What Trump's assassination attempt may mean for the Secret Service: ANALYSIS

Former President Trump stood on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania at a campaign rally and came face-to-face with the Secret Service’s greatest fear, an assassination attempt. In this case, the shooter was killed by one of the agency's counter snipers while the former president’s detail swarmed Trump, forming a “body bunker” to shield him from the threat, and then moved him to the motorcade and off to a hospital.

From the Secret Service training perspective, one that focuses a lot of time on protecting against and the response to assassination attempts, the detail’s response looked near textbook.

Of course, how and why the shooter was able to even try this type of an attack is the question that will need to be answered so the Secret Service and nation can feel secure during the rest of the 2024 campaign.

Assassins and assassinations have been around since the beginning of time. For the Secret Service, an agency that assumed its protective mission after the assassination of President William McKinley, the agency is widely regarded as the worldwide experts in assassins and mitigating those threats.

Mitigating these types of threats can be difficult, as an assassin only needs one opportunity to make an impact while the Secret Service needs to be 100% correct, 100% of the time. During a presidential campaign, this can include multiple stops (aka: sites) across multiple states in a single day. The Secret Service has to ensure each is safe.

To do this, the Secret Service launches “advance teams” composed of agents and other specialist personnel, to each of these sites in order to assess the security needs and build a security plan. That plan typically includes additional Secret Service personnel, local and state law enforcement officers as well as technical assets that could include K9’s, ballistic armor, helicopters, SWAT teams and if near the water, boats. Once that plan is in place, resource requests are made and the Secret Service surges personnel and materials to each and every site.

For instance, if there are eight sites, the Secret Service has to send a motorcade package of cars to each. All of this coordination occurs with state and local counterparts who also provide input into the security plan, since they are the local experts, and provide additional resources to support the visit. In some places like New York City, the NYPD has tremendous resources to add to a security plan. In other locations, like Butler, Pennsylvania, where the attempted assassination took place, the state police and local departments may have to call in support from neighboring jurisdictions or from across the state.

At the Butler campaign site, the Secret Service worked with its local and state counterparts as well as other federal agencies to develop the security plan, which will now become subject to multiple investigations to determine what worked and what gaps may have occurred. Trump was injured in the shooting, a bystander was killed and two other spectators were wounded.

The Secret Service, along with the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s office will investigate of the site’s security plan and try to identify any gaps, known as a Mission Assurance investigation by the Inspection Division. This same type of investigation is performed after each and every potential security incident the Secret Service is involved in, and often helps them learn and get better.

While the state and federal criminal investigations are undertaken, the Secret Service is sure, as they typically do after an incident, to do a top to bottom review of the security protocols around every protected site and protectee. This will ensure that they identify and address any gaps and increase security protocols wherever they see a need.

In 2019, the last non-pandemic year when President Trump was in office, the Secret Service conducted protective advances for over 7,721 domestic trips and traveled overseas with their protectees during 372 foreign trips with few incidents.

In 2023, the Secret Service covered 33 protectees across 5,245 protectee visits including 343 in foreign countries. Additionally, the agency planned, coordinated, and implemented security for three national special security events, the State of the Union Address, the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit, and the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Through all of that, the agency was 100% incident-free.

So, while things can happen and when they do, the reasons need to be examined and will be addressed.

Donald J. Mihalek is an ABC News contributor, retired senior Secret Service agent and regional field training instructor who served during two presidential transitions. He was also a police officer and served in the U.S. Coast Guard. The opinions expressed in this story are not those of ABC News.