Secret Center Counter Sniper The staff crisis threatens protection, IG says

The team of Elite Service elite shooters is under-effective, endangering the security of American leaders as the president, according to a new report as an inspector general.

The report occurs a little more than a year after the countered elite shooter team released the shooter who opened fire on President Donald Trump in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and as the agency inaugurated a series of reforms in response to the assassination attempt.

The Inspector General of the Ministry of Internal Security determined that the team of elite secrets of the secret services is equipped with 73% below the level necessary to meet the requirements of the mission and has no adequate pipeline to hire more.

Trump Butler’s secret service team failed several basic protocols before the assassination attempt, reveal the documents

The team of Elite Service elite shooters is under-effective, endangering the security of American leaders as the president, according to a new report as an inspector general. (Images Andrew Harnik / Getty)

“The lack of personnel appropriately could limit the capacity of the secret services to properly protect the most senior leaders in our country, to risk injuries or assassinations, and national damage at the national level and security level,” the report was published on Friday.

Meanwhile, the demand for elite shooters is increasing. Events that the team of elite shooters supported 151% of the calendar year 2020 to 2024, even if the staff increased only by 5% over this period, according to the report.

Consequently, the watchdog recommended that the agency are running a plan to strengthen the staffing of staff to meet the endowment requirements for elite shooters. The secret services agree, according to the report.

The secret services declared in a statement to Fox News Digital that he worked to comply, and that “significant progress had already been made for the recruitment of specialized teams and the retention of highly qualified personnel, such as elite shooters”.

“These efforts are designed to expand our capacity and strengthen the agency’s capacity to guarantee a lasting and mission workforce is still ready,” a spokesman for the secret service in Fox News Digital said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the agency has already directed a series of reforms after the assassination attempt against Trump in 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania.

For example, a working group on the Bipartite house that investigated the attack revealed that the assassination attempt was “preventable” and concluded that various errors were not an isolated incident.

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President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump Board Air Force on July 11, 2025, with a base Andrews, Md., On the way to Texas. (The Associated Press)

Among the errors found, the report concluded that the secret services did not guarantee a “high risk zone” next to the rally, the American glass research fields (AGR) and the construction complex.

The fact of not securing this area “finally allowed the crooks to escape the police, to climb and cross the roof of the AGR complex and to open fire”.

The former acting director of the secret services, Ronald Rowe, told legislators in December 2024 that immediate changes to the agency after the assassination attempt of Pennsylvania included the widening of the use of drones for surveillance purposes and the integration of more important counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones.

Changes in the secret services The agency made a post-Trump assassination attempt

President Donald Trump raises his blood on his face during a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show Inc. on July 13, 2024. (Getty)

The agency has also revised its radio communications networks and the interoperability of these networks with the staff of the secret service and agents of the law enforcement and local, Rowe told legislators.

“The reforms made in last year are only the start, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, examine the recommendations and make additional changes if necessary,” the secret services said in a press release in July.