(WASHINGTON) — More than a year after a Secret Service counter sniper team killed a would-be assassin targeting President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, a report from the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General found the team faces “chronic understaffing.”
“The United States Secret Service’s (Secret Service) Counter Sniper Team (CS) is staffed 73 percent below the level necessary to meet mission requirements,” the inspector general’s report says. “Failure to appropriately staff CS could limit the Secret Service’s ability to properly protect our Nation’s most senior leaders, risking injury or assassination, and subsequent national-level harm to the country’s sense of safety and security.”
The Secret Service does not have an effective process to hire counter snipers, the IG found; all the while, the demand for them increased 151% from 2020 to 2024.
It takes about three years from the time a uniformed Secret Service officer joins the agency to when they can join the counter sniper team, according to the IG.
Counter snipers who missed mandatory weapons training supported 47 of the 426 events (11%) attended by protectees in calendar year 2024, the inspector general found.
Those events included events attended by then-President Joe Biden, including the wake for Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson in Dallas on Jan. 8, 2024, a campaign reception in New York on Feb. 7, 2024, and when he delivered remarks in Manchester, New Hampshire on March 11, 2024.
The United States Secret Service has 344 protectees and supported 5,141 protective visits (4,723 domestic, 337 foreign, and 81 U.S. territorial), and its budget is about $1.2 billion to support protectees, according to the IG.
While the number of total counter snipers was redacted, the IG found that during the 2024 campaign, the Secret Service would sometimes rely on other components’ counter snipers. For example, when the president is visiting a site, a Secret Service counter sniper team would automatically be assigned, but if it was for another protectee, the Secret Service might assign another component’s team or rely on state and local support because of the staffing issues, the IG found.
In an August 2024 letter, the acting deputy director of ICE asked for Homeland Security Investigations Special Response teams to be embedded with the counter sniper teams to better cover residences in Palm Beach, Florida, and Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
The Secret Service agreed with the inspector general’s assessment of the counter sniper team and are working on hiring more officers to become counter snipers.
Derek Mayer, the former deputy special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Chicago field office, told ABC News that after the Butler incident the Secret Service realized it must be more self-sufficient and not rely on local and state entities to provide specialized units and assets for specific needs.
“One of these specific needs are their counter snipers deployed not only at the White House but at protective sites,” he said. “A primary focus of the Secret Service right now is on recruitment and hiring. This will allow for the Secret Service to hire the best possible candidates and prepare for the future and the 2028 campaign. “
Mayer said law enforcement had trouble recruiting candidates after the summer of 2020, but that has now changed and the “Secret Service continues to be a leader in law enforcement recruitment and has many strategies in place to account for the deficiencies in hiring the last five years.”
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