Inspector general issues report on Secret Service’s handling of Jan. 6 attack

The Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog Thursday issued its long-awaited findings on the Secret Service’s handling of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying the protective agency had looked into the possibility of protests but “did not anticipate” the level of violence that occurred that day, according to a copy of the report sent to Congress and obtained by The Washington Post.

The report said the Secret Service did not sweep the bushes at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington, where a pipe bomb had been placed the night before. The explosive did not detonate, but Kamala Harris, then the vice president-elect, had walked within 20 feet of the device, the report said.

The report praised agents for safeguarding top officials that day but also said it could improve communication with law enforcement and other procedures.

“Although it did not anticipate or plan for the level of violence that ultimately occurred that day, the Secret Service took actions to respond to and mitigate the threats it encountered and avoid any harm to its protectees,” the 82-page report said.

The report from the office of Inspector General Joseph Cuffari is based on interviews with more than 100 Secret Service personnel and over 183,000 emails and attachments as well as video footage from the agency.

The recommendations in the report urged the Secret Service to update its working agreement with the U.S. Capitol Police to ensure they have adequate support. The office also urged the agency to improve protocols for bomb sweepings and ordnance removal, and to ensure adequate procedures are in place for conducting internal reviews.

The report also recommended that the Secret Service develop protocols so that it could more quickly dispatch agents to support local law enforcement in case of an emergency such as Jan. 6.

Cuffari’s office sent the report to Congress but had not posted it on the agency’s website as of Thursday evening. His office did not immediately respond to questions about the report.

The Department of Homeland Security urged Cuffari’s office to make the report public.

“DHS communicated to the independent DHS Office of the Inspector General Wednesday evening and again Thursday morning our request that the IG release to the American public the same report provided to Congress,” spokeswoman Naree Ketudat said in a statement.

In a response included in the report, the Secret Service agreed with most of the OIG’s recommendations but said it could not commit to providing emergency aid to other law enforcement because that could compromise “its foremost responsibility to protect the White House and the President” as well as others in the region.

In one of her final acts as head of the agency, Director Kimberly Cheatle last month wrote Cuffari that she was pleased he acknowledged the agency’s efforts to protect the president, the vice president and other leaders, and to support the Capitol Police.

“The Secret Service is proud of the actions its dedicated personnel took on January 6, 2021, to prevent any harm to our protectees, actions that we remain committed to performing each and every day under any and all circumstances,” she wrote June 25.

She resigned July 23, days after the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

The report was in response to the assault on the Capitol by supporters of Trump, who were attempting to overthrow the 2020 election won by Joe Biden. The report does not highlight security failures that might have prevented the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, the Republican nominee for president in the November election.

The Secret Service is facing multiple investigations into its security failures during the rally in Pennsylvania. The DHS watchdog is also investigating that attack. Lawmakers and others have demanded answers about why a gunman was able to climb atop a roof and fire at Trump, who was wounded. A rally attendee was killed and two others were seriously injured.

Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe on Tuesday told a joint Senate committee that he was “ashamed” that his agency did not secure the rooftop.

The service — an elite agency charged with protecting nearly 40 U.S. leaders, their relatives and foreign dignitaries — has been praised for its agents’ selfless bravery in putting themselves in harm’s way to protect officials and safeguard democracy.

But the agency also has had embarrassing incidents, including its failure to intercept threats and a 2012 scandal in Colombia when agents arranging a presidential trip brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms. In 2014, an armed security guard with an arrest record was allowed to share an elevator with President Barack Obama during a visit to Atlanta.

In 2014, an independent panel urged major changes at the Secret Service, calling for the appointment of an outsider as director and the hiring of hundreds of new agents and officers.

In 2015, a bipartisan report by the House Oversight Committee found that the Secret Service had a staffing crisis and an insular culture that resisted change.

The report follows years of allegations that Cuffari bungled the Secret Service probe.

Cuffari did not immediately inform Congress that the Secret Service had erased its text messages from the time of the Capitol attack, costing investigators possible evidence.

The Post has reported that Cuffari’s office halted his own office’s efforts to recover the text messages. He also opened a criminal investigation and ordered the Secret Service to halt efforts to retrieve the messages.

An independent panel under the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency has been investigating multiple allegations against Cuffari since 2021, including his handling of the Secret Service probe, court records show. The panel is also investigating allegations that he led partisan investigations and retaliated against whistleblowers.

His office paid nearly $1.2 million last year to settle a wrongful termination suit from his former deputy, Jennifer Costello, who said she was fired after denouncing Cuffari for delaying a report on the Trump administration’s widely condemned migrant family separation policy on the southern border, according to the Project on Government Oversight. The nonprofit has called for Cuffari to resign or for Biden to fire him.

A pair of Democratic lawmakers also urged Cuffari to resign last year after he admitted he had failed to secure text messages from his iPhone, a possible violation of federal law, for delaying or censoring reports on domestic violence and sexual misconduct at DHS, and for not notifying Congress about the Secret Service’s deleted texts, which they said is also required by law.

Trump picked Cuffari to run the office in charge of rooting out corruption and misconduct inside the Department of Homeland Security, and he was confirmed by the Senate in 2019.

Cuffari had worked for years as a supervisor in the Justice Department Inspector General’s Tucson outpost. He retired in 2013 after an internal investigation concluded that he had misled investigators about his testimony in an inmate’s lawsuit against the government.

Carol D. Leonnig, Lisa Rein and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez contributed to this report.