The same hotel where a gunman nearly killed Ronald Reagan was the site of a third attempt on Donald Trump's life.
Jason Chaffetz investigated Secret Service failures for a decade and walked away with six specific fixes.
His answer for why the Secret Service keeps failing is going to make Director Sean Curran very angry.
Secret Service Training Failures Put Ten Agents at the Washington Hilton Looking the Wrong Way
Jason Chaffetz chaired the House Oversight Committee for years, investigating Secret Service scandals from the 2012 Cartagena prostitution bust to fence-jumpers who reached the White House residence while a president was inside.
His 2015 bipartisan report concluded the agency was broken – scandals mounting, security breaches continuing, leadership providing inaccurate information to Congress.
Secret Service director Sean Curran went in front of cameras after the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting and praised his agents.
He called the site work "perfect."
Chaffetz watched the same video and counted eleven agents at the scene.
Ten of them weren't paying attention.
"The shooter happened to trip," Chaffetz told RealClearPolitics host Susan Crabtree. "Otherwise, he probably would have continued to go forward."
Court documents confirmed Cole Tomas Allen had been staying at the Washington Hilton as a hotel guest, casing the security setup the day before the attack, tracking on his phone whether Trump had taken his seat in the ballroom below.
He was a floor above the president with a shotgun, a handgun, and multiple knives – and he nearly made it through.
The Secret Service officer who fired at Allen discharged multiple rounds and didn't land a shot.
Chaffetz wants to know how much range time that agent logged – because his investigation found the average Secret Service agent receives thirty minutes of firearms training per year.
Secret Service DEI Hiring Under Obama and Biden Left the Agency a Thousand Agents Short
The Secret Service is one thousand agents under-strength right now.
Agents are pulling 40 consecutive days without a day off, working 16-hour shifts.
Chaffetz and Crabtree both confirmed what sources inside the agency are saying: DEI recruiting mandates ordered under Barack Obama and continued under Joe Biden lowered standards and gutted the quality of new hires.
The result is an agency that can't fill its ranks, can't train the people it has, and posted ten agents to a presidential security event who spent the evening looking the wrong direction while a man with a shotgun walked through the door.
The Secret Service carries the lowest morale of any federal agency and logs the highest number of active whistleblowers.
"Nothing has changed from the recommendations 10 years ago," Chaffetz said. "It's still the problem today."
Secret Service Reform Recommendations Have Sat on a Shelf for Ten Years
Chaffetz's list is specific and damning.
Boost recruiting without DEI goals – the mandates Biden and Obama imposed are directly responsible for the staffing collapse.
Require real firearms training for every agent – not thirty minutes a year, but enough to actually hit a moving target.
Cut individual agent workload – some are logging 40 consecutive days without a single day off, running on fumes when a shooter walks through the door.
Build actual practice facilities – until last year the agency was spray-painting White House outlines on a ball field in Maryland and calling it preparation.
Close the technology gap – Chaffetz told the podcast he could personally walk someone through a former president's home security vulnerabilities and explain how to exploit every one of them.
Develop creativity in the detail – the ability to out-think an assailant before he reaches the ballroom level.
"When you score those six things and they're all down in the 'D' and 'F' grades, then you got a recipe for disaster," Chaffetz said.
Trump has now survived three separate assassination attempts.
Allen reserved his room at the Washington Hilton roughly five weeks after Trump publicly announced he would attend the dinner – which means every day Trump remains in public view with an understaffed, undertrained, demoralized protective detail is another day this could happen again.
An independent bipartisan review panel said after Butler: the Secret Service has become "bureaucratic, complacent, and static" and another Butler "can and will happen again" without fundamental reform.
Left-wing protesters were outside the Washington Hilton that night holding signs reading "DEATH TO ALL OF THEM" while Trump and Vance were still inside the building.
Chaffetz spent a decade trying to fix this agency.
The Washington Hilton just showed what a decade of ignoring him costs.
Sources:
- Susan Crabtree and Eric Eggers, "Chaffetz: 'Six Steps to Fix the Secret Service,'" RealClearPolitics, May 5, 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, "Suspect in White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting Charged with Attempt to Assassinate the President," April 28, 2026.
- "Bipartisan Report on Secret Service Reveals an Agency in Crisis," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, December 2015.
- Independent Review Panel, "Report of the Independent Review Panel on the July 13, 2024 Assassination Attempt," October 2024.
- Sen. Rand Paul, "Final Report Detailing Secret Service Failures," Senate HSGAC, July 2025.
