Secret Service places 4 on leave in Trump assassination investigation

The Secret Service has confirmed to multiple news outlets that four agents have been placed on leave following the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The announcement comes as reports multiply of systemic failure at the Secret Service, which paint an ugly picture of an agency in crisis: Secret offshore bank accounts by the 19-year-old would-be assassin; Iranian threats against Trump; missed radio warnings by the Secret Service on the day of the shooting; and documents showing the presidential protection agency may have been distracted by diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The administrative leaves of the four agents follow the resignation of Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle after the July 13 assassination attempt.

Cheatle quit July 23 after she faced a barrage of questions from Congress in testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability about the security failures that led to the attempted murder of the GOP then-presumptive nominee for president.

The head of the Secret Service’s field office in Pittsburgh is one of the suspended agents, according to MSNBC.

Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, in a press conference today, was asked about the agents’ suspensions and whether anyone inside the government could face criminal charges over the assassination attempt. 

“I don’t know anything about the particular disciplinary actions that are being taken,” he said. “I think the most I can say is what Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the acting director of the Secret Service have said, which is, this was a security failure, and there is both an internal and an external, independent investigation of what happened that the Secretary of Transportation has set up, and there’s a congressional task force on the same subject, and hopefully they – and I know that they will – provide lessons learned to prevent such failure from happening in the future.” 

Fox News has reported that a threat to Trump emanating from Iran was relayed to the Secret Service before the Butler rally, leaving people to wonder why Trump’s protective detail went forward with the event. 

The Epoch Times has reported that the now-deceased shooter, Thomas Crooks, had bank accounts in Belgium, New Zealand, and Germany, according to Rep. Michael Waltz, a Republican from Florida, who serves on the task force investigating the assassination attempt.