Secret Service Snipers Woefully Understaffed, Says DHS Watchdog

The secret service has been in the spotlight in Washington ever since the attempted assassinations of President Trump during his campaign. That is assassinations plural, as two times a radical leftist tried killing the now-President. One of them in Butler, Pennsylvania involved an absolute nobody managing to get onto a shed, and actually take a shot that grazed Trump's ear, then hit and killed firefighter Corey Comperatore in the crowd. The response by the USSS was shaky, at best, and that was the start of the criticism.

Then another attempt involved a radical who lied in wait on Trump's golf course to shoot him. He was eventually scoped out, but only when President Trump was a couple holes away from his location. President Trump promised to reform the agency, among his many assurances. But the overhaul is still in its infancy, and there are new problems emerging.

A Homeland Security watchdog says that the Secret Service counter sniper team is 'chronically understaffed.' One of the biggest issues in the Butler rally incident was video that showed a couple of service agents who clearly had no idea what to do in the given situation.

Former FBI agent and Navy Seal Jonathan Gilliam says DEI initiatives still have a foothold in the agency, despite the effort to get rid of them. That is hurting the ability to get the best of the best.

"With the plethora of snipers that come out of the military, there is no reason they could not be recruiting more people from all aspects of the military," he says.

The watchdog report also details that the agency routinely lied on overtime and personnel to keep sufficient staffing. Counter snipers worked nearly 60,000 hours of overtime in 2024 alone.

Another problem is the age requirements for the Secret Service. You are stuck with stringent requirements and are phased out around age 55. Other agencies do not focus on that. If you are a specialist in your field, then you are hired. Fixing that is a good first step for the agency.

"They need to look at that, and mimic that, and get away from the investigative part of it...that is where a lot of the DEI hires end up coming in, then the protection details end up suffering because you have unqualified people who have never been with the police or military," says Gilliam.

The agency simply became incompetent and was more focused on being woke than it was with actual safety. In the end, we are lucky that Trump, or any other political dignitary, was killed.

"We do not know how many times we have had assassins scope out places...we do not know if they scoped it out but could not get a good shot, we just do not know," Gilliam says.

What we do know is that not once, but two times, rogue shooters got within inches of killing President Trump. That is more than enough evidence the agency needs an overhaul.