Events That Led to Close Call on Trump’s Life Were Preventable, Committee Finds

A House task force report included detailed accounts from law enforcement at the Butler, Pa., rally, including an officer who confronted the gunman.

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“The tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened,” a House task force’s report said.

The House task force on the attempted assassinations of former President Donald J. Trump released its first preliminary report Monday, chastising the Secret Service for poor planning and a communications breakdown that resulted in a fatal shooting at Mr. Trump’s rally in Butler, Pa.

“Put simply, the evidence obtained by the task force to date shows the tragic and shocking events of July 13 were preventable and should not have happened,” the report said.

The 53-page bipartisan report is based on 23 interviews with local law enforcement officials who assisted with security at the rally, thousands of pages of documents from local, state and federal authorities, and testimony from the task force’s public hearing on Sept. 26.

Its findings largely hew to the conclusions of three other recent investigations. A Senate inquiry found that no one was in charge of planning and security decisions for the July 13 campaign rally where Mr. Trump was shot; an independent panel reviewing the failures that led to the attempted assassination called on the Secret Service to replace its leadership with people from the private sector and focus almost exclusively on its protective mission; and the Secret Service’s own internal investigation found that complacency had set in among some of the agents charged with securing the rally site.

The Secret Service has said it accepts responsibility for those mistakes and has pledged changes, including better training, improved technology and proper accountability for the agents who failed in their duty.

The new House report includes excerpts from testimony from Butler, Pa., law enforcement officials to the task force. It provides a glimpse into the Secret Service’s inadequate preparation and communication with local law enforcement before and during the July 13 rally at which a gunman opened fire, injuring Mr. Trump’s ear and killing an attendee.

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