Secret Service Under Tight Scrutiny After Trump Rally Shooting

While the investigation is still in its early stages, law enforcement experts told Business Insider that the historic shooting will certainly prompt a major review of Secret Service procedures.

Matt Shoemaker, a former intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, even called the shooting a “major failure” of the Secret Service.

“I’ve been to these kinds of events before, and there are layers of security,” Shoemaker said. “So, the shooter is on the roof of the building, with a clear shot at the podium — it’s astonishing to say that this was ignored.”

Kenneth Valentine, a former Secret Service Special Agent who served under three presidents, agrees.

“There needs to be a full investigation into how someone got a bullet to safety,” Valentine told Business Insider. “Any time someone you’re protecting is taken out of an event with a gunshot wound, the word failure comes up in the conversation, and you have to really acknowledge it and figure out what we’re going to do differently, and better.”

Trump said in a post on Truth Social hours after the 6:15 p.m. shooting that a bullet had hit him above his right ear. In video footage of the shooting, the former president was seen holding his bloodied face in his hands and then raising his fist in triumph as he was escorted off the stage by Secret Service.

A Secret Service spokesperson directed Business Insider to a public statement posted by the federal agency on social media and declined to answer specific questions about the incident.

U.S. Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, in a post on X, wrote that the suspected shooter “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside” where former President Trump’s rally was taking place.

“The U.S. Secret Service immediately responded with protective measures, and the former president is safe and being evaluated,” Guglielmi’s statement continued, noting that the FBI had been notified of the shooting.

In a separate statement, the FBI indicated it would lead the investigation. An FBI representative did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment.

In a news conference shortly after midnight, FBI special agent Kevin Rojek noted it was “very surprising” that the shooter managed to fire several rounds before being neutralized by the Secret Service.

The increased attention on the Secret Service prompted Guglielmi to deny rumors that the agency had turned down requests from the Trump team for additional security resources.

“There is an incorrect statement that one of the former President’s team members requested additional security resources and that request was denied,” Guglielmi said. statementshared with X on Sunday, reads. “This is simply not true. In fact, we are adding resources & technology & protection capabilities as part of increasing the tempo of the campaign.”

Secret Service representatives were not present at the press conference to respond to questions about the incident.

Shoemaker told BI that the shooter’s whereabouts appeared to be “unknown,” despite a firsthand account from a witness who told the BBC that he saw and tried to alert authorities to the presence of a man with a rifle on a rooftop near the demonstration site.

“Maybe they didn’t pay much attention. Maybe they did take it seriously, but there wasn’t enough time before the shots rang out,” Shoemaker said. “But the fact that the shots were fired — that the only thing that saved the Secret Service at this point was the fact that President Trump wasn’t killed, which means that they were relying on sheer luck that the person they were protecting wasn’t killed — if they were relying on luck, that means there was a problem and that means there was a failure somewhere.”

Shoemaker is not alone in his assessment that the shooting will prompt a major overhaul of Secret Service policies and procedures.

Valentine told Business Insider that he expected the investigation to uncover any failure to follow established security or communication protocols. He noted that, in his estimation, the Secret Service failed when the shooter managed to get to the roof of a nearby building — before he could open fire.

“This methodology has been around for a long time, and it’s been very effective,” Valentine said. “My question is, was the methodology and the protocols for implementing that methodology followed yesterday — and I think that’s what the investigation will show.”

Ken Gray, a retired FBI agent and professor in the department of criminal justice at the University of New Haven, told Business Insider that, given the fact that the shooter was outside a cleared rally, he expects future events will need to “expand the perimeter of the safe zone or move it indoors.”

However, Gray noted that it was “too early to make a judgment” about whether the incident should be considered a complete security failure, especially given the amount of unconfirmed information circulating about the shooting online.

Criticism of the Secret Service’s capacity to protect Trump continued to circulate online in the days after the shooting.

Among the most prominent critics was Tesla CEO Elon Musk — who, for the first time since the incident, publicly endorsed Trump. Musk in a series of posts sharply criticized the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, who previously served as chief of security for the soft drink company Pepsi before leading the Secret Service.

“So before he was assigned to protect the PRESIDENT, he guarded a bag of Cheetos…” Musk wrote in a post on X that included screenshots of his biography and work history.

The Trump campaign, as well as the Republican National Committee, have indicated that the party’s convention planned for Milwaukee this week will go ahead in the wake of the shooting at the rally. It’s unclear if any modifications will be made to security procedures at the event.

More visible investigations and security measures

Shoemaker said he expects to see bulletproof glass surrounding the former president at future public appearances, as well as more prominent use of drones for aerial surveillance at his events.

“I would hope that at least a preliminary report of the basic findings would be released in the next 48 to 72 hours,” Shoemaker said. “If they take longer than that, it raises a lot of questions, just in terms of what the problem is — is it that they don’t have enough expertise to investigate this?”

Valentine isn’t confident the investigation will end anytime soon, telling Business Insider that, despite intense pressure on the FBI to quickly reveal the cause of the security failures, he anticipates they will be “slow and methodical” in their approach.

“All of those radio transmissions are going to be recorded, so it’s all there for investigation,” Valentine said. “It should be very transparent — and frankly, I don’t think it’s a difficult thing to investigate. It should be clear what happened from point to point, and then we can assess what caused the damage, and then who needs to own up to it, and who needs to be held accountable for it.”

Going forward, Valentine said, he expects Secret Service agents to adhere to established security protocols more stringently — though he anticipates that Trump will soon appear at more public events, despite the risks.

Valentine added that his colleagues who remain in the Secret Service have told him they are “frustrated” after the fatal shooting. While he said the failure lies “entirely with the Secret Service,” he stressed that the small agency often lacks the resources to properly manage the enormous risks it must address and that agents take such failures personally.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X that the House would investigate the “tragic events” that occurred at the rally.

“The American people deserve to know the truth,” Johnson wrote. “We will ask Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and other relevant officials from DHS and the FBI to appear before our committees as soon as possible.”