A Secret Service rookie ran the Butler security plan and Thomas Matthew Crooks put a bullet through Donald Trump's ear.
Friday morning, a different Secret Service rookie shot himself at Philadelphia International Airport while escorting Jill Biden.
The colossal blunder that caused it had nothing to do with protecting anyone.
The Negligent Discharge at Philadelphia Airport That Explains Everything Wrong With This Agency
The details, reported by Susan Crabtree at RealClearPolitics, are almost too embarrassing to put in print.
The agent had been on Jill Biden's protective detail for exactly one week.
He left her motorcade to walk her through the airport, then realized he forgot his cell phone in the SUV and rushed back to get it.
His pistol fell out of the holster and landed on the seat.
He grabbed it fast and jammed it back in, and shot himself in the rear end.
The Secret Service is calling it a "negligent discharge while handling a service weapon."
That is the official term for what happens when a federal agent shoots himself in the backside over a forgotten cell phone.
Secret Service Promised Reforms After Butler and This Is What Those Reforms Look Like
Every member of Congress, every inspector general, every oversight committee in Washington has had a magnifying glass over the Secret Service since July 13, 2024.
The agency knew the world was watching.
It didn’t matter.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley's report on Butler concluded the Secret Service "failed to act on credible intelligence, failed to coordinate with local law enforcement, and failed to prevent an attack that nearly took the life of a then-former president."
The site agent who ran that security plan – Myosoty "Miyo" Perez – has now been suspended three times in 18 months.
Her most recent suspension has nothing to do with Butler.
Last April, Perez got married and waited nine months before telling the Secret Service – which is a mandatory reporting requirement – and the agency is now investigating whether her Brazilian wife had overstayed her visa and was under a deportation order at the time of the wedding.
The woman responsible for Trump's security at Butler may have been in a relationship with someone who could have faced deportation – the kind of vulnerability a foreign government knows exactly how to exploit.
Six agents received suspensions of 10 to 42 days for Butler failures.
Nobody was fired.
Business as Usual
Director Sean Curran rolled out a five-pillar reform plan when Trump appointed him in January 2025.
As of this month, 25 of 46 congressional recommendations remain either in progress or unaddressed.
And a brand new agent just shot himself in the backside over a cell phone.
A Secret Service uniformed officer shot himself in the foot on duty in Washington in September 2024 – same agency, same "negligent discharge" language, same non-life-threatening outcome.
The decade before Butler produced prostitutes in Colombia in 2012, a drunk agent passed out in a hotel hallway in Amsterdam in 2014, a knife-wielding intruder who made it to the East Room of the White House that same year.
A congressional report called the Secret Service an "agency in crisis" in 2015.
That was eleven years ago.
The agency's budget has nearly doubled since then – from $1.8 billion to $3.5 billion requested for 2026.
More money, more scrutiny, more reform promises – and the pattern has not changed.
They keep handing loaded assignments to agents who are not ready for them, and Americans keep paying the price – first with Trump's blood at Butler, now with this.
Fix that or nothing else matters.
Sources:
- Susan Crabtree, "Secret Service Scoop: New Details About Agent Who Shot Himself," RealClearPolitics, March 27, 2026.
- Susan Crabtree, "Secret Service Agent Faulted for Butler Failures Suspended Again," RealClearPolitics, March 20, 2026.
- Sen. Chuck Grassley, "Grassley Report Concludes Secret Service Failure to Share Threat Information Allowed for Preventable Tragedy in Butler," Senate Judiciary Committee, July 2025.
- U.S. Secret Service, "One-Year Update Following the July 13, 2024 Attempted Assassination," secretservice.gov, July 2025.
- "Secret Service uniformed officer accidentally shoots himself while on duty," Ground News, September 24, 2024.
