it easy for the gunman to target the former president.

Perhaps one of the most obvious technological