Could the Secret Service have stopped the Trump shooting before it started?

When it comes to protecting presidential candidates, former Secret Service agent Melanie Burkholder says it’s all about the details.

Now a small business owner in Carlsbad, Calif., Burkholder described to WORLD how the agency lays the groundwork for security at presidential campaign events, weeks in advance. Campaign events have a shorter lead time than keynote political functions that take months to get ready, such as the Republican National Convention. But even at smaller public outings, the agency’s defense plan turns on logistics.

Burkholder worked a number of rally-like events during the Bush administration.

“Generally, agents, called ‘advance agents,’ go out to the city to the venue, and they do a site assessment, and they work and coordinate with some other agencies, local, state or even federal [law enforcement],” Burkholder told WORLD. “They set up the plan. Where is the protect team moving? What are the vulnerabilities in this area? It’s very detail oriented.”

Drones, infrared imaging, countersurveillance agents in the crowd, and more play a role in the service’s protective schemes.

When Burkholder learned that 20-year old Thomas Crooks took up a position on the roof of a building in full view of bystanders near former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, she couldn’t help but think there must have been some kind of miscommunication.

Crooks used an AR-style rifle to shoot at Trump, whose ear was hit by a bullet. The gunfire killed one rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, and injured two others. Within hours, the attack ignited a firestorm of praise, criticism, and speculation about the Secret Service’s defense of the former president. Onlookers wanted to know: How had a gunman been allowed to get that far?

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., says the question demands a closer look. As a former sniper with the U.S. Army, Mills described Trump’s survival as a miracle to Fox News.

“This is a shot that your basic training boot camp soldier is requested to make within their nine-week period,” Mills said. “This is one of the easiest shots. If you saw someone climbing onto a roof that you hadn’t authorized any clearance on … there should have been [communications]. Secret Service should have rushed the stage then responded with the countersniper. The shot should not have gone off.”

Crooks was 130 yards away, on top of one of the only other buildings in the area. He would have had a clear line of sight to Trump’s speaking position.

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, published a letter addressed to Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas expressing his surprise that anyone could access such a vantage point.

“This raises serious concerns regarding how a shooter was able to access a rooftop within range and direct line of sight of where President Trump was speaking,” Green wrote.

Among other elements, the Homeland Security Committee has requested documentation of the planning for the event, communications from Trump’s security detail, and copies of Secret Service protocol by July 19.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., announced its own plans on Monday for an investigation into the Secret Service’s performance.

After the shooting, rumors spread online that Trump’s security detail previously requested additional resources from the Secret Service and that some of the former president’s normal protection team had been diverted to protect first lady Jill Biden at a separate outing.

Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service, denounced both claims.

“There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former president’s team requested additional security resources and that those were rebuffed. This is absolutely false,” Guglielmi said in an online statement. “We did not divert resources from Trump and protection models don’t work that way.”

Burkholder, the retired agent, also thought those possibilities sounded unlikely. In her experience, the agency does not decide to divert resources from one team to protect another. Burkholder was more troubled that rally attendees spotted the shooter and recorded him on video for a full two minutes ahead of the attack.

“It’s forever in that world,” Burkholder said, “You know how many rounds you can fire from a [semi-automatic rifle] in two minutes? I don’t know where the breakdown of communication occurred. I don’t know why it occurred, but we cannot have this happen the way this happened ever again. We haven’t had anything like that since Reagan.”

Former president Ronald Reagan suffered an assassination attempt in March 1981—the most recent attempt on a president or former president’s life until Saturday’s rally.

When asked about why the countersnipers didn’t take action against Crooks sooner, Burkholder declined to comment on the Secret Services’s specific rules of engagement, citing the classified nature of the agency’s methods. She noted that the Secret Service trains meticulously for precisely this kind of situation. It is an elite group of professionals who are prepared to put themselves in harm’s way if necessary.

“I preface this with [saying] there are a few good things that we did do,” Burkholder said. “It definitely could have been worse. But the whole goal and the whole mission we have is to not have an incident like Saturday. I mean that’s the basis of what we do and why we do it. I think you mark it as a failure even though there were some good things.”