Secret Service understaffed

 Newsmax:

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The assassination attempts against President-elect Donald Trump last year reportedly occurred after lawmakers and presidential administrations failed to address weaknesses within the Secret Service during the past decade.

Separate 2014 investigations by the White House and Congress found that the Secret Service was in crisis and pushed beyond its capabilities. Leadership also tended to cover up problems rather than address them, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The result was recommendations that included an increase in agent training and the hiring of fresh leadership.

However, the Post reported that instead of being fixed, some Secret Service problems have grown worse. For example, the agency still lacks a sufficient number of agents. That has led to burnout and low morale, with many veteran agents leaving, the outlet said.

Besides that, the outlet reported agency recruits with five years or less on the job comprise 40% of the service's workforce. In 2015, they made up 13%.

That relative inexperience contributed to the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a "junior" member of Trump's detail, as described by an independent review panel commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, was tasked with developing a security plan for the rally.

The panel found that the agent put in charge of security at Butler had joined the service four years earlier and only joined the protective detail in 2023.

"If an agent with this little experience was responsible for planning Butler, that means there was nobody else," Jonathan Wackrow, a security executive and former supervisor on then-President Barack Obama's Secret Service detail, told the Post.

"Now we are introducing hope as a strategy. And that is just plain dangerous."
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Congress should investigate whether political bias led to the lack of protection for Trump.  It does look like the protective group provided to Trump was inadequately staffed.