July 13 (UPI) -- Federal security officials received key information about an assassination attempt on President Donald Trump when a gunman's bullet grazed Trump's ear at a rural Pennsylvania campaign rally last summer, a Government Accountability Office report shows.
The report, commissioned by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Secret Service received tips on the attempted assassination at least 10 days prior to the incident in Butler County, Penn., "but failed to relay the information to federal and local law enforcement personnel responsible for securing and staffing the event," a report released by the Senate Judiciary Committee said.
The report said the Secret Service had no process in place to share the information.
"As an important step, I allocated $1.17 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill to provide the Secret Service with additional funding," Grassley said in a release regarding the report. "I'm hopeful this significant injection of resources will go a long way in bringing the agency up to speed."
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Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheadle had said there was no information made available leading up to the attack one year ago, but Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said that was not true.
"She did not tell the truth," Paul said during an appearance on the CBS News program Face the Nation. "She said there were no assets that were requested in advance. We found at least four occasions, actually, maybe five occasions, where requests were made. The primary request that was made by both Trump's Secret Service detail, as well as his campaign was for counter-snipers."
Paul contended that there was "plenty of time to take him off the stage" based on the information that was available. He said a report of a suspicious person with a range-finder equipped weapon turned out to be the shooter who made the attempt on Trump's life.
The GAO report said the site agent responsible for identifying vulnerabilities was new to her job and that the Butler County rally was the first time she had planned and secured a large, outdoor event.
