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The US Secret Service has reportedly placed multiple agents on leave, including the agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office, in the aftermath of an assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
Their leaves comes as the agency’s internal affairs division continues to investigate how a 20-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle was able to fire at the former president during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, grazing his ear and killing one attendee and injuring two others.
“Five or six” agents have been placed on leave as “disciplinary action,” according to MSNBC.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi declined to comment to CBS News about personnel, but told the outlet that the agency’s “mission assurance review is progressing, and we are examining the processes, procedures and factors that led to this operational failure.”
The agency “holds our personnel to the highest professional standards, and any identified and substantiated violations of policy will be investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility for potential disciplinary action,” he added.
In his testimony to members of Congress last month, Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe — who replaced Kimberly Cheatle after she stepped down following growing calls from lawmakers for her resignation — admitted that the agency had failed “on multiple levels.”
“That roofline should’ve been covered,” he said. “We should’ve had more eyes on that.”
He said that “in no way should any state or local agency” that supported Secret Service agents in Butler, Pennsylvania, should “be held responsible for a Secret Service failure.”
During a briefing on August 2, when asked whether any Secret Service members have been suspended or fired, Rowe said that “very thorough” internal disciplinary investigations will ensure that anyone responsible for agency failures “will be held accountable.”
Secret Service will not be able to provide “real-time updates” of any disciplinary actions, he said at the time.
The Independent has requested additional comment.
Recently released body-camera footage from local law enforcement in Pennsylvania suggested that officers had warned Secret Service agents that they needed to secure the building that Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed.
“I f****ing told them they need to post the f****** guys over here,” an officer can be heard saying in the video.
A Secret Service counter sniper assigned to Trump’s detail ultimately fired the single shot that killed Crooks seconds after he started firing into the crowd, roughly 400 feet away from where Trump was speaking.
Trump and his running mate JD Vance, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, now have additional coverage from Secret Service counter snipers staged around their campaign rallies. Trump returned to holding outdoor rallies with bulletproof glass shielding him on the stage.
