Department of Homeland Security investigates Secret Service handling of Trump rally

The Associated Press was the first to report on the investigation.

Officials from the Secret Service, Justice Department and FBI will brief the Senate on the incident starting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, said the office of Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who requested the briefing. This will be followed by a briefing of House members with Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.

The announcement joins a growing list of investigations into the shooting that left one person dead, Trump injured in the ear and seriously wounded. two others were injured. The FBI is leading the criminal investigation, Congress is planning hearings, and President Biden has called for an independent investigation into the shooting and the security situation.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle took responsibility for the security failures that led to the shooting in an interview with ABC News. But the first attack on a US head of state under the protection of the Secret Service since the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981 raises extensive questions about the Secret Service’s planning, strategy and response to the attack.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, climbed to the roof of a building outside the rally’s security perimeter and shot at the former president before a Secret Service sniper killed him. The Washington Post reported that local police snipers were inside the building when the gunman opened fire and that passersby at the rally alerted local police because they saw a man climbing on the roof.

The Secret Service was responsible for the overall security plan, but Cheatle said in an interview that the agency relied on local law enforcement in areas outside the security perimeter, including the building where the shooter was located. She also said they made the decision to keep officers away from the sloped roof because the slope posed a security risk.

“It was decided to secure the building from the inside,” Cheatle said.

Secret Service sniper teams may have initially been unable to spot the gunman as he climbed the roof because of its slanted walls and the surrounding trees, the Post reported.

Cuffari, whose board is responsible for independent oversight and audit of DHS agencies, is a polarizing figure and has faced calls to resign over a range of issues. He has been criticized for not immediately informing Congress that the Secret Service had deleted his text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, and for abandoning efforts to recover the messages, potentially depriving investigators of valuable evidence.

He was also criticized for delaying or censoring reports of domestic violence and sexual misconduct within the DHS.

Cuffari was a longtime investigator in the Justice Department’s inspector general’s field office in Tucson, but left the office in 2013 after an internal investigation accused him of misleading federal investigators. The investigation called for a more thorough review, but Cuffari left the agency before that happened. Trump chose him to join the DHS staff. Inspector General, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote in 2019.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Jacqueline Alemany and Lisa Rein contributed to this report.