Donald Trump was in the middle of a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13, when he was interrupted by several gunshots. The former president and Republican candidate for the American presidential election, injured in the ear, was immediately knocked to the ground and evacuated by agents of the American Secret Service, an organization responsible for the security of presidents and former presidents.
Two days later, many questions still surround the shooting: what were the shooter’s motivations? But also, how did he manage to find himself within shooting range of a former American president surrounded by bodyguards? As the Republican convention in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) begins this Monday, July 15, the Secret Service, which said it was “totally ready” to guarantee the security of the event, is the subject of much criticism across the Atlantic.
Created in 1865 as a bureau of the Treasury Department to combat counterfeiting, the United States Secret Service today provides security for “the President, the Vice President, their families, the White House, the Vice President’s residence, visiting foreign heads of state, former Presidents of the United States and their spouses, and events of national importance.” The service also has a mission of financial investigations and combating cybercrime.
The safety device in question
Did he fail, then, in letting an armed man get so close to Donald Trump? According to Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, the shooter, later shot by agents, was “in an elevated position outside the rally venue,” a building less than 150 meters from the former president, who should therefore have, according to the American daily New York Times be “secured by local law enforcement,” since it is outside the Secret Service’s perimeter. “We’re not looking at a skyscraper,” Robert E. McDonald, a lecturer at the University of New Haven who spent twenty years in the Secret Service, told the media. “If someone is up there, they should be able to send law enforcement officers to check it out.”
The Secret Service spokesman also told X that rumors that “a member of the former president’s team requested additional security resources and that they were rejected” by the agency were “absolutely false.” “In fact, we have added resources, technologies and protective capabilities as part of the increased tempo of travel for the campaign,” he said.
However, according to media reports, like the BBCsome witnesses say they alerted security at the meeting, without success. At the press conference, FBI agent Kevin Rojek, quoted by Reutersmeanwhile, found the number of shots fired by the attacker “surprising.” According to the Associated Press, a sniper team, dubbed “Hercules,” was also present at the time of the incident.
“There must be a thorough investigation into this serious security breach,” Richard Painter, a former senior White House legal official and law professor at the University of Minnesota, said on X, also calling for better gun laws in the United States.
House of Representatives Investigation
Mike Johnson, Speaker of the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, has just announced that the task forces will call representatives from the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI for hearings. Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, is scheduled to testify on July 22.
According to information from the Washington PostMark Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, requested documents and details regarding the security plan for Trump’s rally, expressing “serious concerns about how a shooter was able to gain access to a rooftop within range and direct line of sight of where President Trump was speaking.”
On Sunday evening, Joe Biden also said he had “ordered an independent national security review of yesterday’s rally to assess exactly” what happened. According to the New York Timesthis directive should “strengthen the examination of the agency’s decisions and possible failures”.