Senate panel delays plans for review of Secret Service funding in wake of Trump attack

Washington — A powerful Senate committee has delayed plans to meet and consider next year’s funding for the U.S. Secret Service and other divisions of the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, with spending legislation now facing new complications and potential revisions ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline to ensure the agency remains funded.

CBS News has learned senators have raised questions about whether the agency needs additional funding — or whether it should be subjected to tighter scrutiny of how it spends its federal money. A planned markup of funding for the entire Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Secret Service, has been removed from the Thursday schedule of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

A committee source told CBS News the legislation is already among the most politically fraught of Congress’s annual spending bills, because it touches on the hot-button issues of immigration and border security. But the source said the ongoing review of the Secret Service’s failures to protect Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13 contributed to calls to delay the markup of the bill.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, who serve as chair and vice chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, submitted a series of questions to the Secret Service on Wednesday asking if a shortage of funding contributed to the lapses that occurred at the Butler rally. 

“Is the Secret Service currently projecting any funding shortfalls for Fiscal Year 2024? If so, provide in detail the basis and rationale of such shortfalls,” the senators wrote in a letter to Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe.

Rowe faced scrutiny from senators during a contentious hearing on Tuesday, when he testified that local police had responsibility for watching a rooftop where the gunman opened fire, injuring Trump and two others and killing one attendee. Rowe was also questioned about whether the agency has denied requests for security, due to limited resources.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said the assassination attempts showed the agency needs to ramp up its manpower. “They just need more people. These are hard jobs,” Graham told CBS News.  

Despite recent funding increases, Graham said the agency has suffered to attract and retain employees: “The number of agents has been going down over the last few years. That’s the wrong answer. We need a surge in the Secret Service.”

Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, told CBS News that “what they really need is accountability.” 

“Their budget has gone up dramatically. The number of agents has gone down,” Hawley said. A report from the Congressional Research Service shows staffing reached a high of 7,811 employees in September 2021, a number that fell to 7,689 two years later. The agency’s budget steadily increased over the same period.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican who is on the Homeland Security Subcommittee, told CBS News, “It’s clear there are huge gaps. They fell way short.”

“In the real world somebody would be fired. But in the world of Washington, D.C., the agency would be given more money,” said Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican who was part of the panel that questioned Rowe on Tuesday.

The Senate’s appropriations process has otherwise enjoyed a series of bipartisan agreements and has progressed more smoothly than the process in the House, where spending legislation has stalled amid intraparty disputes amid Republicans who control the floor schedule.

Congressional aides told CBS News that a short-term spending deal is increasingly likely ahead of the Sept. 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown. 

Alan He contributed reporting.