Six Secret Service agents have been suspended without pay or benefits nearly a year after a gunman attempted to assassinate presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Deputy Director Matt Quinn told CBS News that they “weren’t going to fire [their] way out of this,” but he indicated that the Secret Service is “laser focused on fixing the root cause of the problem.”
The suspensions affect supervisory positions as well as line-level agents with penalties ranging from 10 to 42 days of unpaid leave, in accordance with a federally mandated process.
For nearly a year now, the Secret Service has faced intense criticism for the security failures that allowed gunman Thomas Crooks to open fire on the main stage of a Trump campaign rally in Butler before Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
In the attack, Trump sustained a bullet wound to his right ear while 50-year-old firefighter, husband and father Corey Comperatore was fatally wounded and two other men sustained injuries from gunfire.
Quinn told CBS News that the “Secret Service is totally accountable for Butler,” adding, “Butler was an operational failure and we are focused today on ensuring that it never happens again.”
The agency faced additional criticism following the Butler, Pennsylvania attack when a second assassination attempt on Trump occurred in West Palm Beach, Florida.
That attack was thwarted but then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned shortly afterward after which the agency faced a number of investigations and congressional hearings.
In a 180 page bipartisan report released by a House task force in December, the Secret Service was criticized for failure to coordinate and plan with local law enforcement.
The report also concluded that the Butler assassination attempt was “preventable,” citing “preexisting” leadership and training issues that “created an environment” where security failures were possible.
Quinn indicated that the Secret Service has since introduced a new fleet of military-grade drones and mobile command posts that will streamline communication between officers and allow agents to communicate more effectively.