At least five Secret Service agents have been placed on modified duty after the July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
They include the special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh field office and three other agents assigned to that office, who were in charge of security planning for the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to police with direct knowledge of the matter. One of the five agents was assigned to Trump’s protective detail, the official said.
The official was not authorized to publicly disclose details of the personnel investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The agents are on leave, which means they cannot perform investigative or protective work.
Multiple investigations have been launched as officials look into a complicated law enforcement failure that allowed a man with an AR rifle to get close enough to shoot and injure Trump at the rally.
Trump was hit in the ear but avoided serious injury. One bystander was killed and two others were injured.
The shooting was a devastating failure of one of the agency’s core missions and led to the resignation of the Secret Service’s director at the time, Kim Cheatle.
At a congressional hearing after the assassination attempt, Cheatle admitted that the Secret Service was told of a suspect two to five times before the shooting. She also revealed that the roof from which Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally.
Acting Secret Service chief Ronald Rowe Jr., who took over after Cheatle’s departure, has said he “can’t defend why that roof wasn’t better secured.”
Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.
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