Analysis: Secret Service failed Trump because it can’t keep up with the growing threat
July 15, 2024 13 Comments
THE UNITED STATES SECRET Service is among the world’s most prestigious law enforcement agencies. Its institutional experience in protecting US presidents and presidential candidates dates to 1901. Given its high-stakes protective mission —safeguarding the executive leadership of the world’s most powerful nation— the agency has historically placed emphasis on flawlessness: it simply can’t afford to fail.
Yet it did just that on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Presidential candidate Donald Trump did not survive the attempted assassination because his Secret Service detail neutralized the threat to his safety in time. Instead he survived because the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, from the small suburb of Bethel Park in Pittsburgh, missed. How are we to explain this abject failure by one of the world’s most venerated law enforcement agencies?
POLICING IN A DEMOCRACY
Unlike tyrannical regimes, where law enforcement is nearly omnipresent, policing functions in democratic societies are relatively limited. They rely on what can be essentially described as a numbers game. Under this model, the effectiveness of policing functions inherently rests on the assumption that the vast majority of the population will comply with legal norms voluntarily, and that it will do so most of the time.
Thus, the sustainability of law and order in democratic societies hinges, not just on the capabilities of the enforcement agencies, but significantly on the general populace’s commitment to uphold the rule of law. This tacit social contract allows law enforcement agencies to operate with a relatively small logistical footprint. It also allows police forces to focus their efforts on a relatively small number of individuals, or groups, who do not adhere to the law.
WIDESPREAD BREAKDOWN
The US has relied on this model of policing since the Civil War. However, this model tends to falter once a substantial segment of the population refuses to voluntarily adhere to legal conventions. In such a scenario, the sheer number of non-compliant individuals can overwhelm the policing system, leading to a widespread breakdown in law and order.
The US has witnessed such incidents with alarming intensity in recent years. Examples include the 2014 Bundy standoff and the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by armed groups of anti-government extremists. It also witnessed the —often gratuitously violent— George Floyd protests, as well as the armed occupation of the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, in 2020.
Most notably, America witnessed widespread civil disobedience on January 6, 2021, when thousands of frenzied Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol and attempted to bring an end to the Constitutional order in one of the world’s oldest democracies. In addition to exposing the fragility of American democracy, the January 6 attack drew attention to the ineffectiveness of the state’s policing functions, thus further-eroding public trust and compliance.
AMERICANS ARE EMBRACING VIOLENCE
There is no denying that Americans are viewing violence as an element of national politics with an alarming rate. Last summer, a survey conducted by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and Threats revealed that 4.4 percent of the adult population of the US —12 million Americans— believed that violence was justified to restore Donald Trump to power. Granted, very few of those survey responders would actually be willing to act on such extreme beliefs. But even a mere 1 percent of those 12 million people who appear to endorse violence in support of Trump amounts to 120,000 individuals. That’s an enormously large number of radicalized Americans.
The same survey found that 10 percent of those surveyed believed the “use of force [was] justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president”. Equally worryingly, a third of those respondents also said they owned a gun. Gun ownership is indeed an added factor of complexity that is not present in other advanced democracies of our time. It is estimated that nearly half of the American population owns a gun or lives in a household that contains a gun. Furthermore, because of the numerous wars that the US has participated in since 1990, many Americans have substantial warfighting experience —both conventional and unconventional.
LAW ENFORCEMENT SIMPLY CAN’T KEEP UP
Given the alarming rate of political radicalization in the US, as well as the easy access of radicalized Americans to military-grade weaponry, law enforcement simply can’t keep up with the threat to public figures. Add to this explosive mix the toxic cesspool of social media, and it becomes simply impossible to police the intentions of growing numbers of angry Americans. The militant ecosystem in the US has simply become too overcrowded for effective policing.
There isn’t a single employee of the US Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the Department of Homeland Security, who was surprised by what happened on Saturday in Pennsylvania. The assassination attempt on Trump came after several years of warnings by nearly every federal law enforcement agency in the nation. However, there is simply too much radicalization among the American population and not enough resources to monitor and police it.
The situation in the overwhelmed and overworked ranks of the Secret Service is indicative of this growing problem. In her 2021 exposé book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Washington Post Carol Leonnig found that the agency was so underfunded and understaffed that personnel she spoke with “strongly believed that it was a matter of time before a president was shot on their watch”.
In 2021, a National Academy of Public Administration report requested by the Secret Service’s own leadership found that “many employees flee overloaded working conditions”. It also found that the morale of Uniformed Division officers, who guard the White House, was “so bad that […] job satisfaction and employee engagement were at a concerning level of risk”. By my own calculations, the protective wing of the Secret Service is so understaffed that it would struggle to keep up with the threat environment even if it were three times its current size.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
The question of why American society is gradually turning into a toxic cesspool of radicalization is a complex one —as are the answers to it. They inevitably touch on various societal, economic, and cultural factors. These factors are critically reinforced by the online media industry’s economic model, which favors extremism and hate speech. Solutions to this multifaceted problem are not readily available. Moreover, even if implemented, they will take generations to bear results.
What is to be done in the meantime? Some have suggested a radical overhaul of the Secret Service’s leadership. But such a move, logical though it may seem, would not address the core of the problem. The only practical step forward is to provide emergency financial and other material support to federal —and in many cases state and local— law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Between now and November, these overworked and overwhelmed agencies may be the only thing that separates America from a catastrophic descent into utter social and political chaos.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 July 2024 | Permalink
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From everything I have read, it seems the public had a better handle on what was happening, then the Secret Service at the time. Like Dallas, wanting to repeat itself. Heads need to roll with in the SS, there is no excuses, and if the Woke agenda played any roll, it all needs to be brought out and dealt with once and for all. I have life long friends with-in the upper management with the FBI, and they have taken early retirement just in the past few years, over what is happening there. These agendas need greater attention, and level heads need to be brought back into the fold, before all is lost…
This is total BS! The USSS can draw from the virtually unlimited resoures of local law enforcement to augment its coverage. A county mounty could have been sitting on that roof and it would have been secured.
So the author’s solution to the problem is the timeworn and tattered “Throw money at it”. This after he only mentions the political environment that hobbles police and frees violent criminals.
I’d like to know what the Assistant Director, David M. Torres, Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information has to say about all of this. Seems like he should be the focal point for possible threats, by his title.
Maybe consideration should be given to using helos, drones, and/or small, automated systems (radar, movement, etc.) or similar observation platforms.
Rather than “”woke” an over weaponized cult of militiamen, encouraged to confront central authority, seems to be the problem. One wonders who encouraged that.
This article is absolute non-sense.
Any serious intelligence analyst will consider a solution that surpasses the adage of throwing more money at the problem. I do not think the solution lies there. The SS could simply have had a uniformed officer on that roof. I am not American but an analyst active in Africa and from my vantage point it appears that there a certain complacency at play here. Even so, the radicalisation of American politics and the lackluster approach to military gu control certainly fuels scenarios like this. My contacts within the FBI and wider security aparratus of the US all points to a failure in leadership, aggrivated by political alliances and a near certain “death wish” in the intelligence community for something like this to happen in order to shake up the various leadership arms. No, more money isn’t the answer. I fail to see how that would have stopped this attempt. I also doubt the woke left (or right, for that matter) can be directly to blame, but certinly these influences could play their part in the lacklusterness of the intelligence community. What happend in Israel in Oct 2023 is but yet further examples of this. I do agree that the approaches to intelligence gathering and excecution differ in democracies to that of more intolerant states. You do not see such failures in intelligence in Russia and China. Nonetheless, an overhaul of the entire system is required and the leadership and reporting lines will need to be closer to the center. Everything begs for really simple answer to a very simple question; why was that rooftop not covered? It is similar to starting an engine without checking if there are oil in it. And in that lies part of the solution.
As a thought experiment: How would Houdini stage this? There is a picture of a bullet flying by, video of some guy on a roof and a wound to the ear, substained while huddled with a group of agents.
Reason for distraction is holocaust in Gaza right now.
Just an excuse for poor tactical performance. You had people pointing out someone with a gun and they didn’t react
I like this blog for its evidence based approached to issues and problems facing LEO and Intelligence agencies however this analysis is completely & utterly wrong. It should be retracted in fact.
There is no way any country can put a cop on every corner. Anyone trying to argue such, in the face of this incident, has clearly failed to look at any of the actual facts of this event. The US however has long attempted to police it’s citizen’s into submission, targeting people based on their ethnicity and appearance as opposed to using objective risk analysis.
Which i’ll list here:
1. Trump had limited USSS (Secret Service Agency) protection because he had not been confirmed as the republican candidate. This occurred a week later and was delayed because US Electoral laws have strict disclosure requirements, that only apply after you’ve been nominated as the presidential candidate for your party. The republicans, as do the democratics, use the period between the conclusion of the primaries and the “conventions” to hoover up as much dark money as they can.
Prior to this point the republican party was in a race to obtain as much dark money as it could. This lead to their candidate only having the standard USSS protection assigned to ex-presidents.
2. Trump is notorious for not paying local law enforcement for protection at rallies. The local police are not obligated to provide protection at rallies. Instead most of the LEO are off-duty paid by the rallies organisers.
3. Because the USSS have limited resources the buildings outside of the rally was assigned to the LEO. They in fact had people in the building.
4. The crowd had notified the police as the shooter was climbing onto the building.
5. Sharpshooters had the gunman zero’d however due to ROE they weren’t able to shoot a man simply for climbing on a roof. Pennsylvania is a open carry state.
Because the LEO were unable to conclude if the man was authorised to climb on the roof, because he was legally able to carry a firearm and because he hadn’t brandished it, there was no grounds to kill him.
6. Just prior to the shooting an officer was boosted up to peer over the top off the roof. At this point the gunman brandished the firearm and went to fire at the officers. Unclear whether he did. Nonetheless the officer quickly dropped down. At this point the gunman turned and fired on Trump, as it was a AR-15
7. In the next 5 – 10 seconds the gunman got off 5-8 shots before the sharpshooters killed him.
Conclusion.
In the short term the direct cause of this incident was the Trump campaign refusing to pay for protection. It was their petulance and law breaking, (to avoid campaign disclosure laws) that lead to the delay in nominating trump as their candidate, which had they done months ago after the primaries he could have had a significantly larger USSS team. Thus providing adequate levels of protection.
Considering how many people run for the presidency (there are many who are never mentioned in international news but are on the ticket) there is no way for the USSS to protect all of them.
Trump and the republicans have no one else to blame but themselves.
Indeed its clear the shooter subscribed to far right beliefs.
Although the shooter may have had other motivations there is definitely a large minority of the hard right who are well aware of Trump inadequacies, contradictions and flip-flop. This unreliability is discussed regularly in by far right and used as part of the justification for martyring Trump to start the 2nd civil war, the primary purpose of this being used to justify the genocide of non angelo saxon our ethnicity, socialists, communists and other undesirables.
They claim this would be a far better use for Trump as they are well aware that Trumps real masters, Putin, Saudi, Israel and the US plutocracy will never allow for the wholesale murdering of peoples that they despise.
Medium to long term causal factors of course are the media state of the USA, the failure to restrict hate speech that most other socialist democratic have outlawed.
Lack of uniform firearm restrictions, in particular in “red states” continually result in ridiculous levels of suicide, murder and mass shootings.
Seriously, the clear and present danger of allowing your population of highly stressed and upset citizens, with poor access to health (mental and otherwise) to walk around with powerful firearms (semi or auto, it really doesn’t matter) in a media state that pumps huge amounts of ethno-religious hate speech 24×7 is just asking for events like this.
Finally racism in the US shows a clear delineation of treatment. A simple google shows countless cases of LEO firing on people various ethnicity without warning, without justification, simply due to their ethnicity and holding of a firearm/long arm.
It is beyond any argument or doubt that if the man on the roof was a black man with a long arm he would have been killed long before he got into a firing position.
Time and time again we have seen LEOs fire first and ask questions later when it comes to black men. To the point where they even murdered an Australian woman who was walking around her vehicle because of their parnoia of a black man. Frame that with what happened here and you can see the never ending specter of racial discrimination, deeply embedded in their actions.
Is order breaking down in the US. No it isn’t it. Even when dozens of cities went into mass protests over the murdering of black men the US economy didn’t falter nor did it lead to anarchy and killings (outside of the people LEO killed and injuried in racial attacks on the protesters).
Back to the shooting. Task & Purpose on Youtube did an analysis, showing the distances and elements involved in the shooting. I disagree, as you can see, with T&P’s conclusions that laid this at the feet of the USSS (with their ridiculous argument that women/staffing levels had something to do with this) however for a good visual breakdown of the events, locations, root cause failures (outside of the USSS) you can use this video – https://youtu.be/Ko9FO_vs668?si=nTwJ__ZvaavnCqJE
I agree with the above wholeheartedly. A thorough analysis down to Trump never paying his bills. Thank you.
It’s no coincidence as right-wing propagandists especially on Elon Musk’s Twitter are calling for “Tear it down” of FBI, USSS, etc, that these intentions happen to align with adversaries like Russia, promoting the internal destabilization of the U.S. from within.
USSS has concentric circles of protection and isn’t infinite, and Trump’s unwillingness to pay for many things in the past may have contributed.
State police I imagine would have jurisdiction outside of USSS circles.
I can see what Joseph Fitsanakis is saying about the lack of job satisfaction inside of the USSS and contributing factors.