Hearing on Trump assassination attempts says Pennsylvania failure was by Secret Service

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of a bipartisan House task force investigating the Trump assassination attempts emphasized during their first hearing Thursday that the Secret Service, not local authorities, was responsible for the failures in planning and communications that led to a gunman being able to open fire on former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.

Lawmakers repeatedly questioned why the agency tasked with protecting the country's top leaders didn't do a better job communicating with local authorities during the July 13 rally, particularly when it came to securing the building that was widely agreed to be a security threat but that ultimately was left so unprotected that gunman Thomas Michael Crooks was able to climb up and open fire on Trump.

“In the days leading up to the rally, it was not a single mistake that allowed Crooks to outmaneuver one of our country’s most elite group of security professionals. There were security failures on multiple fronts,” said the Republican co-chair of the committee, Rep. Mike Kelly from Pennsylvania.

“It is also clear, however, that the communication between the Secret Service and local and state partners was disjointed and unclear,” said Rep. Jason Crow, the ranking Democrat on the panel, who also praised the local law enforcement.

Trump was wounded and a man attending the rally with his family was killed.

The panel — comprised of seven Republicans and six Democrats — has spent the last two months analyzing the security failures at the rally, conducting nearly two dozen interviews with law enforcement and receiving more than 2,800 pages of documents from the Secret Service.

The lawmakers are also investigating a second assassination attempt on Trump that happened earlier this month where a man with a rifle sought to assassinate the GOP presidential nominee while he was playing golf at one of his golf courses in southern Florida.

But the hearing Thursday largely focused on the rally shooting with testimony from Pennsylvania and Butler County police officials.

The Secret Service often relies on local authorities to secure bigger events where protectees like Trump appear around the country. But after the Butler rally, the agency was heavily criticized for failing to clearly communicate what it needed from those local agencies that day.

One key question has been why there were no law enforcement personnel on top of the AGR building where Crooks eventually climbed up and took his shots, considering that it was so close to the rally stage and afforded a clear line of sight to Trump.

"A 10-year old looking at that satellite image could have seen that the greatest threat posed to the president that day” was the building near the stage, said Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas.

Edward Lenz, commander for the Butler County Emergency Services Unit who was in charge of the local tactical units operating at the Butler rally, said his agency was never asked to put a sniper team on top of the roof and never said that they would. Lenz said the Secret Service knew their shooters were inside the AGR Building and there was no “feedback or guidance” from the Secret Service that they wanted the team anywhere else.

“They knew where we would be,” Lenz said. "They knew what our plan was.”

Lenz also testified that Secret Service officials did not check with him or his team to make sure they were in place before Trump went on stage and that the emergency communication for July 13 had not been worked out in advance.

Drew Blasko, an assistant team leader of the sniper unit within the Butler Township Emergency Services Unit, testified that he shared his concerns about the building with the Secret Service ahead of the rally and said his team didn’t have the manpower to post anyone there. He said he asked the Secret Service that additional people be posted there and was told "that they would take care of it.”

Some of the witnesses also said that there had been discussions ahead of time about using opaque screens or large farm equipment to block the line of sight to the stage, but it's not clear what happened to those suggestions.

Lawmakers struggled in their questioning Thursday to get witnesses to zero in on a single individual or moment that led to the assassination attempt. Local police officials and a retired Secret Service agent also testifying instead pointed to a series of incidents and mistakes that ultimately allowed Crooks to remain undeterred for a prolonged period of time and eventually take his shot at the former president.

“Communication was totally lacking here," said Rep. Correa, a Democrat from California. “What went wrong? Who’s in charge?”

Thursday’s session was the fourth congressional hearing about the Butler shooting since July. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned one day after she appeared before a congressional hearing where she was berated for hours by both Democrats and Republicans for the agency’s security failures.

Cheatle called the Pennsylvania attempt on Trump’s life the Secret Service’s “most significant operational failure” in decades, but she angered lawmakers by failing to answer specific questions about the investigation.

An interim report Wednesday from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is also conducting an investigation, said the Secret Service failed to give clear instructions on how state and local officials should cover the building where the gunman eventually took up position. The report also said the agency didn’t make sure it could share information with local partners in real-time.

The Secret Service has also released a five-page document summarizing the key conclusions of a yet-to-be-finalized agency report on what went wrong in Butler. Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe has said that the agency is ultimately responsible for what happened, and during a news conference last week to announce the results of that report he cited complacency by the agency's staff and said that they needed to do a better job communicating with local and state officials.

The House panel is expected to propose a series of legislative reforms and issue its own final report before Dec. 13.

While the oversight investigations have been bipartisan, Democrats and Republicans have disagreed on whether to give the Secret Service more money in the wake of its failures. A government funding bill that passed Wednesday includes an additional $231 million for the agency, even though many Republicans were skeptical and said an internal overhaul of the Secret Service is needed.

Chairman Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., leads the first public hearing of a bipartisan congressional task force investigating the assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)

From left, Sgt. Edward Lenz, Commander of Butler County Emergency Services Unit, Patrolman Drew Blasko of Butler Township Police Department, Lt. John Herold of Pennsylvania State Police, and former U.S. Secret Service agent Patrick Sullivan, testify at the first public hearing of a bipartisan congressional task force investigating the assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Patrolman Drew Blasko of Butler Township Police Department, testifies at the first public hearing of a bipartisan congressional task force investigating the assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, at Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

From left, Sgt. Edward Lenz, Commander of Butler County Emergency Services Unit, Patrolman Drew Blasko of Butler Township Police Dept., Lt. John Herold of Pennsylvania State Police, and former U.S. Secret Service agent Patrick Sullivan, swear in at the first public hearing of a bipartisan congressional task force investigating the assassination attempts against Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, at Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., walks to the chamber for the final votes of the week, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. Days after a gunman was arrested on former President Donald Trump's golf course, the House on Friday overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation 405-0 to require the agency use the same standards when assigning agents to major presidential candidates as they do presidents and vice presidents. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy huddled with U.S. leaders on Thursday to shore up American support for his country's fight against Russia as the war faces a partisan reckoning in this year's presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, has pledged to continue sending military assistance to Ukraine if she's elected. She'll have her own meeting with Zelenskyy after the Ukrainian leader sits down with President Joe Biden, who announced billions of dollars more in missiles, drones, ammunition and other supplies. The weapons include an additional Patriot missile defense battery and a new shipment of glide bombs that can be deployed from Western fighter jets, increasing their strike range.

“The United States will provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win this war,” Biden said in a statement, pledging to ensure that all approved funding is disbursed before he leaves office. He also said he would convene a meeting with other world leaders focused on Ukraine's defense during a visit to Germany next month.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy's tumultuous relationship with former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, continued to deteriorate this week. Instead of meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump criticized him. As for U.S. support for Ukraine, Trump complained that “we continue to give billions of dollars to a man who refuses to make a deal" to end the war. His message dovetails with Russian propaganda that claims intransigence by Kyiv — not aggression from Moscow — has prolonged the bloodshed.

It's the most politically treacherous landscape that Zelenskyy has encountered in Washington since Russia invaded nearly three years ago. Ukrainian officials are anxious to maintain good relations with whomever becomes the next president of the United States, which is its biggest and most important provider of arms, money and other support.

But the effort risks slipping into the political blender of the presidential campaign, polarizing the discussion around a war that used to be a bipartisan cause célèbre in Washington. About two thirds of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine, compared with one third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in July.

Americans are also split on which presidential candidate would do a better job handling the war. An AP-NORC poll from August found that about one-third of Americans said they trusted Harris more, while a similar share said the same about Trump.

Zelenskyy is expected to present Biden with a plan to push the war toward an endgame that would involve a negotiated settlement with Russia. He's trying to secure leverage before Biden leaves office — including acquiescence to fire long-range Western weapons deeper into Russia — as a hedge against the possibility that American support erodes after the election.

On Thursday, Zelenskyy found some bipartisan support as he visited Capitol Hill, where he was greeted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Zelenskyy asked to use long-range weapons, such as British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles or U.S.-made ATACMS, for “maximum benefit to bring (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to the table” and increase Ukraine's negotiating position.

"If we don’t make that fundamental choice this week, I think the outcome for Ukraine is dire,” Graham said.

Administration officials have been skeptical of Zelenskyy's request, believing the weapons could have limited benefits but increase the risk of escalating the conflict. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said senators gave Zelenskyy advice on how to persuade Biden to loosen restrictions.

Rep. Jim Himes, another Connecticut Democrat and the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Zelenskyy wanted “more, faster.”

“He was politely frustrated," Himes said, and specifically requested more Patriot missile defenses as Russia escalates strikes on Ukraine's cities and energy grid before the winter.

Despite support from some Republicans on Capitol Hill, Zelenskyy faces a much more tense situation with Trump. The latest round of sniping started on Sunday, when The New Yorker published an interview with Zelenskyy in which he criticized JD Vance, Trump's running mate, as “too radical” for suggesting that Ukraine needs to give up some territory to end the war. Zelenskyy also dismissed Trump's boasts that he could quickly negotiate a solution, saying “my feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how.”

On the same day, Zelenskyy toured a Pennsylvania factory producing munitions for the war. He was joined by Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, a top surrogate for Harris, and Republicans criticized the visit as a political stunt in a political battleground state.

House Speaker Mike Johnson demanded that Zelenskyy fire the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., alleging that the tour was “designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference.” The Louisiana Republican didn't attend any of lawmakers' meetings with Zelenskyy on Thursday.

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Zelenskyy is in a “no-win situation" where he “can’t even visit a U.S. weapons manufacturer to say thank you without being attacked.”

Zelenskyy's trip to Washington coincides with the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where the Ukrainian leader spoke on Wednesday. Last week, Trump said he would “probably” meet with Zelenskyy while he was in the U.S., but a senior campaign official said there was never a meeting on the books.

The official, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations, said Trump had told Zelenskyy back in July that it would probably be better not to sit down together until after the election. A Zelenskyy aide did not respond to questions about the potential meeting.

Trump was impeached during his first term over asking Zelenskyy for help investigating Biden, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, at a time when the Ukrainian leader was seeking support from Washington.

Now there are fears that Trump would cut off or add strings to U.S. military assistance if he returned to the White House. Trump has also spoken admiringly about Putin, and this week he praised Russia's record of winning wars.

Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump is not wrong to want a negotiated end to the war. However, he said, Trump risks undermining Ukraine by enabling Putin to make more gains on the battlefield.

“Neither Ukraine nor Russia is going to win this war, and the sooner that the parties try to end this, the better," Kupchan said. "Where Trump goes off course, and where Biden and Harris have a much stronger argument, is that we get to that point not by throwing Ukraine under the bus but by giving them sufficient support so they can block further Russian aggression.”

Zelenskyy can expect a far different tone from Harris, who met with him in Munich just days before Russia invaded.

During her debate with Trump earlier this month, Harris expressed pride in U.S. support for Ukraine's “righteous defense."

“If Donald Trump were president, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now,” she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, walks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he arrives for a briefing with lawmakers about the war effort against Russia, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, gestures with his hand over his heart after a closed meeting with lawmakers in the House of Representatives about the war effort against Russia, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, walks with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as he arrives for a briefing with lawmakers about the war effort against Russia, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President Joe Biden speaks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrives to address the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024, at the UN headquarters. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Zelenskyy is visiting the White House as a partisan divide grows over Ukraine war

Zelenskyy is visiting the White House as a partisan divide grows over Ukraine war