YoWAS A A shocking security lapse: How was a sniper able to climb onto an unprotected rooftop with a direct line of sight to Donald Trump, who was just 150 metres away? From video footage, Trump appears to have come within millimetres of death, saved by a lucky turn of his head just before he was shot by Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-something from Pennsylvania. Crooks killed a rally-goer before being shot dead himself.
Now the Secret Service, the agency responsible for protecting former presidents and their families as well as major presidential candidates, is in the proverbial line of fire. “An incident like this cannot happen,” said Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, who called it a “failure.” Lawmakers plan to question Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on July 22 and conduct an investigation into the “inexcusable” violation at Trump’s rally. The agency will augment the former president’s team and assign one to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a third-party candidate whose father was assassinated while seeking the Democratic nomination in 1968. What is the Secret Service, and what explains its glaring failure?
The Secret Service took its modern form in the early 20th century. Before that, the idea that a president had to have a government security detail was considered royal trappings; there was a Secret Service, but it was in charge of confiscating counterfeit money. The assassination of William McKinley in 1901 (the third president to be assassinated in the space of 36 years) changed opinions, and the Secret Service was given its current mandate. McKinley’s successor, Teddy Roosevelt, called his guards a “thorn in the flesh,” albeit a “necessary thorn” (he survived a gunshot wound).
