The True Job of the U.S. Secret Service

Identifying threats in advance and neutralizing them is the agency's true mission, NOT conducting sniper shootouts.

As the U.S. Secret Service describes itself on its website:

We are one of America’s oldest federal law enforcement agencies, originally created in 1865 to stamp out rampant counterfeiting in order to stabilize America's young financial system. By the end of the Civil War, nearly one-third of all currency in circulation was counterfeit. As a result, the country’s financial stability was in jeopardy. To address this concern, the Secret Service was established in 1865 as a bureau in the Treasury Department to suppress widespread counterfeiting.

After the assassination of President McKinley in 1901, the Secret Service was tasked with the full-time protection of the President of the United States.  Over time, this protective mission has been expanded by statutory changes, Presidential Decision Directives, Homeland Security Presidential Directives, National Security Presidential Directives, and various Executive Orders.

The Secret Service currently protects 36 protectees—a reduction from the 42 it protected during Donald Trump’s presidency. The agency employs about 8,000 people; this year it received $3.1 billion in congressional funding.

Since 1901, two secret service agents have been killed in the line of duty. William Craig was killed on September 3, 1902, when a trolley car rammed into the open horse-drawn carriage carrying President Roosevelt in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

Leslie Coffelt was killed while defending President Harry Truman against an attempted assassination by Puerto Rican nationalists on November 1, 1950, at Blair House, where the president was living during renovations at the White House.

Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy was wounded during the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

The main reason why so few Secret Service agents have been killed or wounded in the line of duty is because the true job of the agency is to PREVENT shootouts from happening in the first place. Since the Kennedy assassination in 1963, clear procedures have been developed to secure high risk areas around places in which a protectee is scheduled to appear. These procedures are logical and in many respects a matter of common sense. For example, if there is a rooftop 400 feet from a stage on which a presidential candidate is scheduled to speak, elementary procedure calls for securing the rooftop.

“Booth” (John Malkovich) makes no secret of his intention to assassinate the president in the 1993 film, “In the Line of Fire”

Since the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt on former President Trump, there has been a great deal of chatter about counter-snipers and the question of why they didn’t engage Thomas Matthew Crooks before he fired at Trump on the stage.

While this is a fascinating question that is worth investigating, it’s also clear that—to a large degree—if it comes to a shootout, the Secret Service has failed to do its job. Fellow Substack author Sharyl Atkinson just published a detailed timeline of the July 13 incident that appears to be well-sourced and corroborated. The following is an excerpt from the timeline that she assembled:

5pm: Crooks is identified by authorities as a person of interest. He was flagged as acting suspiciously near a screening entrance.

5:10pm: One of two local law enforcement snipers in the AGR building sees Crooks, who seems “suspicious.”

5:14pm: One of the local law enforcement snipers takes at least two photos of crooks. (One of the pictures appears to show Crooks on his phone).

5:28pm: The same police sniper photographs a bicycle and a backpack nearby.

5:32pm: The same police sniper sees Crooks again near the building apparently looking at news feeds on his phone and holding a range finder. Shortly after, the sniper reports the suspect to a group text of other law enforcement snipers on site, and is instructed to report the suspect to “command.”

5:41pm: The same police sniper calls into “command” to report the suspect, and describes the suspect’s appearance, and notes that he has a range finder.

5:45pm: The same police sniper texts the Beaver Emergency Services Group Command about the suspect and instructs them to relay the message to “command,” which includes Secret Service.

5:52pm: Secret Service snipers spot Crooks on the roof.

5:59pm: A Beaver County law enforcement operator receives confirmation from a Butler County SWAT commander that “command,” which includes Secret Service, has been made aware of the messages, and requested more information about the suspect’s location. Trump is not warned or warded off taking the stage.

Law enforcement “loses track” of Crooks.

At some point around this time, Crooks uses an air conditioning unit (or ladder) to climb onto the gently-sloped roof of the building with the local police snipers inside. The building has a direct line of sight to Donald Trump’s podium and is only 133 yards away.

6:02pm: Trump takes the stage.

People in the crowd tell officers that a suspicious man has climbed to the roof of the building. Over the course of several minutes, additional people begin alerting police and pointing to Crooks on the roof.

6:11pm: 

(12 seconds before the shooting) A police officer walks around the building. People start to run away.

An armed police officer climbs on the roof to confront Crooks but loses his grip or lets go when Crooks turns toward him.

(11 seconds before the shooting) Secret Service “acquires target” but does not shoot.

(5 seconds before the shooting) More people yell about the man on the roof with a gun.

(4 seconds before the shooting) More people spot the shooter and yell “Right here!”

Crooks fires at Trump and continues shooting. It’s been well over an hour since Crooks was first identified on site as a suspicious person.

As the above timeline reveals, the Secret Service’s gross mishandling of the suspicious person was an astonishing aggregation of failures that eerily resembles the aggregation of failures to manage the obvious fire hazard that ultimately incinerated the entire seaside town of Lahaina, Maui. In both instances, one is strongly drawn to the conclusion that certain authorities in charge did NOT care about Lahaina nor did they care about Donald Trump. Otherwise they would have taken obvious practical measures to prevent these incidents from happening.